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Since his retirement, an amateur historian has worked to transcribe thousands of Civil War era correspondence and diaries that have remained unpublished until now, with most residing in private collections for decades. He also has a number of other relevant websites.

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On the night of November 8, 1800, fire devastated the War Office, consuming the papers, records, and books stored there. Papers of the War Department 1784-1800 is an innovative digital editorial project which reconstructed these records through a painstaking multi-year research effort and makes them freely available online.

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About

On the night of November 8, 1800, fire devastated the War Office, consuming the papers, records, and books stored there. Two weeks later, Secretary of War Samuel Dexter lamented in a letter that "All the papers in my office [have] been destroyed." For the past two centuries, the official records of the War Department effectively began with Dexter's letter. Papers of the War Department 1784-1800 is an innovative digital editorial project which reconstructed these records through a painstaking multi-year research effort and makes them freely available online.

The Papers record far more than the era's military history. Between 1784 and 1800, the War Department was responsible for Indian affairs, veteran affairs, naval affairs (until 1798), as well as militia and army matters. During the 1790s, the Secretary of War spent seven of every ten dollars of the federal budget (debt service excepted). The War Office did business with commercial firms and merchants all across the nation; it was the nation's largest single consumer of fabric, clothing, shoes, food, medicine, building materials, and weapons of all kinds.

The War Department operated the nation's only federal social welfare program, providing veterans' benefits (including payments to widows and orphans) to more than 4,000 persons. It also provided internal security, governance, and diplomacy on the vast frontier, and it was the instrument that shaped relations with Native Americans. In many respects, the papers lost in the War Office fire of 1800 constituted the "national archives" of their time.

Papers of the War Department 1784-1800 presents this collection of more than 42,000 documents in a free, online format with extensive and searchable metadata linked to digitized images of each document, ensuring free access for a wide range of users. Readers will find evidence on many subjects in the history of the Early Republic, from the handling of Indian affairs, pensions and procurement to the nature of the first American citizens' relationship with their new Federal government. The Papers offer a window into a time when there was no law beyond the Constitution and when the administration first worked out its understanding and interpretation of that new document.

The project to reconstitute the War Department Papers was begun by Ted Crackel in the early 1990s. It involved years of effort, including visits to more than 200 repositories and the consulting of more than 3,000 collections in the United States, Canada, England, France, and Scotland. In 2004, however, work on the project was essentially suspended when Crackel became the editor of the George Washington Papers. The project was transferred to the Center for History & New Media at George Mason University in early 2006, where staff spent years completing the archive. Every document is indexed with the notable people, places, and topics it contains.

The Papers is not only an online collection of digitized documents. It also represents an innovative digital editorial and transcription project. Since 2011, members of the public have been able to participate in this process of fully transcribing the documents in the collection by making their own transcriptions and uploading them to the collection. Volunteer transcribers include teachers, students, retired documentary editors, members of American Indian nations, and many others in the United States and abroad. The Papers site offers resources to help individuals learn more about historical handwriting and letter writing, and teaching modules for use at the high school or undergraduate level.

This site is built on Omeka S. The transcription interface runs on Scripto. Our work is made possible thanks to funding from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Historic Publications and Records Commission.

Project Staff

Christopher Hamner, Principal Investigator, Editor-in-Chief

Megan Brett, Assistant Editor, 2011-2013, Transcription Editor, 2011-present, Project Manager 2013-present

Project Alumni

Roy Rosenzweig, Principal Investigator, 2006-2007

Sharon Leon, Project Director, 2011-2017

Tom Scheinfeldt, Project Director, 2006-2010

Jane Turner Censer, Consulting Editor

Ron Martin, Associate Editor, 2008-2015

Laura Veprek, Web Designer, 2006-2008

Jim Safley, Associate Editor for the Digital Edition, Technical Lead, 2006-2021

Kim Nguyen, Web designer, 2017-2021

Jessica Dauterive, Project Manager and Transcription Editor 2019-2020

Alyssa Toby Fahringer, Transcription Editor, 2015-2019, Project Manager, 2017-2019

Kristin Conlin, Assistant Editor, 2006-2011

Dick Harless, Assistant Editor, 2006-2011

Ben Huggins, Assistant Editor, 2006-2007

Mark Phillips, Assistant Editor, 2007-2009

Jenny Reeder, Assistant Editor, 2008-2010

Jonathan Barth, Assistant Editor, 2009-2012

Alexa Potter, Assistant Editor, 2010-2011

David Goure, Intern, 2006-2008

Get in touch with the Papers of the War Department team.

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Papers of the War Department · About · Papers of the War Department

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On the night of November 8, 1800, fire devastated the War Office, consuming the papers, records, and books stored there. Two weeks later, Secretary of War Samuel Dexter lamented in a letter that “All the papers in my office [have] been destroyed.” For the past two centuries, the official records of the War Department effectively began with Dexter’s letter. Papers of the War Department 1784-1800 is an innovative digital editorial project which reconstructed these records through a painstaking multi-year research effort and makes them freely available online.

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On the night of November 8, 1800, fire devastated the War Office, consuming the papers, records, and books stored there. Papers of the War Department 1784-1800 is an innovative digital editorial project which reconstructed these records through a painstaking multi-year research effort and makes them freely available online.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
About

On the night of November 8, 1800, fire devastated the War Office, consuming the papers, records, and books stored there. Two weeks later, Secretary of War Samuel Dexter lamented in a letter that "All the papers in my office [have] been destroyed." For the past two centuries, the official records of the War Department effectively began with Dexter's letter. Papers of the War Department 1784-1800 is an innovative digital editorial project which reconstructed these records through a painstaking multi-year research effort and makes them freely available online.

The Papers record far more than the era's military history. Between 1784 and 1800, the War Department was responsible for Indian affairs, veteran affairs, naval affairs (until 1798), as well as militia and army matters. During the 1790s, the Secretary of War spent seven of every ten dollars of the federal budget (debt service excepted). The War Office did business with commercial firms and merchants all across the nation; it was the nation's largest single consumer of fabric, clothing, shoes, food, medicine, building materials, and weapons of all kinds.

The War Department operated the nation's only federal social welfare program, providing veterans' benefits (including payments to widows and orphans) to more than 4,000 persons. It also provided internal security, governance, and diplomacy on the vast frontier, and it was the instrument that shaped relations with Native Americans. In many respects, the papers lost in the War Office fire of 1800 constituted the "national archives" of their time.

Papers of the War Department 1784-1800 presents this collection of more than 42,000 documents in a free, online format with extensive and searchable metadata linked to digitized images of each document, ensuring free access for a wide range of users. Readers will find evidence on many subjects in the history of the Early Republic, from the handling of Indian affairs, pensions and procurement to the nature of the first American citizens' relationship with their new Federal government. The Papers offer a window into a time when there was no law beyond the Constitution and when the administration first worked out its understanding and interpretation of that new document.

The project to reconstitute the War Department Papers was begun by Ted Crackel in the early 1990s. It involved years of effort, including visits to more than 200 repositories and the consulting of more than 3,000 collections in the United States, Canada, England, France, and Scotland. In 2004, however, work on the project was essentially suspended when Crackel became the editor of the George Washington Papers. The project was transferred to the Center for History & New Media at George Mason University in early 2006, where staff spent years completing the archive. Every document is indexed with the notable people, places, and topics it contains.

The Papers is not only an online collection of digitized documents. It also represents an innovative digital editorial and transcription project. Since 2011, members of the public have been able to participate in this process of fully transcribing the documents in the collection by making their own transcriptions and uploading them to the collection. Volunteer transcribers include teachers, students, retired documentary editors, members of American Indian nations, and many others in the United States and abroad. The Papers site offers resources to help individuals learn more about historical handwriting and letter writing, and teaching modules for use at the high school or undergraduate level.

This site is built on Omeka S. The transcription interface runs on Scripto. Our work is made possible thanks to funding from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Historic Publications and Records Commission.

Project Staff

Christopher Hamner, Principal Investigator, Editor-in-Chief

Megan Brett, Assistant Editor, 2011-2013, Transcription Editor, 2011-present, Project Manager 2013-present

Project Alumni

Roy Rosenzweig, Principal Investigator, 2006-2007

Sharon Leon, Project Director, 2011-2017

Tom Scheinfeldt, Project Director, 2006-2010

Jane Turner Censer, Consulting Editor

Ron Martin, Associate Editor, 2008-2015

Laura Veprek, Web Designer, 2006-2008

Jim Safley, Associate Editor for the Digital Edition, Technical Lead, 2006-2021

Kim Nguyen, Web designer, 2017-2021

Jessica Dauterive, Project Manager and Transcription Editor 2019-2020

Alyssa Toby Fahringer, Transcription Editor, 2015-2019, Project Manager, 2017-2019

Kristin Conlin, Assistant Editor, 2006-2011

Dick Harless, Assistant Editor, 2006-2011

Ben Huggins, Assistant Editor, 2006-2007

Mark Phillips, Assistant Editor, 2007-2009

Jenny Reeder, Assistant Editor, 2008-2010

Jonathan Barth, Assistant Editor, 2009-2012

Alexa Potter, Assistant Editor, 2010-2011

David Goure, Intern, 2006-2008

Get in touch with the Papers of the War Department team.

