Smokey the Bear Fire Danger Rating Alert, Saratoga Ranger Station, Medicine Bow / Routt National Forest.

Smoke(y) Signals

For the past couple of months, I’ve been processing a collection related to the architecture, infrastructure, and construction of buildings in the Rocky Mountain Region of the U.S. Forest Service.  While sifting through pictures of Toilet Structures and Visitor’s Centers has been surprisingly entertaining, I took particular interest in a photo that had no particular … Continue reading Smoke(y) Signals

Getting the Message Out: Smokey Bear PSAs

In honor of Fire Prevention month, we’ll have several posts about records relating to fire prevention. In our previous post I introduced the real Smokey Bear. In addition to that film the National Archives Motion Picture Branch also holds many public service announcements (PSAs) related to forest fire prevention. They were created by the Ad … Continue reading Getting the Message Out: Smokey Bear PSAs

The REAL Smokey Bear

In honor of Fire Prevention month, we’ll have several posts about records relating to fire prevention. The cartoon Smokey appeared in 1944 as part of a larger wildfire prevention program, but the story of the real Smokey Bear began in 1950 in New Mexico’s Capitan Mountains. Smokey was just a cub when he was rescued … Continue reading The REAL Smokey Bear

Digitization Activities

My first couple of blogs focused on born-digital and scanned images created by Federal agencies and accessioned to the Still Picture unit, but I’m now shifting gears and highlighting some of our in-house digitization activities. The main series I’m going to talk about can trace its roots back to 1974 when we received the first … Continue reading Digitization Activities