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Growing into Public Service: William Howard Taft's Boyhood Home examines the formative years of the 27th president, who dedicated his career to advancing the public good. Below are materials for further exploration of the subjects this lesson considers.

William Howard Taft National Historic Site
The William Howard Taft NHS is a unit of the National Park System. The park's web pages provide further information about the historic site.

American Presidents Travel Itinerary
The Discover Our Shared Heritage online travel itinerary on American Presidents provides information about the 27th President of the United States, William Howard Taft, and his boyhood home, the William Howard Taft National Historic Site. 

Biographies of William Howard Taft
The following include:

• a copy of Taft's Inaugural Address;
• a portrait from the White House;
• a summary of Taft's political career.

National Archives (NARA)
The Archives has placed on its web site a large number of items about William Howard Taft and his presidency. To find them, visit the NARA search engine.

American Presidents, Life Portraits
In this series, C-SPAN explores the life stories of the 41 men who have been president by traveling to presidential homes, museums, libraries, and grave sites and speaking with presidential scholars. American Presidents, Life Portraits will focus on one president each week, including William Howard Taft on September 6, 1999. [http://www.americanpresidents.org/presidents/president.asp?presidentnumber=26]

Beverly Historical Society
Visit the Taft Summer White House website, created by the Beverly Historical Socity. This house is where Taft spent many of his summers during his presidency. This website displays just some of the Taft related items that exist within the Beverly Historical Society's collections. It features photographs, text from local newspapers, political cartoons, and memorabilia.

For Further Reading
To learn more about the Taft family, both students and teachers will find an excellent account in Ishbel Ross, An American Family: The Tafts–1678 to 1964 (Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1964). The standard biography is Henry F. Pringle, Life and Times of William Howard Taft, 2 vols. (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1939).

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