May 8, 2024
Oakland University’s Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) is now home to the Muchmore Presidential History Collection, which includes more than 275 volumes about U.S. presidents and by presidents.
The collection was made possible by a generous donation to the CCE by Oakland Board of Trustees member Dennis Muchmore.
“The Muchmore Presidential History Collection is a great addition to OU and the CCE,” said David Dulio, director of the CCE and Distinguished Professor of Political Science. “It provides a new resource for students, faculty, staff and community members. They can come to campus and examine these works, some of which are incredibly unique.
“We are deeply grateful to trustee Muchmore for this generous gift,” Dulio added. “It's unlike anything we have here and therefore the impact is especially significant.”
Muchmore acquired the collection earlier in his career when he would often travel.
Oakland Board of Trustees member Dennis Muchmore acquired the collection he donated to the CCE over the course of his career. |
“I used to travel around to places like the University of Virginia or Harvard or the University of Chicago, and they always had bookstores around,” Muchmore said. “I would get bored and I’d wander around bookstores. Pretty soon I thought, ‘I should start collecting some books.’ I refined it down to getting presidential biographies or books about presidents published right around the time they were in office. I started collecting and then one thing led to another and pretty soon I had a whole collection of them.”
Muchmore said he really enjoyed collecting the books and some of the unique things he learned by reading them.
“There's a book in there about Martin Van Buren that was published when he was president and it was written by Davy Crockett, who was the congressman from Tennessee,” Muchmore said. “At the time, Davy Crockett hated Martin Van Buren and started off the book by talking about what a scoundrel he was. So whenever people today tell me some negative thing about some politician, and they say, ‘Things are just terrible now,’ I say, ‘Well you know, in 1836 Davy Crockett didn’t like Martin Van Buren.’ That kind of stuff.
“Another one is about George Washington, his doctor wrote a book in 1802 that I found pretty interesting. Who knew George Washington better than his doctor knew him? Some author who was hired to do a bio couldn’t know Washington like his doctor knew him. That kind of stuff was fascinating.”
The Muchmore Presidential History Collection contains several rare books. |
Some of the more unique books in the collection include “Washington’s Political Legacies” by John Russell and John West, published in 1800, “The Wilderness Hunter” by Teddy Roosevelt, published in 1893, “The Challenge to Liberty” by Herbert Hoover, published in 1934, and “The Making of the President, 1960” by Theodore H. White, published in 1961.
Muchmore is hopeful others will enjoy some of the books as much as he has and that’s why he was happy to donate them to the CCE.
“You get to a certain age where you say to yourself, ‘Who's going to enjoy these things?’ I’m getting older and if something happens to me then they’re just going to box them up and put them in some storage bin,” Muchmore said. “So I thought I’ll donate and give them to people who can get some enjoyment out of them. And that’s what I hope people do."