This Website from the Archives of American Art (see the November 13, 1998 Scout Report) features correspondence, illustrations, paintings, publicity, and other such materials relating to the topic of art and the presidency. The contents are indexed by the presidents and by the artists involved. Most interesting, from our point of view, is the correspondence, which is offered in readable facsimile files that let visitors see not only the substance but the graphic stylings of their authors. Here is Thomas Eakins writing in a flowing but meandering line about the shortcomings of the agitated Rutherford B. Hayes as a portrait model, and Franklin Roosevelt writing a memorandum on his typewriter concerning the employment of the head of the New Deal's Fine Arts program, Edward Bruce, that looks -- and, to some degree, reads -- like a William Carlos Williams poem. A browse through this site may not yield any profound insights about presidential history, but it does give glimpses into the aesthetic concerns and temperaments of the men who have been president and the artists who have had dealings with them.