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Editor:
Ken Drexler, Reference Specialist, Researcher and Reference Services Division
Note: This guide is adapted from the retired American Memory collection "I Do Solemnly Swear...": Presidential Inaugurations.
Created: November 2000
Last Updated: October 22, 2021
The Library of Congress digital collections include a wide variety of primary source materials documenting presidential inaugurations. This guide includes diaries and letters written by presidents and those who witnessed the inaugurations, handwritten drafts of inaugural addresses, broadsides, inaugural tickets and programs, prints, photographs, and sheet music.
A key objective is providing access to many treasures and other important primary source materials held by the Library of Congress. The collection has been organized chronologically by presidential inauguration.
This guide is adapted from the retired American Memory collection 'I Do Solemnly Swear...': Presidential Inaugurations, which debuted on the Library of Congress's website in November 2000. Selections are drawn from the Manuscript Division, the Prints and Photographs Division, the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, the Music Division, and the general collections of the Library of Congress. Additional photographs were provided by the Architect of the Capitol, the White House, and the United States Senate Office of the Sergeant at Arms.
To view detailed information about each presidential inauguration, as well as related digital primary sources, select a link below.
1. George Washington | 2. John Adams | 3. Thomas Jefferson | 4. James Madison |
5. James Monroe | 6. John Quincy Adams | 7. Andrew Jackson | 8. Martin Van Buren |
9. William Henry Harrison | 10. John Tyler | 11. James Polk | 12. Zachary Taylor |
13. Millard Fillmore | 14. Franklin Pierce | 15. James Buchanan | 16. Abraham Lincoln |
17. Andrew Johnson | 18. Ulysses S. Grant | 19. Rutherford B. Hayes | 20. James Garfield |
21. Chester Arthur | 22. Grover Cleveland ^ | 23. Benjamin Harrison | 24. Grover Cleveland ^ |
25. William McKinley | 26. Theodore Roosevelt | 27. William Howard Taft | 28. Woodrow Wilson |
29. Warren G. Harding | 30. Calvin Coolidge | 31. Herbert Hoover | 32. Franklin Delano Roosevelt |
33. Harry S. Truman | 34. Dwight D. Eisenhower | 35. John F. Kennedy | 36. Lyndon B. Johnson |
37. Richard Nixon | 38. Gerald Ford | 39. Jimmy Carter | 40. Ronald Reagan |
41. George H.W. Bush | 42. Bill Clinton | 43. George W. Bush | 44. Barack Obama |
45. Donald Trump | 46. Joe Biden |
^ served two non-consecutive terms.