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Papers of the War Department · About · Papers of the War Department

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On the night of November 8, 1800, fire devastated the War Office, consuming the papers, records, and books stored there. Two weeks later, Secretary of War Samuel Dexter lamented in a letter that “All the papers in my office [have] been destroyed.” For the past two centuries, the official records of the War Department effectively began with Dexter’s letter. Papers of the War Department 1784-1800 is an innovative digital editorial project which reconstructed these records through a painstaking multi-year research effort and makes them freely available online.

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This project produced a database of voyages to New Netherland that aims to integrate the activities of ships into the larger story of the colony. It provides an extensive resource for the reconstruction of maritime activity at the foundation of, and essential to, the development of New Netherland.

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About the Project
Between 1609 and 1664, more than 150 ships undertook roughly 250 voyages between the Dutch Republic and the colony of New Netherland. These ships crucially connected colonial nodes across the North Atlantic Ocean, transporting administrators and colonists, delivering provisions, supplies, and essentials, and conveying missives and other correspondence as the only means of communication. Far from simply cogs in the wheel of imperial expansion, these ships were the link between the Dutch Republic and its overseas holdings. Surprisingly, while the activities of ships made up a substantial component of the colonial narrative, the impact of ships' activities is rarely addressed in the cause and effect relationships of colonial histories. Anything but interlopers, ships were a recurrent, familiar, quotidian presence for the seventeenth-century Dutch, touching every aspect of life. Viewing history through the lens of ships adds a critical component to understanding the rich and complex Dutch North Atlantic colonial network, whose very existence depended on maritime support.

This project produces a database of voyages to New Netherland that aims to integrate the activities of ships into the larger story of the colony. It provides an extensive resource for the reconstruction of maritime activity at the foundation of, and essential to, the development of New Netherland. The database offers accurate, up-to-date, details about voyages and corrects misinformation, often reprinted many times over from secondary, outdated, or misinterpreted sources. Structured for searching, correlation, and analysis, the database consists of more than 10,000 data points derived from primary sources. More than a series of facts, however, the database points researchers to the stories of these voyages, and provides a framework on which to build. The collection invites inquiry on many aspects of maritime activities surrounding New Netherland, including shipping times, ports of call, cargoes, animal carriage, the transport of enslaved Africans, and passenger experiences. Exploring relationships between ship owners or outfitters and skippers, extending to crews, suggests trusted networks, likely meant to secure voyages. The variety of routes to New Netherland via Curaçao and other Caribbean locales encourage a new perspective on the role of New Netherland in the wider Atlantic sphere. More broadly, the database reflects a dynamic and connected Dutch North Atlantic network and highlights the influence of the system of ships at the helm of seventeenth-century Dutch imperial expansion into the North Atlantic.

While databases offer unique opportunities for historical analyses, their structure inherently limits the ability to convey the nuance of historical records. In the database format, any gaps in the history are expressed as missing data points. These gaps are most evident in the earliest voyages to New Netherland, for which there are sparse records. There are also relatively few exact dates available for voyage departures and arrivals. And passenger data must always be considered incomplete, as there are no known "lists." In an attempt to contribute context and to supplement the data, the database includes voyage notes for pertinent information that falls outside of the data structure. The database will continue to be updated and refined as new information comes to light that can help fill those gaps.

This project is the result of a Charles W. Wendell Research Grant and many hours of research, questioning, discovery, and crosschecking. My gratitude goes to the Grant Committee of the New Netherland Institute for their support of this project and for their patience, and especially, to Charles Gehring and Steve McEarleane for their direction. Appreciation also goes to Jaap Jacobs for generously sharing his earlier work on New Netherland voyages and to Jesse Sadler for his guidance during the initial data design and analysis.

Julie van den Hout has a bachelor's degree in Linguistics and Dutch Studies from UC Berkeley and a master's degree in History from San Francisco State University. She is the author of Adriaen van der Donck, A Dutch Rebel in Seventeenth-Century America (2018).

Image: Dutch Ships in a Calm Sea, Willem van de Velde (II), c. 1665. Rijksmuseum.

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A database and digital exhibit of ship voyages to New Netherland

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Based on Ft. Leavenworth, this includes resources about the fort specifically, materials from the Combat Studies Institute, the Frontier Army Museum, and other military history materials.

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Strategy and tactics for learning, the Papers of General Paul F. Gorman, USA (R)

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Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) National Encampment Proceedings

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Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) National Encampment Proceedings

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This site includes links to HathiTrust for the national proceedings, and you can also find information on chapters in each state, although many of those records are not digitized.

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GAR Records Program - Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War

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This page uses frames, but your browser doesn’t support them.

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Southern Baptist Historical Library & Archives

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Southern Baptist Historical Library & Archives

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This site provides links to a variety of Baptist digital resources, arranged alphabetically by types of material, including correspondence, newspapers, annual meeting minutes, photographs, etc. It is a great starting place.

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Southern Baptist Historical Library & Archives

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Listed below are links to a variety of Baptist digital resources. The list is arranged alphabetically by types of material. Most of the resources are scanned from the originals with some material in typescript form.

Researchers and users of the Digital Resources Collection who find these materials useful are encouraged to email the staff of the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives and provide us your impressions and use.

Citation Information: Research users of resources from the Digital Resources Collection should include the digital citation format of their choice. All citations should include the statement "Digital Resources Collection, Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee."
African American Baptist Resources Annuals - National Annuals - State Audio Visual Resources Ethnic Baptist Resources Manuscript Collections Mission Journals

Home and Foreign Journal, 1851-1861, 1868-1874

Home Missions, 1930-1980, Missions USA 1981

Foreign Mission Journal, 1874-1916

Our Home Field and Home Field, 1888-1916

The Home and Foreign Fields, 1916-1937

Commission, 1849-1851, 1856-1861, 1938-1970

Your Foreign Missions Bulletin, 1961-1965

Newspapers Oral History Interviews Periodicals Photographic Collections Reference Sources Research Studies Sermons and Addresses Woman's Missionary Union Resources

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Digital Resources - Southern Baptist Historical Library & Archives

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Listed below are links to a variety of Baptist digital resources. The list is arranged alphabetically by types of material. Most of the resources are scanned from the originals with some material in typescript form. Researchers and users of the Digital Resources Collection who find these materials useful are encouraged to email the staff of the Southern [...]

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The Catholic News Archive is a free, fully searchable digital archive of Catholic newspapers. With participation and support from the Association of Catholic Diocesan Archivists (ACDA) and the Catholic Library Association (CLA), they are taking the lead in digitizing historical Catholic newspapers.

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The Dorothy Day Library on the Web includes all of Dorothy Day’s writings in The Catholic Worker newspaper as well as selected articles published elsewhere and many of her books. Day was a journalist and Catholic reformer from New York City.

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Here the National Center for Health Statistics makes available annual reports that present detailed vital statistics data, including natality, mortality, marriage, and divorce.

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Products - Vital Statistics of the US - Homepage

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The Interviews: An Oral History of Television

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The Interviews: An Oral History of Television

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Here you can find recorded in-depth video conversations with key figures in television, both in front of and behind the camera.

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Welcome to the online home of

The Interviews: An Oral History of Television!

We record in-depth video conversations with key figures in television, both in front of and behind the camera.

CAPTURING TELEVISION HISTORY, ONE VOICE AT A TIME

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Welcome to the online home of The Interviews: An Oral History of Television! We record in-depth video conversations with key figures in television, both in front of and behind the camera. CAPTURING TELEVISION HISTORY, ONE VOICE AT A TIME

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National Library of Medicine Digital Collections

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National Library of Medicine Digital Collections

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This site includes a wide variety of resources for research in the areas of biomedicine, healthcare, and the history of medicine.

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Digital Collections - National Library of Medicine

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Digitized personal papers and organizational records documenting predominantly American medical practitioners, biomedical science, public health, and allied sciences from about 1850 to the present.

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American Social Health Association Records

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American Social Health Association Records

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The American Social Health Association (ASHA) records chronicle the association’s efforts to prevent and eradicate venereal disease, prostitution, and drug abuse from 1905 to 1990. The records trace the work of ASHA, which was known as the American Social Hygiene Association until 1960, and its predecessors: the American Federation for Sex Hygiene, the American Vigilance Association, and the American Society for Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis.

