An Update on Still Picture Catalog Additions

Though our research rooms remain closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, National Archives staff have been diligently working from home to make records more accessible to the public. In this vein, Still Picture staff have been converting finding aids into online catalog descriptions. Making descriptions searchable via the catalog will ultimately help researchers locate and … Continue reading An Update on Still Picture Catalog Additions

75th Anniversary of D-Day

This post was compiled by Harry Kidd.  Harry is a volunteer at the National Archives working on textual and photographic digitization projects.  Harry is a former Navy photographer and came across this story while researching military photographers. On June 6, 1944 tens of thousands of American servicemen landed on the Normandy Beaches. The National Archives' … Continue reading 75th Anniversary of D-Day

From Norfolk to NARA: The Unexpected Journey of the Navy Shipyard Glass Plate Negatives

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

Playing Fetch with Pilot Whales: The Navy’s Project Deep Ops

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