Dwight Eisenhower
Dwight Eisenhower was a five-star general, one of only five in US history. He was Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in World War II. What’s less known is that he was also a talented, if somewhat pedestrian, artist.
Eisenhower didn’t start painting until age 58, after he watched Thomas E. Stephens paint a portrait of his wife, Mamie. He began by copying imagesfrom magazines and photographs, eventually branching out into landscapes and portraits. Eisenhower completed a total of over 300 works, mostly during the last 20 years of his life. He never considered himself a great painter, referring to his works as mere “daubs.” Painting served mostly as aform of relaxation for the president.
Regardless of what the man himself thought of his work, Eisenhower’s old-fashioned subjects do hold a certain charm. They include his family farm in Gettysburg, an old brown barn covered in snow, and his seven-year-old grandson swinging a golf club. Eisenhower also painted five traditional portraits, including a self-portrait and one of Abraham Lincoln, which he executed during his first year in the White House in 1953. Despite his prodigious output, Eisenhower forbade that his works be bought or sold. He preferred to give them as gifts to family members and personal friends.
6Harry Truman
President Truman was a pianist of admittedly questionable talent. After observing one of his performances, actress Lauren Bacall later confided that then–Vice President Truman played “badly, playing the ‘Missouri Waltz,’ or something.” Anyone could be forgiven for performing less than flawlessly with the famously leggy actress perched atop their piano, but Truman apparently shared Bacall’s assessment of his talent. As a boy, he had awakened every morning at 5:00 AM to practice for two hours before going to school and had once dreamed of being a concert pianist, yet he reportedly later said “I missed being a musician, and the real and only reason I missed being one is because I wasn’t good enough.”
In the PBS program American Experience: Truman, violinist Stuart Caninrecalled Truman playing for him and pianist Eugene List during the Potsdam Conference in 1945. “He didn’t always have the technique to do what he wanted,” Canin said, “but you could sense that he really loved music.” Truman was more critical of his own abilities, joking later that year at a Missouri county fair performance “When I played this, Stalin signed the Potsdam Agreement.”
5Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton famously exhibited his saxophone skills in 1992 with his rendition of “Heartbreak Hotel” on The Arsenio Hall Show, as seen in the video above. But that’s not Clinton’s only secret talent—he’s also a master of crossword puzzles. He can reportedly finish the New York Times crossword in just a few minutes, which he always uses ink to complete, and with so little effort that he can do so while carrying on a serious political conversation. In his appearance in the 2006 documentary Wordplay, Clinton explained how solving a crossword puzzle is similar to tackling any complex problem, saying “You start with what you know the answer to and you just build on it.”
In 2007, he even got the chance to write clues for a New York Timescrossword puzzle, which was called “Twistin’ the Oldies.” The puzzle, in which the answers consisted of rock song titles updated for the Baby Boomer generation, came with a warning from editor Will Shortz that the clues “are a little more playful and involve more wordplay than in a typical crossword.” While some of the answers—such as “You’re So Veiny” as the answer to “Boomer update to a Carly Simon song”—seem more cringe-inducing than clever, the puzzle is impressive.
4Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln had always loved science and cutting-edge technology. In the late 1850s, he taught himself the highly mathematical art of surveying as well as Euclidean geometry and law. In 1848, when Lincoln was a Congressman, he was traveling back to Illinois when his flatboat became stranded on a sandbar. The crew placed empty casks under the boat until it was lifted high enough to clear the sand bar, which gave Lincoln an idea.
With the help of Walter Davis, a Springfield mechanic, Lincoln created a scale model of a device for “Buoying Vessels Over Shoals.” When he returned to Washington, he applied for a patent, which was issued on May 22, 1849. Lincoln’s invention was never manufactured, and it’s not clear whether the full-sized version would have worked, but he remains the only US president to have held a patent. The scale model of his invention is on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
3Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter is well known for his humanitarian work, for which he won the2002 Nobel Peace Prize. What you might not know is that he is also apublished novelist and poet as well as a respected artist and furniture maker.