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Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States

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Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States

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These are the records of the hearings of the Dies Committee, set up by the U.S. House of Representatives to monitor "Un-American activities" and foreign propaganda before and during the Second World War.

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presents

by United States. Congress. House. Special Committee on Un-American Activities (1938-1944)

These are the records of the hearings of the Dies Committee, set up by the US House of Representatives to monitor "Un-American activities" and foreign propaganda before and during the Second World War.

The full title of the series is "Investigation of un-American propaganda activities in the United States: Hearings before a Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, [in the applicable session of Congress], on H. Res. 282, to investigate (1) the extent, character, and objects of un-American propaganda activities in the United States, (2) the diffusion within the United States of subversive and un-American propaganda that is instigated from foreign countries or of a domestic origin and attacks the principle of the form of government as guaranteed by our Constitution, and (3) all other questions in relation thereto that would aid Congress in any necessary remedial legislation." The hearings were held from the third session of the 75th Congress through the second session of the 78th Congress.

The records ran to 17 volumes of testimonial hearings, plus 7 volumes of executive hearings, plus various appendixes. Below, we have links to all of the volumes, mostly at the Internet Archive, but some at other locations. For each volume, we show the dates of the hearings. There may be some date overlap between volumes in some cases.

Hearings with testimony

Volume 1 (August 12-23, 1938): Internet Archive

Volume 2 (September 15 - October 22, 1938): Internet Archive

Volume 3 (October 24 - November 21, 1938): Internet Archive

Volume 4 (November 19 - December 14, 1938): Internet Archive

Volume 5 (May 18 - June 1, 1939): Internet Archive

Volume 6 (August 18-29, 1939): Internet Archive

Volume 7 (September 5-13, 1939): Internet Archive

Volume 8 (September 18-27, 1939): Internet Archive

Volume 9 (September 28 - October 14, 1939): Internet Archive

Volume 10 (October 16-28, 1939): Internet Archive

Volume 11 (October 28 - December 3, 1939): Internet Archive

Volume 12 (February 7 - April 4, 1940): Internet Archive

Volume 13 (April 11 - May 21, 1940): Internet Archive

Volume 14 (August 29, 1940 - August 11, 1941): Internet Archive

Volume 15 (June 8 - July 7, 1943): Internet Archive

Volume 16 (November 29 - December 20, 1943): Internet Archive

Volume 17 (September 27 - October 5, 1944): Internet Archive

Executive hearings
All 7 volumes of the executive hearings, held from 1939 to 1943, are available at Hathi Trust.
Appendices
A number of appendixes were also published by the committee. These mostly consist of reports, exhibits, and documents concerning various groups suspected of subversive activities;
Our thanks to Jonathan Wright for creating the initial version of this index, and sharing it with The Online Books Page.
This is a "meta-book", which stitches together separate files elsewhere on the Web as they appeared in a previously published book. It is subject to removal if someone produces an integrated edition. If that happens, The Online Books Page will point to the integrated version.

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Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States

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Printed Ephemera: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera

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Printed Ephemera: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera

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The collection contains, among other materials, posters, playbills, songsheets, notices, invitations, proclamations, petitions, timetables, leaflets, propaganda, manifestos, ballots, tickets, menus, and business cards. There are more than 28,000 items in the collection with 10,172 available online. The material dates from the seventeenth century to the present day and covers innumerable topics (including President Lincoln as a cat!).

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The collection contains, among other materials, posters, playbills, songsheets, notices, invitations, proclamations, petitions, timetables, leaflets, propaganda, manifestos, ballots, tickets, menus, and business cards. There are more than 28,000 items in the collection with 10,172 available online. The material dates from the seventeenth century to the present day and covers innumerable topics.

The library of Peter Force, acquired by the Library of Congress in 1867, furnished the basis of the Printed Ephemera Collection. Force himself had secured many of the pieces assembled by an earlier American historian and collector, Ebenezer Hazard. The majority of the items in the collection were produced in America and their major strength is in historical Americana. In adding to the collection, the Library's aim was to accumulate a record of all broadsides printed in America, and to do so, photostats as well as originals were collected.

Printed Ephemera: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera delivers online access to the Printed Ephemera Collection, providing digital images and searchable text.

The Nature of Ephemera

As the name would suggest, printed ephemera tends to be transitory documents created for a specific purpose, and intended to be thrown away. The Printed Ephemera Collection at the Library of Congress comprises primary sources relating to the key events of American history, including the Revolutionary War, slavery, the Western land rush, the Civil War, women's suffrage, and the Industrial Revolution. The printed material was produced as the events unfolded and offers unique snapshots of the nation's past.

Printed ephemera has had multiple purposes, as instanced by the variety of material assembled in the online collection. A primary purpose was the distribution of information. In the days before television and radio, citizens received news by way of broadsides and printed ephemera. For example, a Baltimore broadside of 1776 gives the first published account of Washington crossing the Delaware.

Other material tells a different story. Many of the items were never meant to be kept. For example, an ordinary paint advertisement may not seem of historical interest except for the date: 1792. The list of colors (more than one might expect) gives clues about the shades and hues that adorned the homes of the nation's founders. A 1928 railroad leaflet includes one of the earliest references to air travel, and shows the industry in a nascent, and interesting, state.

Printed ephemera also shows a new side of well-known issues and people. A business card which appears to have been printed by Abraham Lincoln was actually published and distributed by his opposition in the 1864 presidential election. It promised that, after losing the election, he'd return to Illinois to split rails and trade horses.

Historical events are brought to life by printed ephemera. In the wake of the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, Mayor E. E. Schmitz had no choice but to muster a special police force to keep peace amid the chaos. He empowered the officers to take extreme measures if necessary, and a broadside announced the order.

Lastly, certain items provide a connection with the past in ways that textbooks cannot. An 1840 poster for a lost dog, printed in Alton, Illinois, shows that people felt as strongly about their pets in the nineteenth century as today. It also may spark a new consciousness of one's surroundings: the photocopied sign at the bus stop showing maps and routes might be insignificant now, but it holds a story that may help to illuminate history in generations to come.

In exploring the contents of Printed Ephemera, readers may encounter attitudes and language that are jarring to contemporary sensibilities. It should be noted that broadsides and printed ephemera express the language, experience, and viewpoints of the era in which they were published.

The Printed Ephemera Collection: In the Library's Reading Room and Online

The majority of the Printed Ephemera Collection at the Library is arranged by state of imprint. The states are ordered alphabetically, and within each state, the items are arranged chronologically. The sequence of American material is followed by international imprints ordered by country, and special classes of material grouped under a common subject, such as the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention broadsides, Lincoln material, and playbills.

The collection is housed in archival folders and placed in flat boxes and map cases. Readers visiting the Library may use the card file or the published catalog and make their requests at the front desk of the Rare Book and Special Collections Reading Room.

Users may browse or search keywords in the collection, make selections, and download the images. Each item included in the online collection has been digitized in a manner that captures all data on the item. Duplicate copies have usually not been digitized, nor have surfaces of items that are blank or only contain Library of Congress information that is reproduced in the bibliographic description.

Often materials of this sort were produced in such a way that more than one page of text was printed on one side of a sheet. These sheets were then folded before distribution so the different pages of text followed each other in appropriate order. These multiple formats are described in the section Page Order and Folding Diagrams. The multiple printing formats and folding patterns represented in the Printed Ephemera are described in the section Page Order and Folding Diagrams. Original items in these various formats have been digitized page by page in the order depicted in the applicable Page Order Diagram.

The Printed Ephemera Collection: Bibliographic Access

The majority of the Printed Ephemera Collection at the Library has brief item-level descriptions. Occasionally a group of similar items is covered by a single record. Some material has had complete cataloging and is described by MARC records that reside in the Library's online catalog; this comprises only a small percentage of the collection, however.

Because printed ephemera lacks the uniformity of books, the traditional rules of cataloging books and other monographs often do not apply. After all, broadsides don't have title pages. This may explain the simple, and at times irregular, rendering of the titles in the bibliographic descriptions. For the most part, these descriptions are not part of the Library's official catalog, but they remain an invaluable resource.

The collection is shelved in a geographical order, but the card file maintains cross-referenced access in a total of three ways: geographical, author/title, and chronological. All three were published in a four-volume set entitled Broadsides in the Rare Book Division, Library of Congress (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1972), edited by Frederick Goff.

The Printed Ephemera Collection, in addition to making printed ephemera available online, will greatly enhance users' access to the collection by offering keyword searchability, unlocking substantially increased research potential. The potential expands even farther with the full textual transcriptions that are included. These "full-text" searches locate occurrences anywhere in the entire document.

