Prologue: Pieces of History

One of the themes throughout our “What’s Cooking Wednesday” posts has been war and food rationing. American citizens were asked to grow their own food, ration sugar, and eat less meat so that there would be more supplies for soldiers fighting overseas and for people with little food left in their war-torn country. As a result, [...]

About 20,000 women volunteered in military hospitals during the Civil War. Unfortunately, the majority of them left little or no written evidence of their sacrifice in the war. Louisa May Alcott, renowned 19th-century author of Little Women, was one of them, and her service is documented in a Washington, D.C., hospital’s muster roll. Alcott was [...]

What do you if you love Thanksgiving but it falls on a day when you can’t eat turkey? In 1947, President Truman faced an awkward dilemma. Truman took up the office of President during World War II, but even after the war ended, the plight of the Europeans was on his mind. Americans were still urged [...]

Today’s post is by Miriam Kleiman, public relations specialist at the National Archives. Jack Kerouac—American counterculture hero, king of the Beats, and author of On the Road—was a Navy military recruit who failed boot camp. Navy doctors found Kerouac delusional, grandiose, and promiscuous, and questioned his strange writing obsession. I learned this in 2005, right [...]

Today in 1886, former President Chester A. Arthur died from complications from Bright’s disease. He had not been relected for second term, and he had left office in 1884. He died in New York City, just 56 years old. Although he sported the facial hair style of the time, Arthur was an unlikely President. He [...]