October 19, 2009, 3:59 pm
The Bill Clinton First Home Museum will soon be a part of the National
Park system, a designation that will give the modest structure on a
busy street more visibility as a tourist destination.
The two-story, wood frame house on Hervey Street in Hope, Ark., was
where Clinton lived from his birth in 1946 at Julia Chester Hospital
until age 4. The home was occupied until it was acquired by the Clinton
Birthplace Foundation during Clinton's presidency.
The dwelling, which opened as a museum in 1997, conveys a lived-in
feeling and is furnished with items that date to the late 1940s when
Clinton lived there. A separate visitors center with a gift shop was
added later.
The South Hervey Street home served as the center of Clinton's family
life for his first 10 years. After moving, Clinton spent summers there,
visited on weekends and attended other family gatherings there until
his grandfather, Eldridge Cassidy, died in 1956.
The one original piece of furniture from Clinton's time in the house is
the living room couch. While visitors are not permitted to touch or sit
on the furniture, the home has no glass partitions or roped-off areas,
thus preserving the ambiance of a private home.
Museum director Martha Berryman says the people around Clinton provided
him with his first notions of "social justice," a theme he carried
through his political life and into his post-presidential work.
Displays include pictures of grandfather Eldridge Cassidy's store,
where he served white and black customers, which was an uncommon
practice in Hope in those days. Cassidy was known to extend credit
during hard times, sometimes forgive debts or slip extra food into a
family's order.
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