The Printed Ephemera Collection: In Print and Online

All information on the catalog cards has been transcribed in the digital records. Even the backs of the cards, which are not visible in the published finding aid, are accounted for in the bibliographical records that accompany the images in this collection.

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About this Collection | Printed Ephemera: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

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The collection contains, among other materials, posters, playbills, songsheets, notices, invitations, proclamations, petitions, timetables, leaflets, propaganda, manifestos, ballots, tickets, menus, and business cards. There are more than 28,000 items in the collection with 10,172 available online. The material dates from the seventeenth century to the present day and covers innumerable topics.

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The papers of Margaret Bayard Smith (1778-1844), author and leader in Washington, D.C. social and political circles during the first decades of the nineteenth century, span the years 1789-1874, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1796-1840. They include family and general correspondence, diaries, journals, and commonplace books.

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About this Collection | Margaret Bayard Smith Papers | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

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The papers of Margaret Bayard Smith (1778-1844), author and leader in Washington, D.C., social and political circles during the first decades of the nineteenth century, span the years 1789-1874, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1796-1840. They include family and general correspondence, diaries, journals, and commonplace books. Most of the papers consist of family correspondence between Smith and her sisters Jane Bayard Kirkpatrick and Maria Bayard Boyd, and her husband, Samuel Harrison Smith (1772-1845), editor of the Jeffersonian National Intelligencer, a banker, and Treasury Department official. The Smiths moved to Washington, D.C., shortly after their marriage in 1800, and they remained there for the rest of their lives. Other correspondents in the collection include Mary Hering Middleton, A. Emilie Pichon, and Eliza Susan Morton Quincy. Topics covered include Washington, D.C., social life, presidential elections, the British occupation of Washington in 1814, and visits to the Virginia homes of Thomas Jefferson and James and Dolley Madison.

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The papers of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), diplomat, architect, scientist, and third president of the United States, held in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, consist of approximately 25,000 items, making it the largest collection of original Jefferson documents in the world.

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The papers of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), diplomat, architect, scientist, and third president of the United States, held in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, consist of approximately 27,000 items, making it the largest collection of original Jefferson documents in the world. Dating from the early 1760s through his death in 1826, the Thomas Jefferson Papers consist mainly of his correspondence, but they also include his drafts of the Declaration of Independence, drafts of Virginia laws; his fragmentary autobiography; the small memorandum books he used to record his spending; the pages on which for many years he daily recorded the weather; many charts, lists, tables, and drawings recording his scientific and other observations; notes; maps; recipes; ciphers; locks of hair; wool samples; and more.

The collection documents Jefferson's whole life, both public and personal--as a delegate to the second Continental Congress, Virginia legislator and governor, diplomat and residence in France, secretary of state, and president. The purchase of Louisiana, the expedition of Lewis and Clark, the building of Washington, D.C. as the national capital, and Jefferson's profound engagement with science and technology are all documented here. Jefferson's family life at Monticello is reflected in correspondence with his daughters, Martha (Patsy) Jefferson Randolph (1776-1836) and Mary (Maria) Jefferson Eppes (1778-1804), and his grandchildren, and in household accounts kept by his wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson (1748-1782). Some aspects of the lives of Jefferson's slaves, including members of the Hemings family of Monticello, including James Hemings (1765-1821), a brother of Sally Hemings, who trained as a French chef in Paris, can be traced in these papers. The twenty-one volumes of legal and legislative records from colonial Virginia, 1606-1737, that Jefferson collected, are divided between this collection and one held by the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress.

Notable correspondents include Abigail Adams, John Adams, Joel Barlow, Aaron Burr, François Jean de Chastellux, José Francisco Correia da Serra, Maria Cosway, Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours, Alexander Hamilton, Jean Antoine Houdon, Alexander von Humboldt, Tadeusz Kościuszko, the Marquis de Lafayette, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Pierre Charles L'Enfant, Meriwether Lewis, James Madison, James Monroe, Charles Willson Peale, Joseph Priestley, David Rittenhouse, Benjamin Rush, William Short, Samuel Harrison Smith, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, William Thornton, John Trumbull, Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, C.-F. Volney, Caspar Wistar, and George Washington.

Description of Series

The Thomas Jefferson Papers are divided into ten series as follows:

Series 1: General Correspondence, 1651-1827
Incoming letters and copies of outgoing letters, drafts of state papers and memoranda, Jefferson's "anas," and other papers. Arranged chronologically with enclosures following covering letter. Undated manuscripts are arranged by subject at the end of the series.

Series 2: Horatio Gates Letterbook, 1780-1781
Copies of letters made by Jefferson from General Horatio Gates's Revolutionary War letterbook relating to Gates's southern campaign. Arranged chronologically.

Series 3: District of Columbia Miscellany, 1790-1808
Chiefly Jefferson's correspondence with the commissioners of the District of Columbia and other officials relating to the District, including some memoranda by Jefferson. Arranged chronologically.

Series 4: Account Books, 1767-1782
Jefferson's day-by-day accounts for the periods 1767-1770, 1773, and 1779-1782, the last two kept in volumes of theVirginia Almanac. Arranged chronologically. (The 1767-1770 volume, on deposit at the Library of Congress at the time the microfilm was made, is now at the University of Virginia.)

Series 5: Commonplace Books, 1758-1772
Thomas Jefferson's legal commonplace book, 1762-1767, compiled while he was studying law, contains notes and extracts on important legal cases and precedents. An alphabetical list of legal terms and definitions is in the back of the book. His literary commonplace book, 1758-1772, contains his copied extracts from literary works, mostly poetry; and philosophy, some in Greek. The keeping of commonplace books was common practice in the eighteenth century. These two volumes are among the earliest surviving records of Jefferson's thought. For more information see: Gilbert Chinard, ed.The Commonplace Book of Thomas Jefferson (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1926) and Douglas L. Wilson, ed. Jefferson's Literary Commonplace Book. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).

Series 6: Randolph Family Manuscripts, 1790-1889
Consists of nearly three hundred pages of miscellaneous papers, 1790-1889, belonging to Thomas Jefferson's daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph (1772-1836), her husband, Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr. (1767-1828), and their family, including sons-in-law Joseph Coolidge, Jr. (1798-1879), husband of their daughter Ellen, and Nicholas P. Trist (1800-1874), who married their daughter Virginia. The material consists of letters, poetry, notes, lists, printed material, and a commonplace book assembled by the Randolph's daughter Cornelia Jefferson Randolph (1799-1871). Included are copies and extracts from letters by Thomas Jefferson; condolences received at Jefferson's death from James Monroe and Lydia Sigourney; a eulogy on Jefferson by Nicholas Biddle; correspondence with Jefferson's biographer, Henry S. Randall; letters to Martha Randolph from Dolley Madison; and letters from Frances Wright and the Marquis de Lafayette to Martha Randolph during Lafayette's 1824-1825 trip to the United States. This material is part of a 1917 acquisition. It is arranged chronologically.

Series 7: Miscellaneous Bound Volumes, 1768-1829
Notes and writings on weather, Virginia history, law, plantation matters, a catalog of his library, and other documents, and clippings with subject annotation by Jefferson. Arranged by volume number as follows:

Vol. 1, Notes of Legal Cases Tried in Virginia Courts and Household Accounts
This one volume served three purposes over time. Thefirst thirty-one pages contain Jefferson's notes on legal cases heard in the Virginia General Court for the April 1768, October 1768, and April 1769 terms. Following these notes are a series of household accounts for Monticello in the hand of Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson (1748-1782), wife of Thomas Jefferson. These accounts start on February 10, 1772,and conclude with an entry on April 29, 1782, made shortly before the birth of their sixth child, Lucy Elizabeth, on May 8. Martha Jefferson's health declined rapidly after Lucy's birth, and she did not resume her record keeping before her death on September 6, 1782. At the end of the volume and meant to be read by turning the book over and flipping the pages in the opposite direction are household accounts, 1805-1808, of Jefferson's granddaughter Anne Cary Randolph (1791-1826), daughter of Martha Jefferson Randolph and Thomas Mann Randolph. Anne lived at Monticello when Jefferson was president. These pages are described in greater detail in the essay, Anne Cary Randolph's Household Accounts, 1805-1808. When volume 1 was microfilmed, the Anne Cary Randolph accounts were filmed first, and the remaining two sections were rotated and filmed to follow them. This online presentation restored the images to a sequence that more closely matches the original volume.

Vol. 2, Weather Record, 1776-1818
Thomas Jefferson's meteorological observations in Philadelphia and at Monticello and Poplar Forest; also notes on scientific experiments and on plants grown on his estate, and his description of the September 17, 1811, solar eclipse.

Vol. 3, Historical Notes on Virginia
Jefferson made these Historical Notes on Virginia in 1781 while gathering material for his responses to queries about Virginia from François Henri Barbé-Marbois, secretary of the French legation in Philadelphia, which he later (1785) published under the titleNotes on the State of Virginia.

