Norman Rockwell's White House Waiting Room Paintings Go on Display After $7.25M Acquisition

There was a time when the U.S. president existed at a remove from public life, a figure only glimpsed through newspaper quotes and radio soundbites.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt may have revolutionized White House communications with his homely fireside chats, but for his long-serving press secretary, Stephen Early, the president still seemed inaccessible to the average American.

So in 1943, Early invited the nation's idealist-in-chief, Norman Rockwell, to photograph and sketch the parade of people waiting to meet FDR.