Prologue: Pieces of History

Choosing this week’s winner was a difficult as balancing a hat on a burro, so we turned to Mary Ryan, who has seen many strange yet historic images from the holdings of the National Archives in her role the managing editor of Prologue magazine. Congratulations to Kim! Check your e-mail for a code for 15% off in the [...]

Today’s an eggs-ellent day in Washington, DC, for young people! It’s the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, where hundreds of children gather to roll eggs and play games on the South Lawn of the President’s House. But the tradition did not start at the White House. It began on the lawns and terraces of the [...]

I was worried I would never find love at the National Archives. When Scribd.com approached my office about promoting Prologue magazine by creating a collection of romantic records for their Valentine’s Day “Eat Say Love” event, I was very doubtful. Would I be able to find enough romance in the records to put together a [...]

As frigid temperatures cover much of the country, and many areas are still dealing with record amounts of snow, my thoughts turn to the polar explorers of the early 20th century. They didn’t have Goretex jackets with superwarm linings, satellite communications, or portable computers. Our “Pieces of History” blog takes its name from a regular [...]

Researching in original records often provides the researcher with surprises. Usually the surprise takes the form of an unknown letter, a reference to your topic in an unexpected place, or a lead that directs you to a new set of records to mine. Once in a great while, the surprise is something no one could [...]