Vol. 4, Manual of Parliamentary Practice (Washington, 1801)
As vice president of the United States from 1797 to 1801, Thomas Jefferson had the duty of presiding over the United States Senate. With the assistance of John James Beckley, clerk of the House of Representatives, he compiled a notebook or pocketbook of rules and precedents of parliamentary practice. Jefferson originally planned to leave a manuscript copy with the Senate for the use of his successors and solicited comments on it from knowledgeable friends, such as George Wythe and Edmund Pendleton. However, before leaving office as vice president, Jefferson decided to have the manual printed by his friend Samuel H. Smith. Smith published the first of many editions ofA Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the Senate of the United States in Washington City in 1801. In an 1809 letter to John W. Campbell, Jefferson wrote that he did not include the Manual of Parliamentary Practice in his writings "because it was a mere compilation, into which nothing entered of my own, but the arrangement, and a few observations necessary to explain that and some of the cases." William S. Howell has edited a scholarly edition of Jefferson's parliamentary writings, which was published in 1988 by Princeton University Press as part of the second series of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. A revised edition of the Manual is still in use today, though in the House of Representatives rather than in the Senate.

Vol. 5, "Notes on Salkeld's Reports," "An Act Further to Amend the Judicial System of the United States," and "An Act to Punish Certain Offences against the United States"
William Salkeld (1515-1671) was an English legal writer and sergeant-at-law, known for his diligent work as a reporter of legal cases. HisReports of Cases Adjudged in the Court of King's Bench, 1689-1712 (1717-18) became a standard authority for precedents at the King's Bench. Salkeld was also one of the author-translators of Creswell Levinz's Reports of Cases in the King's Bench, 1660-1697 (1722). Like most law students in eighteenth-century Britain and its colonies, Jefferson took notes from Salkeld's Reports on the King's Bench cases, looking for precedents and practices that he would find useful in his own case work. Also included in this volume are drafts of two bills in an unknown handwriting, "An act further to amend the judicial system of the United States" and "An act to punish certain offences against the United States."

Vol. 6, List of the Post-Offices in the United States (Washington, D.C., 1803)
A book of the locations of post offices existing in 1803, with distances from Washington and annotations by Jefferson.

Vol. 7, Jefferson's Second Library
A catalog of the personal library that Jefferson accumulated after the sale of his first library to Congress. This second library was offered for sale at public auction on February 27, 1829.

Vol. 8, Jefferson's inscribed flyleaves from Cicero's De Re Publica (Boston, 1823)
Jefferson's inscribed flyleaves from an edition of Cicero'sDe Re Publica published in Boston in 1823. The inscriptions are to Thomas Jefferson Smith, son of Samuel Harrison Smith, an old friend and political ally. The inscriptions include a poem and "A Decalogue of Canons for observation in practical life."

Vol. 9, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (Washington, D.C., 1904)
This facsimile reproduction of Jefferson's original compilation (now in the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution) was published in Washington in 1904. Jefferson used excerpts from the New Testaments in four languages to create a compilation of what he considered to be Jesus' most authentic actions and teachings. He probably prepared the "Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth" in 1820.

Vol. 10, Clippings (not yet digitized)

Series 8: Virginia Records, 1606-1737
Twenty-one volumes of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Virginia colonial records collected and copied by Jefferson and retained as part of his personal library. Half of these volumes are held in the Manuscript Division with Jefferson's papers, and the rest are in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. For more information, see theoverview of the Virginia Records, 1606-1737, under the Articles and Essays tab.

Series 9: Collected Manuscripts, 1783-1822
Letters and notes collected by the Library since 1920. Arranged chronologically.

Series 10: Addenda, 1781-1829
Since the Thomas Jefferson Papers were microfilmed in 1974 additional material has been added to the collection. These items are included in this series. For a detailed description of these items, see the Scope and Contents section of theFinding Aid. Although the items in Series 10 were not microfilmed, selected originals were subsequently digitized and are viewable on this website.

Transcriptions

Some of Jefferson's papers are supplemented on this website by transcriptions from the published editions listed below and from others supplied by Manuscript Division specialist Gerard Gawalt (since retired). There are some discrepancies with dates and other text between documents in the published editions and the manuscript images. This is because in some cases editors transcribed a different draft than the one the Library of Congress owns. In other cases archivists at the Library of Congress and editors of the published editions arrived at different interpretations of dates, correspondents, or other data. The published editions listed below were the source of the transcriptions used on the Library's Web site. They were chosen because they are out of copyright or otherwise in the public domain. For citations to the modern editions of Jefferson's papers, see the bibliography in Related Resources.

Fitzpatrick, John C., ed. The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799. 39 vols. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1931-1944. Reprint, New York: Greenwood Press, 1970. (John C. Fitzpatrick was chief of the Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, in the 1930s and 1940s when he edited The Writings of George Washington; he included transcriptions of documents from the Jefferson Papers in this edition of the Washington Papers.)

Ford, Paul Leicester, ed. The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904.

Kingsbury, Susan Myra, ed. Records of the Virginia Company. Volumes I and II: Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1906; volumes III and IV, 1933, 1935.

Mathew, Thomas. The Beginning, Progress and Conclusion of Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia in the Years 1675 & 1676. Washington: Peter Force, 1835. (Transcribed by Jefferson and originally published in the Richmond Virginia Enquirer, September 1, 5, and 8, 1804.)

Padover, Saul K., ed. Thomas Jefferson and the National Capital. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1946.

Special thanks to Gerard W. Gawalt, Specialist in Early American History, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (retired), for providing transcriptions of Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson's Household Accounts in Series 7 and for authoring the accompanying essay. He provided transcriptions of correspondence between Jefferson and William Short, as well as many other transcriptions used throughout this online collection.

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About this Collection - Thomas Jefferson Papers, 1606-1827

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The papers of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), diplomat, architect, scientist, and third president of the United States, held in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, consist of approximately 27,000 items, making it the largest collection of original Jefferson documents in the world.

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James Madison (1751-1836) is one of 23 presidents whose papers are held in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. The Madison Papers consist of approximately 12,000 items, spanning the period 1723-1859, captured in some 37,714 digital images. They document the life of the man who came to be known as the “Father of the Constitution” through correspondence, personal notes, drafts of letters and legislation, an autobiography, legal and financial documents, and his notes on the 1787 federal Constitutional Convention.

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James Madison (1751-1836) is one of 23 presidents whose papers are held in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. The Madison Papers consist of approximately 12,000 items, spanning the period 1723-1859, captured in some 37,714 digital images. They document the life of the man who came to be known as the "Father of the Constitution" through correspondence, personal notes, drafts of letters and legislation, an autobiography, legal and financial documents, and his notes on the 1787 federal Constitutional Convention. The papers cover Madison's years as a college student; as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, Continental Congress, and Confederation Congress; as a delegate to the 1787 federal Constitutional Convention and the Virginia ratification convention of 1788; his terms in the House of Representatives, as secretary of state, and as president of the United States. Also documented are his retirement and the settlement of his estate; matters relating to his family, including his wife, Dolley Payne Madison; and his home, Montpelier, in Virginia. For information about the ownership and chain of custody of the Library's Madison Papers, see the Provenance essay on this site, which is excerpted from the Index to the James Madison Papers (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1965). The Manuscript Division has a separate collection of Dolley Madison Papers, 1794-1852, for which there is an online finding aid.

Notable correspondents represented in the James Madison Papers include John Adams, John Quincy Adams, John C. Calhoun, Albert Gallatin, Elbridge Gerry, Alexander Hamilton, William Henry Harrison, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, the Marquis de Lafayette, Robert Livingston, Dolley Payne Madison, George Mason, James Monroe, Edmund Randolph, Benjamin Rush, Martin Van Buren, George Washington, and Noah Webster. Madison's correspondence with Secretary of War James Armstrong, chiefly 1813-1814, fills all of Series 3. For a complete list of correspondents represented in this collection see the Index to the James Madison Papers.

Series

The Madison Papers are arranged in seven series. Series 1 - 6 have been indexed and microfilmed and are available digitally on this website. Series 7 contains papers that were received after the collection was indexed and microfilmed and are now available digitally on this website.

Letters received, some drafts of letters sent, and related documents.

Letters received, some drafts of letters sent, and related documents. The Department of State loaned these papers to Senator William Cabell Rives in 1858 to help him write his biography of Madison. They were restored by Rives's heirs to the Library of Congress a century later and added to the Madison Papers as Series 2.

Copies of letters written by James Madison to his Secretary of War John Armstrong, 1813-1814, and a few copies of letters written by Armstrong and others.

