What exactly is a “defendant jacket”?  What does the charge “RLD” stand for?  How do you find the records of a defendant if he or she had an alias or was charged with multiple co-defendants? These are just some of the questions faced by archivists, researchers, and volunteers working with Fort Smith’s criminal case files [...]

Today’s post is written by College Park archivist Kylene Tucker.   As part of my ADP (Archivist Development Program) rotation with the FOIA staff, I reviewed the FBI case file of Hunter S. Thompson from the Denver Field Office. The file covers 1965-1971 when Thompson lived in Colorado briefly, moved to California, and then returned to [...]

Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher and is a continuation of yesterday’s post. On October 31, 1984, Leonard retired from the National Archives and the next day began turning over to Jim Hutson copies of all the documents he had collected.  For the next fifteen months, in his 1952 DeSoto, Leonard traveled the same ground he [...]

Have you ever considered a career in archival work? This week, we’re publishing a two-part post by Dr. Greg Bradsher remembering one of NARA’s archivists. The National Archives and Records Administration has been very fortunate to have among its ranks many “giants” of the archival profession.  It has also had its share of interesting characters. Leonard [...]

This is the final post in a week-long series marking Administrative Professionals Week and written by Ketina Taylor (Archivist) and Jenny Sweeney (Education Specialist) of the National Archives at Fort Worth. Don’t miss their posts from day one, day two, day three and day four.   This week’s posts have highlighted the role of secretaries in the late 1950s and early 1960s by [...]

Today’s post is the fourth in a series marking Administrative Professionals Week and written by Ketina Taylor (Archivist) and Jenny Sweeney (Education Specialist) of the National Archives at Fort Worth. Don’t miss their posts from day one, day two and day three. The typical everyday world for the 1950s and 1960s secretary evolved around shorthand, dictation, memos, schedules, and business letters. Besides [...]

Today’s post is the third in a series marking Administrative Professionals Week and written by Ketina Taylor (Archivist) and Jenny Sweeney (Education Specialist) of the National Archives at Fort Worth. Don’t miss their posts from day one and day two. Pill box hats, shorter hem lines, black liquid eyeliner, and a flush of color on the lips were all [...]

Today’s post is the second in a series marking Administrative Professionals Week and written by Ketina Taylor (Archivist) and Jenny Sweeney (Education Specialist) of the National Archives at Fort Worth. If you haven’t already seen it, don’t miss yesterday’s post! In the life of the modern secretary, communication is an important part of our daily [...]

This week we’re publishing a series of posts by Ketina Taylor (Archivist) and Jenny Sweeney (Education Specialist) of the National Archives at Fort Worth. Today marks the beginning of Administrative Professionals Week. Since the advent of television and the movies, Americans have come to love secretarial characters from Miss Hathaway in the Beverly Hillbillies to Mrs. Wiggins in [...]

Today’s post is by College Park processing archivist Alan Walker. True story: Thursday, March 28 was shaping up to be a typical day. I had before me a cart’s worth of boxes full of case files from the Department of Justice that needed to be listed for a spreadsheet of “temporary” files to be disposed. These [...]