Prologue: Pieces of History

Intriguing discoveries are made all the time in the National Archives. This tintype of a woman and child doesn’t look like the typical federal record, let alone one associated with military records. But it was found in one of the 1.28 million Civil War Widows Certificate Approved Pension Case Files. Since 2007, a team of [...]

We enjoyed the many old fashioned names that our captioners suggested: Ellie Mae, Mildred, Ethel, and Frances! I wonder what the subject of our photo would say in response to the captions that suggest she is in the clutches of an OCD attack or is cooking up something  explosive? This week’s judge knows something about cooking up [...]

Since this week’s photo featured President Harry S. Truman, we turned to Tammy Kelly, an archivist at the Truman Library, to pick our winner for the photo contest. She has firsthand knowledge of this photo since she is the one who cataloged the doll into the Truman Library’s computerized system earlier this summer. Tammy picked John [...]

“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 [...]

The Federal Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, has housed some famous and infamous inmates, such as “Birdman of Alcatraz” Robert Stroud and Machine Gun Kelly. In the early 20th century, the prison took in some less likely felons—violators of the Oleomargarine Act of 1886. How did trafficking in this popular butter substitute become a Federal offense? [...]