Arlette Farge, Director of Research in Modern History at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, has written a wonderful little book about doing research in archives. “Contact with the archives begins with simple tasks, one of which is handling the documents. Combing through the archives—a beautifully evocative term—requires a host of tasks, … Continue reading The Allure of the Archives
Category: NARA Records
Patent of the Month: Higgins boats
Today marks the 70th Anniversary of the D-Day invasion. To commemorate this anniversary, this month’s patent is Andrew Higgins’s landing boat. It is dated February 15, 1944, less than four months before D-Day. LCVPs--or Higgins boats, as they are now commonly known --transported troops from the 1st Infantry onto Omaha Beach. They could each carry … Continue reading Patent of the Month: Higgins boats
Happy Memorial Day!
The photograph was taken at Soldier Field, Chicago, in July of 1967. The Navy’s Recruit Training Command at Great Lakes provided the manpower to create The Living Flag. In the upper right corner of the blue field, wearing a blue plastic bag over whitehat, stands recruit David S. Ferriero! Remembering boot camp on this Memorial Day weekend. … Continue reading Happy Memorial Day!
Patent of the Month: Tucker “Torpedo” Patent Drawing, 06/14/1949
During World War II, the South Side of Chicago was home to one of the largest war plants in the country, used by Dodge-Chrysler to build bomber plane engines. After the war, Preston Tucker leased two of the buildings to build his “Torpedo” car. This site is now the home of the National Archives at … Continue reading Patent of the Month: Tucker “Torpedo” Patent Drawing, 06/14/1949
Modernizing Records Management
The Managing Government Records Directive (OMB M12-18) charges the National Archives and Records Administration to lead the efforts to modernize records management in the Federal Government. The Directive focuses on two main goals: agencies will require electronic recordkeeping by managing all their email in an accessible electronic format by the end of 2016 and managing … Continue reading Modernizing Records Management
Be Bold: Connect with Customers
State Fair, 10/1972. National Archives Identifier 545457 The second of our new strategic goals is to “Connect with Customers.” Having spent most of my career working with the public, customer service is a passion of mine. In my personal life I am always looking for exemplars—places where I am dazzled by attention to service, places which … Continue reading Be Bold: Connect with Customers
Be Bold: Make Access Happen
Photograph of Women Working at a Bell System Telephone Switchboard. National Archives Identifier 1633445. The first of our new strategic goals is to “Make Access Happen.” Increasingly, access means digital, online access. Our first goal has one objective, to make our records available to the public in digital form to ensure that anyone can … Continue reading Be Bold: Make Access Happen
Patent of the Month: Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin
When I was a kid growing up in Beverly, MA, every morning I would walk by the site of the cotton mill visited by George Washington. That mill, the Beverly Cotton Manufactory, even predated Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, which was patented 220 years ago today! Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin Patent Drawing, 03/14/1794 From Records of the … Continue reading Patent of the Month: Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin
Patent of the Month: Still Design, 1808
Stills similar to the one represented in this drawing were used to make distilled liquors and were commonly used in America during the early 19th-century. And their "descendants" are still being found in the mountains of rural America! A preview of an exhibit planned for 2015 here at the National Archives: “Spirited Republic.” Eli Barnum … Continue reading Patent of the Month: Still Design, 1808
Happy Valentine’s Day
This 1918 valentine refers to the World War I effort to economize on food for the war effort—called "Hooverizing" in honor of the U.S. Food Administrator, Herbert Hoover. From the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library