Today’s blog post comes from National Archives social media intern Anna Fitzpatrick. Only 100 days after promising in the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation that slaves in the Confederacy would soon be freed, Lincoln fulfilled that promise by signing the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. This proclamation changed the character of the war, adding moral force … Continue reading Emancipation Proclamation: “It is my Desire to be Free”
Today’s blog post comes from National Archives social media intern Anna Fitzpatrick. Throughout the Civil War, when President Lincoln needed to concentrate—when he faced a task that required his focused and undivided attention—he would leave the White House, cross the street to the War Department, and take over the desk of Thomas T. Eckert, chief … Continue reading The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation
Today’s blog post comes from National Archives social media intern Anna Fitzpatrick. Before President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, the Federal Government took steps to begin the process of freeing the slaves. In July 1862—acting on Lincoln's warning that freeing slaves in parts of the South occupied by Union troops might … Continue reading Emancipation Proclamation: A Certificate of Freedom
Today’s blog post comes from National Archives social media intern Anna Fitzpatrick. Nine months before President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, he signed a bill on April 16, 1862, that ended slavery in the District of Columbia. The act finally concluded many years of disagreements over ending ''the national shame'' of slavery in the nation's … Continue reading Emancipation Proclamation: Freedom in Washington, DC
Today's guest post comes from Susan Donius, Director of the Office of Presidential Libraries at the National Archives. This post originally appeared on the White House blog. Did you know that before the 1940s, Thanksgiving was not on a fixed date but was whenever the President proclaimed it to be? George Washington issued the first … Continue reading Thanksgiving with the Presidents
Today is Emancipation Day for the District of Columbia. Some of you might immediately wonder if this is related to DC's current efforts to win representation and a vote, but it is a celebration for a different kind of freedom for the residents of DC. Eight and a half months before he signed the Emancipation … Continue reading Emancipation for DC
If Grover Cleveland were alive today, he would need to blow out 174 candles. And of course, he would need to be careful not to set his mustache alight as he bent toward the mighty blaze of his birthday cake. Grover Cleveland's election marked a turning point in Presidential facial hair. The beard was going … Continue reading Facial Hair Friday: Happy Birthday, Grover Cleveland!
Since April 2010, we've brought you more than 100 Pieces of History. Nothing too small, too strange, or too obscure has escaped the spotlight of our blog or the scalpel of your clever comments. And we are still discovering new pieces of history every day here at the National Archives! But before we go forward into … Continue reading Top Ten Pieces of History for 2010
Long before the push to make high-speed Internet available across America, Samuel Morse was tap-tap-tapping information across America. By 1838, his telegraph machine was using a dot-and-dash system to send messages of up to 10 words a minute. He even convinced Congress to come to up with $30,000 to help him wire America. Morse was … Continue reading Before there was broadband, there was a beard
Today's post comes from National Archives Office of Strategy and Communications staff writer Rob Crotty. Today in 1923, President Warren G. Harding died suddenly of a stroke in San Francisco. Just after midnight, Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as President by his father on the other side of the country in Vermont. Harding was the … Continue reading Do presidents age more rapidly?
