Prologue: Pieces of History

Today’s blog post was written by Sam Rushay, a supervisory archivist at the Truman Presidential Library. In the late summer of 1945, Frances Sarah Curtis of Mt. Rainier, MD, applied for a White House pass. Curtis, a Treasury Department employee in the Bureau of Public Debt (BPD), had worked in the White House File Room [...]

  The Roosevelts had planned for a “more homey” lighting of the National Christmas tree on December 24 in 1941. FDR had directed that the tree be moved from the Ellipse to the White House grounds, just next to the South Lawn Fountain.  But after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, there [...]

This is what President Harry Truman had for Thanksgiving in 1947. (Click to enlarge.) What dishes are going on your table this year? My favorite holiday is Thankgiving. No dispute. After all, it’s a holiday that basically crafted entirely around the consumption of turkey. I’m not entirely sure that this is what Lincoln had in [...]

With Super Bowl Sunday just two days away, we’ve decided to call an audible and make today’s “Facial Hair Friday” into a “Football Friday.” When the New England Patriots and New York Giants collide in this year’s Super Bowl, the two teams will be competing for more than just a National Football League championship. The winner [...]

Today’s featured facial hair is a fan find! Thank you to Paul H. for alerting us to this wonderful forked beard. In fact, this beard really looks like there’s enough hair to be two beards. Perhaps Colonel Strother had a beard for each of his names? Before his stint in the Army during the Civil War, David Hunter [...]