I was worried I would never find love at the National Archives. When Scribd.com approached my office about promoting Prologue magazine by creating a collection of romantic records for their Valentine's Day "Eat Say Love" event, I was very doubtful. Would I be able to find enough romance in the records to put together a … Continue reading Romance in the Records
Today's post comes from National Archives Office of Strategy and Communications staff writer Rob Crotty. The Civil War was a spy's dream come true. With a porous border between the Union and the Confederacy, and little way to distinguish between friend and foe, spies were everywhere. Both sides used ciphers. Both tapped telegraph wires. Stories … Continue reading Confederate dirty laundry: spies and slaves
Weather has been front-page news across the country for the last couple of weeks. Winter storms have left up to 50 inches of snow in places, and even in Dallas, TX, snow and ice made the Packers and Steelers feel right at home at the Super Bowl. What’s the outlook for sunshine, snow, or rain in … Continue reading Cloudy with a chance of records
Today's post comes from National Archives Office of Strategy and Communications staff writer Rob Crotty. In the summer of 1942, the Allies' war against Japan was in dire straits. China was constantly battling the occupying Japanese forces in its homeland, supplied by India via the Burma Road. Then Japan severed that supply artery. Planes were … Continue reading The OSS and the Dalai Lama
If you have been reading Pieces of History, you know that the National Archives holds many unusual records. But when I started working here, I was excited to learn that we hold the papers of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, at the Hoover Presidential Library. The childhood adventures of Laura Ingalls Wilder, especially her first … Continue reading Little house in the big archives
Today's post comes from National Archives Office of Strategy and Communications staff writer Rob Crotty. These days, the average NFL player receives about $1.2 million a year, not a bad paycheck for throwing around the old pigskin. After all, that's three times what the President makes (though he does get free limo rides), and plenty … Continue reading Green Bay Packer, Detroit Lion, or US President?
January 31, 1865, was a busy day for the war-torn United States. The House of Representatives passed a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery. Meanwhile, Robert E. Lee was named general-in-chief of the Confederate armies. On January 31, 1919—50 years to the day after slavery was abolished—Jackie Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia. On April 10, 1947—82 years after the … Continue reading Baseball and the 13th Amendment
Brad Meltzer’s new mystery novel—The Inner Circle, the no. 1 bestseller on the most recent New York Times list—is all about the National Archives. “I came to visit and I fell in love. Truly,” Meltzer says in an interview about the book in the forthcoming issue of Prologue, the quarterly magazine of the National Archives. … Continue reading The National Archives–now in a novel near you!
I am convinced that if, in the future, our country is to meet the unparalleled opportunity to win friends and advance the cause of peace and freedom, thousands of additional Americans will have to step forward and say, "I will serve." —from the statement of Robert Sargent Shriver, given in Chicago, IL, on May 17, 1961 … Continue reading Sargent Shriver and his Peace Corps guerrillas
In 1943, you wrote a letter to President Roosevelt. In 2011, the National Archives featured your letter on YouTube! How would you feel? L. J. Weil feels pretty good, actually. “Wonderful! It’s great to be honored this way,” he said when National Archives staff reached him at his home in Lousiana. Weil's letter to the … Continue reading The few, the proud, the letter-writers to the Marines
