Prologue: Pieces of History

In honor of Opening Day for the 2013 baseball season, we’ve put together this gallery of baseball-related photos, documents, and artifacts from the holdings of the 13 Presidential Libraries of the National Archives. This summary of Presidential baseball history was compiled by James Kratsas, Deputy Director at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum. [...]

Today’s blog post comes from David J. Gerleman, assistant editor of The Papers of Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln’s two-year stint as a Illinois Whig congressman is one of the lesser-known periods of his eventful life. Had he remained in obscurity, it might have remained the crowning achievement of a fizzled frontier political career. Having been [...]

Today’s blog post comes from National Archives social media intern Anna Fitzpatrick. On the first day of the new year in 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, declaring freedom for slaves in parts of the Confederacy that had not yet come under Union control. Historian John Hope Franklin described the day: [It] was a [...]

Today’s blog post comes from National Archives social media intern Anna Fitzpatrick. Only 100 days after promising in the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation that slaves in the Confederacy would soon be freed, Lincoln fulfilled that promise by signing the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. This proclamation changed the character of the war, adding moral force [...]

Today’s blog post comes from National Archives social media intern Anna Fitzpatrick. Throughout the Civil War, when President Lincoln needed to concentrate—when he faced a task that required his focused and undivided attention—he would leave the White House, cross the street to the War Department, and take over the desk of Thomas T. Eckert, chief [...]