Prologue: Pieces of History

Today’s post is by Miriam Kleiman, public relations specialist at the National Archives. Jack Kerouac—American counterculture hero, king of the Beats, and author of On the Road—was a Navy military recruit who failed boot camp. Navy doctors found Kerouac delusional, grandiose, and promiscuous, and questioned his strange writing obsession. I learned this in 2005, right [...]

This story originally appeared in the Fall 2009 issue of Prologue magazine. Herman Melville’s classic American novel, Moby-Dick, was first published in the United States on November 14, 1851. In Moby-Dick and his earlier books, Melville called upon his own experience aboard whaling ships, most notably his 18 months spent aboard the Acushnet, sailing out [...]

Julius Henry Marx–better known by his stage name Groucho Marx–passed away on August 19, 1977. He left behind a legacy of humor on stage, radio, and film. I was not able to find to find any images of him in our holdings, which was disappointing as his trademark mustache was a fine candidate for Facial [...]

We interrupt our usual hairy programming to bring you this musical interlude. What could be so important that we would skip mustaches, beards, and goatees? Well, today marks the anniversary of the Washington, DC, premiere of This Is the Army, with songs written (and one performed) by Irving Berlin. You would easily recognize Irving Berlin’s [...]

“What’s Cooking, Uncle Sam?,” our current special exhibition in Washington, DC, examines the Government’s effect on what Americans eat. Government influence was especially visible during wartime, when many food products were reserved for feeding the troops and our Allies. During World War I, the U.S. Food Administration, headed by Herbert Hoover, urged the American people [...]