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"Walt Whitman, ca. 1860 - ca. 1865"

"Walt Whitman, ca. 1860 - ca. 1865" Brady National Photographic Art Gallery (Washington, D.C.), Photographer (ARC ID 525875); War Department. Office of the Chief Signal Officer. (08/01/1866 - 09/18/1947); Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, 1860 - 1982; Record Group 111; National Archives.

American poet and writer Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819. Deeply touched by a visit to a wartime hospital, Whitman spent much of the Civil War as a hospital volunteer, carefully documenting his experiences caring for the wounded.

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  • Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854, Page 1 of 3
  • Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854, Page 2 of 3
  • Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854, Page 3 of 3
Kansas-Nebraska Act

An Act to Organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas, 1854 (ARC ID 1501722); Records of the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee and Its Predecessors, 1805-1988; Record Group 11; General Records of the United States Government; National Archives.

Officially titled "An Act to Organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas," this act repealed the Missouri Compromise, which had outlawed slavery above the 36° 30’ latitude in the Louisiana territories and reopened the national struggle over slavery in the western territories.

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  • Message of President Andrew Jackson nominating his cabinet, 03/06/1829 (page 2 of 2)
Virginia Plan

Virginia (Randolph) Plan as Amended (National Archives Microfilm Publication M866, 1 roll); The Official Records of the Constitutional Convention; Records of the Continental and Confederation Congresses and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789, Record Group 360; National Archives.

Drafted by James Madison, and presented by Edmund Randolph to the Constitutional Convention on May 29, 1787, the Virginia Plan proposed the foundation of what would become the U.S. Constitution: a strong central government composed of three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial.

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"Silhouetted in the golden glory of a Pacific sunrise, crosses mark the graves of American boys who gave their lives to win a small atoll on the road to the Philippines..."

"Silhouetted in the golden glory of a Pacific sunrise, crosses mark the graves of American boys who gave their lives to win a small atoll on the road to the Philippines. A Coast Guardsman stands in silent reverence beside the resting place of a comrade.", 1944, (ARC ID 513217); Series: Activities, Facilities, and Personalities, 1886 - 1967; Records of the U.S. Coast Guard, 1785 - 1992; Record Group 26; National Archives.

Traditionally observed on the last Monday in May, Memorial Day was officially established by John A. "Black Jack" Logan, a charismatic Civil War general, Congressman, Senator, and commander of the Grand Army of the Republic in 1868, for "the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country…" In this photo a Coast Guardsman observes a moment of silence before the graves of his fallen comrades on an unnamed atoll in the Pacific.

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"Around the camp-fire, men of Company A, 16th Infantry, San Geronimo, Mexico, May 27th, 1916."

"Around the camp-fire, men of Company A, 16th Infantry, San Geronimo, Mexico, May 27th, 1916. This photo was obtained by flashlight powder." Tucker C. Beckett, Photographer (ARC ID 533143); C. Tucker Beckett's Photographs of "The Mexican Expedition, U.S. Army, 1916, 1914 - 1917; Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs, 1860 - 1952; Record Group 165; National Archives.

The Mexican Punitive Expedition began in March of 1916, when General John J. Pershing led several thousand U.S. troops across the border into Mexico, following attacks on American citizens and property by the followers of Francisco (Pancho) Villa. Pershing’s orders from the War Department were to pursue and disperse Villa and his band or bands. Taken on May 27, 1916 by Tucker Beckett, this night-time photo shows members of the 16th Infantry around a campfire.

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"...Children in a democracy. A migratory family living in a trailer in an open field... "

"On Arizona Highway 87, south of Chandler. Maricopa County, Arizona. Children in a democracy. A migratory family living in a trailer in an open field. No sanitation, no water. They came from Amarillo, Texas. Pulled bolls near Amarillo, picked cotton near Roswell, New Mexico, and in Arizona. Plan to return to Amarillo at close of cotton picking season for work on WPA." 11/1940, Lange, Dorothea, Photographer. (ARC ID 522204) ; Photographic Prints Documenting Programs and Activities of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics and Predecessor Agencies, ca. 1922 - ca. 1947; Records of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 1876 - 1959; Record Group 83; National Archives.

Dorothea Lange, whose photographs of the unemployed and migratory farm workers became synonymous with the Great Depression, was born on May 26, 1895. The caption of this photo reads "On Arizona Highway 87, south of Chandler. Maricopa County, Arizona. Children in a democracy. A migratory family living in a trailer in an open field. No sanitation, no water. They came from Amarillo, Texas. Pulled bolls near Amarillo, picked cotton near Roswell, New Mexico, and in Arizona. Plan to return to Amarillo at close of cotton picking season for work on WPA."

The photo is one of a series taken for an agricultural "Community Stability and Instability" study by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. Taken by Dorothea Lange and Irving Rusinow, the photographs are a record of pre-World War II rural life and social institutions. Of particular interests are images of African Americans in Alabama and Georgia and migrant laborers hired to work in cotton fields in Arizona and California.

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