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 [...]

Today’s post comes to us from Michael Hussey, education and exhibition specialist at the National Archives.(He’s also a speaker at tonight’s program!) Rosa Parks was born on February 4, 1913. In honor of her centennial, “Public Law 106-26, An Act to authorize the President to award a gold medal on behalf of the Congress to [...]

Today’s blog post comes from Mary Burtzloff, archivist at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library. The black leather-bound journal had water stains and mold around the edges. It looked a bit icky, but the contents of the Civil War journal fascinated me. One hundred and fifty years after our nation’s bloodiest conflict, we are  reminded [...]

Today’s post comes from Christopher Abraham at the Eisenhower Presidential Library. “I am a newspaper reporter and I would like to know if anything unusual happened during either of President Eisenhower’s inaugural ceremonies.” —Anonymous   Have you ever seen a U.S. President lassoed by a cowboy? It likely qualifies as “unusual!” General Eisenhower related this [...]

Today’s blog post comes from David J. Gerleman, assistant editor of The Papers of Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln’s two-year stint as a Illinois Whig congressman is one of the lesser-known periods of his eventful life. Had he remained in obscurity, it might have remained the crowning achievement of a fizzled frontier political career. Having been [...]