Co-written with Amy Edwards The Cartographic Branch holds a wide variety of materials. While working with these documents for reference requests, projects, or research room requests, our staff comes across some very cool and significant documents. Today, we are featuring a few of our favorite records that we've come across this year. We hope that … Continue reading Cartographic’s Favorites of 2017
In this fourth and final post of How to Research WWII photographs, we will provide an example of how researchers can search for and identify images related to a specific US Marine Corps unit. As is true with the WWII Army, Army Air Forces, and Navy photographs, prior to beginning your search in Still Pictures, … Continue reading How to Research: Photographs Relating to WWII Marine Corps Units
Today’s post comes from Marissa Friedman, intern at Historypin. Historypin teamed up with the US National Archives (NARA) to develop the Remembering WWI tablet app, part of the Anonymous Donor Project. You can learn more about the national collaborative Remembering WWI project here. For the past eleven months, I have scoured NARA’s digitized collections of … Continue reading Shifting the Lens on WWI: Stories from the Home Front
Many different factors are considered when selecting a series for digitization. Records that are particularly fragile or have high intrinsic value might be digitized to help preserve the originals by reducing the amount of physical handling each item receives. Records that are of high historical value might be digitized for posterity in order to ensure … Continue reading The Digitization of 26-LG
One of the most illuminating groups of records found in the Cartographic Branch at the National Archives is Record Group 120: Records of the American Expeditionary Forces (World War I), 1848 - 1942 (seen in our catalog here). These records cover many different aspects of the war. Included are maps from various United States army … Continue reading Maps of the Great War: Army Cartography in World War I
Note: Some images are of a sensitive nature. In 1919 the United States was entering a decade of prosperity after the success of World War I. The country benefited politically and financially from the experience and while things were by no means perfect, there was reason to hope. However, other countries did not fare as … Continue reading Through an American Lens: The Russian Civil War
When it comes to research in the Still Picture Branch, our staff would agree that World War II photographs are by far some of our most requested records. Given their popularity, our How to Research posts are intended to be a quick reference guide, with some tips and examples of how to effectively search through our … Continue reading How to Research: Photographs Relating to World War II Navy Ships
Co-Authored by Kelsey Noel and Corbin Apkin. This August marks the 75th anniversary of Operation Watchtower, otherwise known as the Guadalcanal Campaign. Operation Watchtower was a series of engagements between the Allied forces (comprised heavily of U.S. Marines) and the Japanese military. The campaign began on August 7th, 1942 with the first amphibious landings … Continue reading Operation Watchtower: The Guadalcanal Campaign
Previously the Still Pictures Branch introduced the initial blog in a four part series on various methods of researching World War II unit records. The first part of the series discussed methods of researching photographs of U.S. Army units during the war. This installment of the series will cover helpful techniques in U.S. Air Force … Continue reading How to Research: Photographs Relating to WWII Air Force Units
As the National Archives adapts to the world of digital records, it is easy to lose sight of the traditional challenges that have plagued archivists for generations. Over the last year, the Still Pictures branch has accessioned and processed a number of series that were originally captured on glass plates. Such was the case with … Continue reading From Norfolk to NARA: The Unexpected Journey of the Navy Shipyard Glass Plate Negatives