Madison's autobiography; wills of James Madison, his parents James Madison, Sr., and Nelly Madison, and his wife, Dolley Payne Madison; documents relating to the settlement of Madison family estates and to the sale of James Madison's papers to the federal government; and other legal and financial documents.

5a. Jefferson's Notes on Debates in the Continental Congress, June 7 - Aug. 1, 1776

5b. Madison's Original Notes on Debates in the Confederation Congress, 1782 to 1783; 1787, and Copies of Letters, 1780-1788

5c. John C. Payne's Copy of Madison's Original Note on Debates in the Confederation Congress, 1782-1783; 1787, and copies of letters, 1780-1788

5d John C. Payne's Copy of Jefferson's Notes on Debates in the Continental Congress

5e Madison's Original Notes on Debates in the Federal Convention, 1787

5f. John C. Payne's Copy of Madison's Original Notes on Debates in the Federal Constitutional Convention, 1787

"A Brief System of Logick," notes and drawings Madison made probably while a student at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University); notes on the Articles of Confederation, exports and navigation, federal governments, and natural history; Madison's copy of Alexander Hamilton's observations on federal government; two printed acts of Congress; resolutions of the Senate and House of Representatives on Madison's death; a Madison family tree.

6a. James Madison, "A Brief System of Logick," 1763-1765

6b. James Madison, Notes on Exports and Navigation, 1769

6c. James Madison, Notes on the Articles of Confederation, July 15, 1775

6d. James Madison, Notes on Federal Governments, 1789

6e. Alexander Hamilton's Observations on Federal Government, copy sent by Madison to John Mitchell Mason, January 12, 1810

6f. Two Acts of Congress Concerning the Army, signed by James Madison, January 27, 1814 (printed)

6g. Resolutions of the Senate and House of Representatives on the death of James Madison, June 30, 1836

6h. Madison Family Tree

6i. James Madison, Notes on Natural History and Foreign Trade

Original correspondence, 1780-1834, and other miscellaneous papers, including a Virginia convention speech, 1829; photocopies and abstracts of correspondence and other papers, 1744-1845; newspaper clippings, 1788-1833.

Transcriptions Included on this Website

Some of Madison's documents are accompanied here by transcripts. These come from The Writings of James Madison, ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1900-1910). Hunt's edition includes letters and documents written by Madison. The modern published edition of Madison's papers (which includes letters received as well as letters sent) is The Papers of James Madison, ed. William T. Hutchinson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962-1977; Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1978 - ). This edition is available online as part of The American Founding Era, a subscription database from the University of Virginia Press, which is accessible onsite at the Library of Congress at eresources.loc.gov/record=e1000688 and on the publicly available Founders Online website hosted by the National Archives and Records Administration.

There are some discrepancies in date and text between documents in these published editions and the manuscript images. In some cases, editors of the published editions used a different draft than the one the Library of Congress owns. In other cases, archivists at the Library of Congress and editors of the published editions arrived at different interpretations of dates, correspondents, or other data.

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About this Collection | James Madison Papers, 1723-1859 | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

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James Madison (1751-1836) is one of 23 presidents whose papers are held in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. The Madison Papers consist of approximately 12,000 items, spanning the period 1723-1859, captured in some 37,714 digital images.

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Archives of Women's Political Communication

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Archives of Women's Political Communication

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The Archives of Women's Political Communication is devoted entirely to women's political speech. The archives houses the speeches and campaign advertising of U.S. women senators and representatives, cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, governors and lieutenant governors, and first and second ladies; international women leaders; and recipients of the Mary Louise Smith Chair in Women and Politics at Iowa State University. It also features the speeches of historically significant women, social activists and women who have used their position of celebrity to advocate for political causes.

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Archives of Women's Political Communication

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Welcome to the Archives of Women's Political Communication

The Archives of Women's Political Communication is an online archives launched in 2007 by the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University devoted entirely to women's political speech. The archives houses the speeches and campaign advertising of U.S. women senators and representatives, cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, governors and lieutenant governors, and first and second ladies; international women leaders; and recipients of the Mary Louise Smith Chair in Women and Politics at Iowa State University. It also features the speeches of historically significant women, social activists and women who have used their position of celebrity to advocate for political causes.

Speeches and ads are continually being gathered by our staff and added to the archives. Please feel free to contact us with any suggestions for additions to our collection.

The archives is made possible through a generous gift from the late Richard and Mary Jo Stanley.

Featured profile

U.S. Rep. Mia Love served Utah's 4th Congressional District from 2015 to 2019. She was the first Haitian American and the first black female Republican in Congress, and the first black person to be elected to Congress from Utah. She lost her 2018 re-election bid. Love was born on Dec. 6, 1975, in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated from the University of Hartford with a degree in fine arts. In 2003, Love was elected to the Saratoga Springs (Utah) City Council. After serving two terms, she was elected mayor. She retained this role until she was elected to Congress. For information on Love's policy subject areas, committee appointments and sponsored/co-sponsored legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives, please visit her profile on https://www.congress.gov. More

"Everybody counts in applying democracy. And there will never be a true democracy until every responsible and law-abiding adult in it, without regard to race, sex, color or creed has his or her own inalienable and unpurchasable voice in government."

Carrie Chapman Catt (1917)

Votes for All: A Symposium. In The Crisis 15(1).

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Welcome to the Archives of Women's Political Communication The Archives of Women's Political Communication is an online archives launched in 2007 by the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University devoted entirely to women's political speech.

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Thousands of television commercials created or collected by the D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B) advertising agency, dated 1950s-1980s.

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AdViews / Digital Collections / Duke Digital RepositoryAdViews / Digital Collections / Duke Digital Repository

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Thousands of television commercials created or collected by the D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B) advertising agency, dated 1950s - 1980s.

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This site offers a range of primary sources—published and unpublished documents as well as images—that begin to fill in the picture of adoption’s past, illuminating topics, people, organizations, and studies that shaped adoption theory and practice during the twentieth century.

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Adoption History: Document Archives Index Page

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Sources are the raw materials that historians use to write history. This site offers a range of primary sources—published and unpublished documents as well as images—that begin to fill in the picture of adoption’s past, illuminating topics, people, organizations, and studies that shaped adoption theory and practice during the twentieth century. Visitors interested in the location of unpublished sources can find these in a list of archival sources.

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This collection comprises over 700 primary source documents from more than 20 countries, providing a global perspective on the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, a pivotal Cold War confrontation that brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war.

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Documents concerning the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962--a major confrontation that brought the Soviet Union and the United States close to war over the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. The documents are drawn from countries all around the world and discuss armament and military supplies sent to Cuba, troop training, security issues in the region, and relations with the US. There are many items of correspondence during the crisis itself, including letters between Soviet representatives in Cuba, the US, the UN, and the USSR Foreign Ministry.

Related Wilson Center Articles

Containing over 500 newly declassified and translated documents from international sources, this is the most extensive collection ever presented of original, never-before published, non-US primary sources on the Cuban Missile Crisis.

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Documents concerning the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962--a major confrontation that brought the Soviet Union and the United States close to war over the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. The documents are drawn from countries all around the world and discuss armament and military supplies sent to Cuba, troop training, security issues in the region, and relations with the US.

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The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II

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The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II

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In this collection of materials, the National Security Archive publishes the most comprehensive on-line collection to date of declassified U.S. government documents on the atomic bomb and the end of the war in the Pacific. Besides material from the files of the Manhattan Project, this collection includes formerly "Top Secret Ultra" summaries and translations of Japanese diplomatic cable traffic intercepted under the "Magic" program. Moreover, the collection includes for the first time translations from Japanese sources of high level meetings and discussions in Tokyo, including the conferences when Emperor Hirohito authorized the final decision to surrender.

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Note: The following documents are in PDF format.

