This post was written by Criss Kovac. Criss is the supervisor of the National Archives' Motion Picture Preservation Lab. You might remember a fun little post last summer about the Yellowstone Kodacolor discovered within a National Park Accession deposited with NARA in 2012. The Yellowstone Kodacolor is one 453’ reel of 16mm “reversal.” An early … Continue reading An Update on Kodacolor Decoded
A few years ago the Still Picture Branch accessioned two 19th century French gold tooled albums that contain photographs of a portion of the Schloss art collection. Regarded as one of the last great Dutch art collections to be assembled in 19th century France, the Schloss Collection was curated by internationally renowned French art collector, Adolphe … Continue reading The Lost Paintings – The Schloss Art Collection
There aren’t many schools that include jumping out of an airplane as part of your final exam, but that’s just what these women parachute riggers had to do in 1951. Women sailors in the Navy went through the same training as men at the Parachute Materials School at Naval Air Station Lakehurst in New Jersey. These … Continue reading Spotlight on Veterans: Navy Women in Parachute Rigger Training
Robert Mitchum To the People of the United States, 1943 (Local Identifier: 90.13) More than a decade before he terrorized children as creepy preacher Harry Powell in Night of the Hunter (1955), and two years prior to his Oscar-nominated role as Lieutenant Walker in The Story of G.I. Joe (1945), Robert Mitchum played a grounded … Continue reading Before They Were Famous: Actors Who Appeared in Government Films
This post was written in collaboration with Beth Fortson. We are approaching the end of October and fall is in full bloom. Trees are changing colors, pumpkin-flavored foods are on the shelves, and people are swapping their short-sleeves for winter coats. But amidst this lovely season, a more frightening day is lurking around the corner. This … Continue reading Circus Clowns and Masks: 13 Images from the Stacks
Guest blogger Jan Hodges became interested in World War I combat art as a result of her involvement as a volunteer in a holdings maintenance project for American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) documents at the National Archives at College Park. This article is part six of the series about World War I Art and Artists. Captain … Continue reading World War I Combat Artists – Wallace Morgan
In honor of the Major League Baseball playoffs, the Cartographic and Architectural Branch has pulled together a few records featuring the national past-time.
Back in June, we published a post about animals in the military. It featured war dogs, bat and pigeon bombs, and monkey saboteurs. We thought we’d covered everything, but almost as soon as that post was published, we digitized a film for our research room that highlights torpedo-retrieving whales. One of these whales is Ahab. … Continue reading Playing Fetch with Pilot Whales: The Navy’s Project Deep Ops
This week we're happy to welcome guest blogger Brian Real to The Unwritten Record. Brian recently received his PhD in Information Studies from the University of Maryland. Brian regularly visits the research room in College Park so we're used to seeing his name on order sheets for reference requests. We asked him to tell us more about … Continue reading The True Story of a Blind Electrician: “Born a Man” as a Document of Disability Rights
A Little-Known Expedition If you know anything about Admiral Richard E. Byrd, you probably know that he was the first to fly over the North and South Poles, and that he led several expeditions in Antarctica. However, you probably don’t know the story of his first Arctic expedition. In fact, most accounts muddy the details … Continue reading The Aviator, the Explorer, and the Radio Man: The 1925 MacMillan Arctic Expedition
