From time to time while working in the records, NARA staff find documents that provide new perspectives on events through which they lived.  I recently had that experience. I remember well the terrible humanitarian disaster that befell local populations as Yugoslavia ripped itself apart during the 1990s.  I remember, too, how many commentators expressed surprise [...]

Jazz great Dave Brubeck died on December 5, one day short of his 92nd birthday.  Since then, there have been many retrospectives – in print, on television, on radio, and on line.  Almost all of those remembrances mention the goodwill tour of Poland and the Far East that Brubeck and his quartet made in 1958 [...]

In the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor 71 years ago today, agencies of the U.S. government swung into action.  The Army and Navy immediately went on a war footing as did American diplomats in the Department of State and at embassies and consulates around the world.  Since the formal outbreak of war [...]

Thanksgiving is considered by many to be the quintessential American holiday.  As Thanksgiving 1918 approached, American had more reason than the usual to give thanks.  On November 11, 1918, Germany signed the armistice that brought World War I to an effective end.  In the wake of that event, the United States made an attempt to [...]

“This is an American soldier – he is your friend.”  So read the leaflet prepared by the United States for use in Vietnam.  Underneath that caption, it pictured several American infantrymen advancing into combat. The time, however, was not the 1960s; it was mid-1945 and World War II in the Pacific was drawing to a [...]

During World War II, many American military personnel, primarily aircrew, found themselves trapped behind enemy lines.  The MIS-X Section of the Captured Personnel and Material Branch of the Army’s Military Intelligence Service handled matters dealing with escape and evasion (E&E) out of hostile areas and intelligence operations relating to Allied prisoners of war.  E&E training [...]

The “National Archives Researcher News” recently carried an FAQ that provides guidance on ways to improve your research experience at the National Archives. It is reissued here to bring it to the attention of readers of The Text Message. HOW CAN I MAKE MY VISIT MORE SUCCESSFUL? The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) reference [...]

To assist researchers interested in records of the Department of State and other foreign affairs agencies, the most heavily used records in the National Archives, the Textual Archives Services Division has launched a newly revamped set of pages on the Archives’ website for providing an introduction to foreign affairs records. The conduct of foreign affairs [...]

The Great Depression had a serious negative impact on the situation of American diplomatic and consular officials overseas.  As the end of the first year of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency drew near, the President sent the following note to Secretary of State Cordell Hull: MEMORANDUM FROM             THE PRESIDENT [...]

Today’s post is written by David Langbart, a senior processing archivist in College Park. Sometimes records long thought to be lost find their way home. One such occurrence took place recently. The U.S. embassy in Germany received from the German government some files from the U.S. consulate in Dresden. The records had been found among [...]