May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Visit the National Archives website for more information on our related holdings. Today's guest blogger is Zack Wilske, Senior Historian at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Chinese Exclusion Act case files held at National Archives facilities across the country provide valuable resources … Continue reading Chinese Exclusion Act Case Files and the USCIS Master Index
Every year I struggle with how I can show appreciation for my mom on Mother’s Day. This year I'm going retro and “making” my mom a gift by highlighting some of the National Archives holdings that relate to Mother’s Day. Although it was celebrated in several states for years, the first time Mother’s Day became … Continue reading Happy Mother’s Day!
Today’s post comes from Sonia Kahn in the National Archives History Office. Visit the National Archives website for a full list of events and activities related to the 100th anniversary of World War I. The draft—the lottery no one wants to win. On April 6, 1917, the United States formally joined World War I, which … Continue reading The origins of America’s Unlucky Lottery
This May we celebrate both Public Service Recognition Week and the centennial of the birth of a President closely associated with public service: John F. Kennedy. In Kennedy’s first inaugural address, in 1961, he made his famous call to public service by asking Americans “to ask not what your country can do for you—ask what … Continue reading A Call to Public Service: the Peace Corps
Today’s post comes from Jim Worsham, editor of Prologue, the quarterly magazine of the National Archives. Four months after Japan’s surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the aircraft carrier USS Hornet sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge and out of San Francisco Bay into the Pacific on a secret mission. On the Hornet’s deck sat … Continue reading The Doolittle Raid: America’s First Strike Back on Japan
Since the National Archives was established more than 80 years ago, millions of people from the United States and abroad have visited our historic building in Washington, DC. Ten of those visitors were sitting U.S. Presidents. In 1933, before there was a building, President Herbert Hoover became the first President to visit when he laid … Continue reading From 1600 to 700 Pennsylvania Avenue: Presidential Visits to the National Archives
In the National Archives Building in Washington, DC, hang portraits of the first nine Archivists of the United States, and Waldo Gifford Leland, who was instrumental in the agency’s creation. Sharing a wall with Leland and the first U.S. Archivist Robert D.W. Connor is the portrait of our second Archivist, Solon J. Buck. Buck became … Continue reading Solon Buck Portrait
2017 marks the 100th anniversary of U.S. entry into World War I. Visit the National Archives website to learn how the National Archives is commemorating the anniversary. Today’s post comes from Sonia Kahn in the National Archives History Office. Two and a half years of American neutrality in the ongoing war in Europe came to an … Continue reading U.S. Entry into the War to End All Wars
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Alaska Purchase. To celebrate, the National Archives at Seattle has added 150 images from the Alaska Digitization Project to their Flickr gallery. Today’s post comes from Jim Zeender, Senior Registrar in the National Archives Exhibits Office. On the morning of February 27, 2017, I left Washington, DC, … Continue reading Original Alaska Purchase Documents travel to the Anchorage Museum
March is Women's History Month! Visit our website for more resources on women's history and to see how the National Archives is celebrating the month. Today's post comes from Alan Walker, an archivist in Textual Processing at Archives II. I am flabbergasted at how popular this photograph has become. Mrs. Adelaide Ansley Checking Hygrothermograph in Stack Area, 1940. (National … Continue reading What’s Your Story, Adelaide Minogue?
