A Library Where You Can Talk to Theodore Roosevelt — Thanks to AI

Imagine standing in a museum and asking a president a question — and getting an answer in his own turn of phrase, drawn from the letters and speeches he really wrote. That is the idea behind the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota, which opened its doors on 4 July 2026.

What actually happened

The library — the first presidential library built for Roosevelt — worked with Microsoft to add an AI experience to its exhibits. Instead of only reading documents behind glass, visitors can put questions to an AI version of "TR" that answers based on his own writings: thousands of pages of letters, speeches and diaries that historians have digitised over the years.

The point is not a talking robot for its own sake. It is a new way into an archive: most of us will never read ten volumes of presidential correspondence, but almost anyone will happily ask, "What did you think of the national parks?" and listen to the answer.

The library says the AI sticks to what Roosevelt actually wrote and said, and historians were involved in shaping it. Like every AI system, it can still make mistakes — treat it as a lively introduction, not as the final word. If you want the man himself, the original documents remain the gold standard, and the library shows those too.

Can you try something like this at home?

You cannot visit Medora from your sofa — but the same idea works, in a simpler form, with any AI assistant you already use (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Le Chat, DeepSeek — take your pick). Type a role-play request like this:

💬 Example: Act as Theodore Roosevelt in 1905. Answer my questions the way he might have, drawing on his real speeches, letters and known views. If something is not known, say so instead of inventing it. My first question: what do you love about the outdoors?

Two honest caveats:

• This is an imitation, not the library's official experience. A general-purpose chatbot has not been specially checked by historians, so double-check anything surprising before you repeat it.
• The last sentence of the prompt matters. Asking the AI to admit what it does not know keeps the conversation closer to history and further from fan fiction.

It works for any well-documented figure — try Churchill, Marie Curie or Ned Kelly, and compare how the answers feel.

Wrap-up

The Roosevelt library's AI is a glimpse of where public history is heading: the archive answers back. Enjoy the conversation — and when it really matters, check the original documents.

Source: Microsoft — New AI-powered library lets people meet Theodore Roosevelt