Carter began writing poetry while he was in the submarine force from 1948–1952. In 1995, he published a book of poetry called Always a Reckoning and Other Poems, making him the first US president to do so. Unfortunately, the critical response was underwhelming. The New York Times called Carter a “mediocre poet” who wrote “well-meaning, dutifully wrought poems that plod from Point A to Point B.” Eight years later, Carter also became the first president to publish a work of fiction, a novel set in the Deep South during the Revolutionary War called The Hornet’s Nest. He displayed more of his talents when he couldn’t find a cover for the book that he liked and decided to paint one himself.
Carter’s paintings and furniture are auctioned off from time to time by his nonprofit organization, the Carter Center, along with items such as luxury vacations and presidential and celebrity memorabilia. In 2012, one of Carter’s paintings sold for $250,000, while last year, a stool handmade by the former president fetched $300,000. Profits from the sale of Carter’s works benefit the center’s initiatives to advance worldwide peace and health.
2Ronald Reagan
Before entering politics, Reagan was an actor with more than 50 film credits to his name. His most famous film is the 1940 biopic Knute Rockne, All American, in which Reagan played Notre Dame football star George Gipp.
Reagan started his career in radio, making $10 per game plus transportation expenses as a sportscaster for WOC in Davenport, Iowa. He graduated to radio commercials, eventually becoming a staff announcer for the station. Within two years, he was transferred to WHO, an NBC affiliate in Des Moines, Iowa. By 1936, he was recreating Chicago Cubs baseball games and doing sportscasts of Big Ten football.
In the late ‘30s, Reagan turned to acting. Over the next 15 years or so, he appeared in dozens of films and television shows, but by 1954, the roles had dried up. Reagan took what work he could get, including two weeks as anemcee and performer in a Las Vegas song and dance revue. The Reagans didn’t care for the Vegas scene, however, so the actor signed on with General Electric Theater, a Sunday evening television show which Reagan hosted for the next eight years.
As part of his duties on GET, Reagan spent 10 weeks every year visiting General Electric’s research and manufacturing facilities as a “roving ambassador.” By his own account, Reagan had visited 139 GE facilities by 1952, speaking with over 250,000 employees in the process. This surely played no small role in his emergence as the Great Communicator.
1Thomas Jefferson
The author of the Declaration of Independence was also an innovative architect and inventor as well an accomplished musician. As an architect, he is best known for his plans for the University of Virginia, including the university’s famed Rotunda, which Jefferson modeled after the Roman Pantheon. Jefferson also designed his plantation (Monticello), his villa retreat (Poplar Forest), and several other Virginia homes.
In addition to planning cities and landscapes, he improved household items he had seen in Europe. His innovations included a portable copying press, a pasta machine, a plow, and a mechanical dumbwaiter. He designed furniture as well, including a revolving chair with a leg rest and writing arm and a revolving book stand with adjustable book rests that folded up for easy storage.
One of Jefferson’s most celebrated inventions, the “Great Clock,” still adorns the entrance hall at Monticello. Gravity powers its 8-kilogram (18 lb) weights, which are strung on ropes and hang through holes in the floor to the cellar below. Markings on the wall tell onlookers the time and day of the week. In Jefferson’s day, the clock was connected to a large copper gong on the roof, which could be heard throughout the plantation. To facilitate the clock’s repairs, Jefferson invented a folding ladder, which could also be used for pruning trees. It was the first of its kind in the United States and later became widely used in libraries.
Jefferson played the violin, which he is said to have practiced three hours a day. He was proficient enough to receive regular invitations from Virginia colony Governor Francis Fauquier to play chamber music in “the Palace.” During his presidency, Jefferson championed the music of the Native Americans, using it to counter European claims about the inherent degeneracy of the New World.
One stain on Jefferson’s record—and there are many—is his attitude toward the music of African Americans, which he mentions just twice in all of his numerous writings. Jefferson preferred the music of European composers—especially his favorite, Corelli—but he does appear to have at least kept an open mind regarding the music of his slaves. He admits that “they are more generally gifted than the whites, with accurate ears for tune and time,” but goes on to say “Whether they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated harmony, is yet to be proved.”
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