As the US involvement in World War II heightened, the nation faced many critical shortages. Certainly sugar and butter come to mind, as do images of children collecting bottle caps and pieces of glass. But “Mrs. Housewife” was called to her patriotic duty to conserve another good: household fats. The Conservation Division of the War [...]

Today’s post is written by Monique Politowski, an archives technician who works on the NARA/Ancestry digitization partnership project in Silver Spring, Maryland. Millions of records have been converted to digital form since the partnership between NARA and Ancestry.com began in 2008, and some of the most popular records digitized as a result of this union [...]

Today I had the pleasure of attending a program in the National Archives’ William G. McGowan Theater called Are You In? Citizen Archivists, Crowdsourcing and Open Government that outlined some great projects that involve the public with making records available online. AOTUS Ferriero opened the program with remarks that described how President Obama’s Open Government mandate of December 2009 [...]

Today’s post is written by archivist David Langbart who works primarily with diplomatic records. In my earlier post about Despatches, I noted that the correct spelling in Department of State usage is dEspatch and not dIspatch.  After writing that post, purely by serendipity, I located a document that shows just how seriously the Department of [...]

Today’s post is written by Ashby Crowder, a processing archivist who works primarily with civilian records. During a stack inventory project, I came across a small series of records related to the practice of capital punishment in the United States in the late nineteenth century. The series is entitled “Governors’ Replies to a Circular on [...]

A couple of weeks ago I overheard a converstation between some colleagues discussing OPA.  “Try finding it in OPA,” one said.  They went on to discuss OPA functionality and benefits and use.  I assumed OPA was one of those things above my pay-grade about which I did not need to know.  As it turns out, [...]