Washington, D.C., August 5, 2005 - Sixty years ago this month, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, and the Japanese government surrendered to the United States and its allies. The nuclear age had truly begun with the first military use of atomic weapons. With the material that follows, the National Security Archive publishes the most comprehensive on-line collection to date of declassified U.S. government documents on the atomic bomb and the end of the war in the Pacific. Besides material from the files of the Manhattan Project, this collection includes formerly "Top Secret Ultra" summaries and translations of Japanese diplomatic cable traffic intercepted under the "Magic" program. Moreover, the collection includes for the first time translations from Japanese sources of high level meetings and discussions in Tokyo, including the conferences when Emperor Hirohito authorized the final decision to surrender.[1]

Ever since the atomic bombs were exploded over Japanese cities, historians, social scientists, journalists, World War II veterans, and ordinary citizens have engaged in intense controversy about the events of August 1945. John Hersey's Hiroshima, first published in the New Yorker in 1946 made some unsettled readers question the bombings while church groups and a few commentators, most prominently Norman Cousins, explicitly criticized them. Former Secretary of War Henry Stimson found the criticisms troubling and published an influential justification for the attacks in Harper's.[2] During the 1960s the availability of primary sources made historical research and writing possible and the debate became more vigorous. Historians Herbert Feis and Gar Alperovitz raised searching questions about the first use of nuclear weapons and their broader political and diplomatic implications. The controversy, especially the arguments made by Alperovitz and others about "atomic diplomacy" quickly became caught up in heated debates about Cold War "revisionism." The controversy simmered over the years with major contributions by Martin Sherwin and Barton J. Bernstein but it became explosive during the mid-1990s when curators at the National Air and Space Museum met the wrath of the Air Force Association over a proposed historical exhibit on the Enola Gay.[3] The NASM exhibit was drastically scaled down but historians and journalists continued to engage in the debate. Alperovitz, Bernstein, and Sherwin made new contributions to the debate as did historians, social scientists, and journalists such as Richard B. Frank, Herbert Bix, Sadao Asada, Kai Bird, Robert James Maddox, Robert P. Newman, Robert S. Norris, Tsuyoshi Hagesawa, and J. Samuel Walker.[4] The controversy has revolved around the following, among other, questions:

Were atomic strikes necessary primarily to avert an invasion of Japan in November 1945?

Did Truman authorize the use of atomic bombs for diplomatic-political reasons-- to intimidate the Soviets--or was his major goal to force Japan to surrender and bring the war to an early end?

If ending the war quickly was the most important motivation of Truman and his advisers to what extent did they see an "atomic diplomacy" capability as a "bonus"?

To what extent did subsequent justification for the atomic bomb exaggerate or misuse wartime estimates for U.S. casualties stemming from an invasion of Japan?

Were there alternatives to the use of the weapons? If there were, what were they and how plausible are they in retrospect? Why were alternatives not pursued?

How did the U.S. government plan to use the bombs? What concepts did war planners use to select targets? To what extent were senior officials interested in looking at alternatives to urban targets? How familiar was President Truman with the concepts that led target planners to choose major cities as targets?

Did President Truman make a decision, in a robust sense, to use the bomb or did he inherit a decision that had already been made?

Were the Japanese ready to surrender before the bombs were dropped? To what extent had Emperor Hirohito prolonged the war unnecessarily by not seizing opportunities for surrender?

If the United States had been more flexible about the demand for "unconditional surrender" by guaranteeing a constitutional monarchy would Japan have surrendered earlier than it did?

How greatly did the atomic bombings affect the Japanese decision to surrender?

Was the bombing of Nagasaki unnecessary? To the extent that the atomic bombing was critically important to the Japanese decision to surrender would it have been enough to destroy one city?

Would the Soviet declaration of war have been enough to compel Tokyo to admit defeat?

Was the dropping of the atomic bombs morally justifiable?

This briefing book will not attempt to answer these questions or use primary sources to stake out positions on any of them. Nor will it attempt to substitute for the extraordinarily rich literature on the atomic bombs and the end of World War II. This collection does not attempt to document the origins and development of the Manhattan Project. Nor does it include any of the miscellaneous sources (interviews, documents prepared after the events, post-World War II correspondence, etc.) that participants in the debate have brought to bear in framing their arguments. Instead, by gaining access to a broad range of U.S. and Japanese documents from the spring and summer of 1945, interested readers can see for themselves the crucial source material that scholars have used to shape narrative accounts of the historical developments and to frame their arguments about the questions that have provoked controversy over the years. To help readers who are less familiar with the debates, commentary on some of the documents will point out, although far from comprehensively, some of the ways in which they have been interpreted. With direct access to the documents, readers may be able to develop their own answers to the questions raised above. The documents may even provoke new questions.

Contributors to the historical controversy have deployed the documents selected here to support their arguments about the first use of nuclear weapons and the end of World War II. The editor has closely reviewed the footnotes and endnotes in a variety of articles and books and selected documents cited by participants on the various sides of the controversy.[5] While the editor has a point of view on the issues, to the greatest extent possible he has tried not to let that influence document selection, e.g., by selectively withholding or including documents that may buttress one point of view or the other. The task of compilation took the editor to primary sources at the National Archives, mainly in Manhattan Project files held in the records of the Army Corps of Engineers, Record Group 77 but also in the files of the National Security Agency. Private collections were also important such as the Stimson Diary at Yale University (although available on microfilm elsewhere) and the papers of W. Averell Harriman at the Library of Congress. To a great extent the documents selected for this compilation have been declassified for years, even decades; the most recent declassifications were in the 1990s.

The U.S. documents cited here will be familiar to many expert readers on the Hiroshima-Nagasaki controversy. To provide a fuller picture of the transition from U.S.-Japanese antagonism to reconciliation, the editor has done what could be done within time and resource constraints to present information on the activities and points of view of Japanese policymakers and diplomats. This includes a number of formerly top secret summaries of intercepted Japanese diplomatic communications; the documents enable interested readers to form their own judgments about the direction of Japanese diplomacy in the weeks before the atomic bombings. Moreover, this briefing book includes new translations of Japanese primary sources on crucial events, including accounts of the conferences on August 9 and 14, where Emperor Hirohito made decisions to accept Allied terms of surrender. This material sheds light on the considerations that induced Japan 's surrender.
Documents

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I. Background on the Atomic Project

Document 1: Memorandum from Vannevar Bush and James B. Conant, Office of Scientific Research and Development, to Secretary of War, September 30, 1944, Top Secret
Source: Record Group 77, Records of the Army Corps of Engineers (hereinafter RG 77), Manhattan Engineering District (MED), Harrison-Bundy Files (H-B Files), folder 69

Months before the bomb would be available, key War Department advisers, among others, worried about the political and military problems and possibilities raised by the project—the possibility of enormously powerful hydrogen bombs, enormous military potential, the limits of secrecy, the danger of a global arms race, and the need for international exchange of information and international inspection to stem dangerous nuclear competition. Martin Sherwin and James Hershberg see this memorandum flowing from Bush and Conant's concern about President Roosevelt's "cavalier" belief that it would be possible to maintain an Anglo-American atomic monopoly after World War II. To disabuse senior officials that such a monopoly was possible, they drafted this memorandum.[6]

Document 2: Commander F. L. Ashworth to Major General L.R. Groves, "The Base of Operations of the 509th Composite Group,"

Documents 3a-c: President Truman Learns the Secret:
The force of B-29 nuclear delivery vehicles that was being readied for first nuclear use—the Army Air Force's 509 th Composite Group—required an operational base in the Western Pacific. In late February 1945, months before atomic bombs were ready for use, the high command selected Tinian, an island in theNorthern Marianas Islands.

Source: RG 77, Commanding General's file no. 24, tab D

Source: Henry Stimson Diary, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, Henry Lewis Stimson Papers (microfilm at Library of Congress)

Source: Henry Stimson Diary,
Sterling Library,Yale University (microfilm at Library of Congress)

Soon after he was sworn in as president, after President Roosevelt's death, Harry Truman learned about the top secret Manhattan Project.It was not until he received a briefing from Secretary of War Stimson and Manhattan Project chief General Groves, who went through the "back door" to escape the watchful press, that Truman understood the full scope of the enterprise.Stimson, who later wrote up the meeting in his diary, also prepared a discussion paper, which raised broader policy issues associated with the imminent possession of "the most terrible weapon ever known in human history."In a background report prepared for the meeting,Groves provided a detailed overview of the atomic bomb project from the raw materials to processing nuclear fuel to assembling the weapons to plans for using them, which had already crystallized. With respect to the last point, the first gun-type weapon "should be ready about 1 August 1945" while an implosion weapon would be available that month. "The target is and was always expected to beJapan."The question whether Truman "inherited assumptions" from the Roosevelt administration that the bomb would be used has been a controversial one. Alperovitz and Sherwin have argued that Truman made "a real decision" to use the bomb onJapan by choosing "between various forms of diplomacy and warfare."In contrast, Barton Bernstein finds that Truman "never questioned [the] assumption" that the bomb would and should be used.Robert S. Norris has also noted that "Truman's 'decision' was a decision not to override previous plans to use the bomb."

Document 4: Notes on Initial Meeting of Target Committee,

In late April, military officers and nuclear scientists met to discuss bombing techniques, target selection, and overall mission requirements.The discussion of "available targets" included Hiroshima, the "largest untouched targets not on the 21 st Bomber Command priority list."

Document 5: Memorandum from J. R. Oppenheimer to Brigadier General Farrell,

Discussing the radiological dangers of a nuclear detonation, Oppenheimer explained to General Farrell, Groves's deputy, the need for precautions.

Top Secret

Scientists and officers held further discussion of bombing mission requirements, including height of detonation, weather, plans for possible mission abort, and the various aspects of target selection, including priority cities ("a large urban area of more than three miles diameter") and psychological dimension.

