Most US presidents will be forgotten within 100 yrs of serving

Most US presidents are destined to be forgotten within 50-to-100 years of serving, according to researchers who say Barack Obama may be well remembered as he represents a unique first in the country's history.
"By the year 2060, Americans will probably remember as much about the 39th and 40th presidents, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, as they now remember about our 13th president, Millard Fillmore," said study co-author Henry L Roediger III, human memory expert at Washington University in St Louis.
A new study, co-authored with graduate student K Andrew DeSoto, compared results from the presidential-recall tests Roediger has given to three generations of undergraduate college students (1974, 1991 and 2009) and a similar test offered online to 577 adults aged 18-69 in 2014.

The study was able to uncover how Americans forget presidents from their historical or popular memory over time.
In each test, participants were provided a numbered list with blank spaces and asked to fill in the names of all presidents they could remember in the order in which they served.
If they could remember names but not the order, they were instructed to guess or to put the names off to the side. Thus, the results could be scored for recall of presidents with or without regard to correct order.

"Findings showed several consistent patterns in how we have forgotten past presidents and offer a formula to predict the rate at which current presidents are likely to be forgotten by future generations," researchers said.

Among the six presidents who were serving or had served most recently when the test was first given in 1973, Harry S Truman, Lyndon B Johnson and Gerald R Ford are now fading fast from historical memory, whereas John F Kennedy has been better retained, they said.
The study estimates that Truman will be forgotten by three-fourths of college students by 2040, 87 years after his leaving office, bringing him down to the level of presidents such as Zachary Taylor and William McKinley.
"Kennedy was president less than three years, but is today remembered much better than Lyndon Johnson," Roediger said.

"One idea is that his assassination made him memorable, but of course that does not apply to James Garfield or William McKinley, who were also assassinated and are remembered relatively poorly," Roediger added.
Researchers said Hillary Clinton, if elected in 2016, has the potential to be much better remembered than her husband Bill, because her presidency would represent a unique first in American history. She could be the first female president in US in case she is elected.
Roediger said Obama may be well remembered for the same reason as he is the first African-American to hold the office.
The study was published in the journal Science.