Document 7: Diary Entries, May 14 and 15, 1945
Source: Henry Stimson Diary, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, Henry Lewis Stimson Papers (microfilm at Library of Congress)

On May 14 and 15, Stimson had several conversations involving S-1 (the atomic bomb); during a talk with Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, he estimated that possession of the bomb gave Washington a tremendous advantage—"held all the cards," a "royal straight flush"-- in dealing with Moscow on post-war problems: "They can't get along without our help and industries and we have coming into action a weapon which will be unique." The next day a discussion of divergences with Moscow over the Far East made Stimson wonder whether the atomic bomb would be ready when Truman met with Stalin in July.If it was, he believed that the bomb would be the "master card" inU.S. diplomacy.This and other entries from the Stimson diary (as well as the entry from the Davies diary that follows) are important to arguments developed by Gar Alperovitz and Barton J. Bernstein, among others, although with significantly different emphases, that in light of controversies with the Soviet Union over Eastern Europe and other areas, top officials in the Truman administration believed that possessing the atomic bomb would provide them with significant leverage for inducing Moscow's acquiescence in U.S. objectives.

While officials at the Pentagon continued to look closely at the problem of atomic targets, President Truman, like Stimson, was thinking about the diplomatic implications of the bomb.During a conversation with Joseph E. Davies, a prominent Washington lawyer and former ambassador to the Soviet Union, Truman said that he wanted to delay talks with Stalin and Churchill until July when the first atomic device would have been tested. Alperovitz treats this entry as evidence in support of the atomic diplomacy argument, but other historians, ranging from Robert Maddox to Gabriel Kolko, deny that the timing of thePotsdam conference had anything to do with the goal of using the bomb to intimidate the Soviets.

Document 9: Minutes of Third Target Committee Meeting – Washington,

More updates on training missions, target selection, and conditions required for successful detonation over the target. "Pumpkins" referred to bright orange, pumpkin-shaped high explosive bombs—shaped like the "Fat Man" implosion weapon--used for bombing run test missions.

Document 10: General Lauris Norstad to Commanding General, XXI Bomber Command, "509th Composite Group; Special Functions,"
Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5g (copy from microfilm)

The 509 th Composite Group's cover story for its secret mission was the preparation of "Pumpkins" for use in battle.In this memorandum, Norstad reviewed the complex requirements for preparing B-29s and their crews for successful nuclear strikes.

Document 11: Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, "Memorandum of Conversation with General Marshall – ," Top Secret
Source: Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson ("Safe File"), July 1940-September 1945, box 12, S-1

Apparently dissenting from the Targeting Committee's recommendations, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall noted the "opprobrium which might follow from an ill considered employment of such force."This document has played a role in arguments developed by Barton J. Bernstein that a few figures such as Marshall and Stimson were "caught between an older morality that opposed the intentional killing of noncombatants and a newer one that stressed virtually total war."

With Secretary of War Stimson presiding, members of the committee heard reports on a variety of Manhattan Project issues, including the stages of development of the atomic project, problems of secrecy, the possibility of informing the Soviet Union, cooperation with "like-minded" powers, the military impact of the bomb on Japan, and the problem of "undesirable scientists." Interested in producing the "greatest psychological effect," the Committee members agreed that the "most desirable target would be a vital war plant employing a large number of workers and closely surrounded by workers' houses."Bernstein argues that this target choice represented an uneasy endorsement of "terror bombing"--the target was not exclusively military or civilian; nevertheless, workers' housing would include noncombatant men, women, and children.

Source: Record Group 165, Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs, American-British-Canadian Top Secret Correspondence, Box Document 13:General George A. Lincoln to General Hull,

504
, ABC 387 Japan ( )
George A. Lincoln, chief of the Strategy and Policy Group at the U.S. Army's Operations Department, commented on a memorandum by former President Herbert Hoover that Stimson had passed on for analysis.Hoover proposed a compromise solution withJapan that would allowTokyo to retain part of its empire in East Asia (includingKorea andJapan) as a way to head off Soviet influence in the region. WhileLincoln believed that the proposed peace teams were militarily acceptable he doubted that they were workable or that they could check Soviet "expansion" which he saw as an inescapable result of World War II.As to how the war withJapan would end, he saw it as "unpredictable" but speculated about "Russian entry into the war, combined with a landing, or imminent threat of a landing, onJapan proper by us, to convince them of the hopelessness of their situation."Lincoln deridedHoover's casualty estimate of 500,000.J. Samuel Walker has cited this document to make the point that "contrary to revisionist assertions, American policymakers in the summer of 1945 were far from certain that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria would be enough in itself to force a Japanese surrender."

In a memorandum to George Harrison, Stimson's special assistant on Manhattan Project matters, Arneson noted actions taken at the recent Interim Committee meetings, including target criteria and an attack "without prior warning."

Document 15:Memorandum of Conference with the President,

Stimson and Truman began this meeting by discussing how they should handle a conflict with French President deGaulle over the movement by French forces into Italian territory. (Truman finally cut off military aid to France to compel the French to pull back). As evident from the discussion, Stimson strongly disliked de Gaulle, whom he regarded as "psychopathic."The conversation soon turned to the atomic bomb, with some discussion about plans to inform the Soviets but only after a successful test.Both agreed that the possibility of a nuclear "partnership" withMoscow would depend on "quid pro quos": "the settlement of the Polish, Rumanian, Yugoslavian, and Manchurian problems."At the end, Stimson shared his doubts about targeting cities and killing civilians through area bombing because of its impact on theU.S.'s reputation as well as on the problem of finding targets for the atomic bomb.Barton Bernstein has also pointed to this as additional evidence of the influence on Stimson of "an older morality."

Document 16: Memorandum from Arthur B. Compton to the Secretary of War, enclosing "Memorandum on 'Political and Social Problems,' from Members of the 'Metallurgical Laboratory' of the University of Chicago," , Secret
Source: RG 77, MED Records, H-B files, folder no. 76 (copy from microfilm)

Physicists Leo Szilard and James Franck, a Nobel Prize winner, were on the staff of the "Metallurgical Laboratory" at the University ofChicago, a cover for the Manhattan Project program to produce fuel for the bomb. The outspoken Szilard was not involved in operational work on the bomb and General Groves kept him under surveillance, but Met Lab director found Szilard useful to have around.Concerned with the long-run implications of the bomb, Franck chaired a committee, in which Szilard and Eugene Rabinowitch were major contributors, that produced a report rejecting a surprise attack on Japan and recommended instead a demonstration of the bomb on the "desert or a barren island."Arguing that a nuclear arms race "will be on in earnest not later than the morning after our first demonstration of the existence of nuclear weapons," the committee saw international control as the alternative.That possibility would be difficult if theUnited States made first military use of the weapon.Arthur Compton, the "Met Lab's" director, raised doubts about the recommendations but urged Stimson to study the report. Martin Sherwin has argued that the Franck committee shared an important assumption with Truman et al.--that an "atomic attack againstJapan would 'shock' the Russians"--but drew entirely different conclusions about the import of such a shock.[14]

Document 17: Memorandum from Acting Secretary of State Joseph Grew to the President, "Analysis of Memorandum Presented by Mr. Hoover ,"
Source: Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson ("Safe File"), July 1940-September 1945, box 8, Japan (After December 7/41)

A former ambassador to Japan, Grew's knowledge of Japanese politics and culture informed his critical stance toward the concept of unconditional surrender.He believed it essential that theUnited States declare its intention to preserve the institution of the emperor.As he argued in this memorandum to President Truman, "failure on our part to clarify our intentions" on the status of the emperor "will insure prolongation of the war and cost a large number of human lives."Documents like this have played a role in arguments developed by Alperovitz that Truman and his advisers had alternatives to using the bomb such as modifying unconditional surrender and that anti-Soviet considerations weighed most heavily in their thinking. By contrast, Herbert P. Bix has argued that the Japanese leadership would "probably not" have "surrendered if the Truman administration had clarified the status of the emperor" when it demanded unconditional surrender.

Document 18: Memorandum from Chief of Staff Marshall to the Secretary of War,, enclosing "Memorandum of Comments on 'Ending the Japanese War,'"
Source: Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson ("Safe File"), July 1940-September 1945, box 8, Japan (After December 7/41)

Commenting on another memorandum by Herbert Hoover, George A. Lincoln discussed war aims, face-saving proposals for Japan, and the nature of the proposed declaration to the Japanese government, including the problem of defining "unconditional surrender."Lincoln argued against modifying the concept of unconditional surrender: if it is "phrased so as to invite negotiation" he saw risks of prolonging the war or a "compromise peace."J. Samuel Walker has observed that those risks help explain why senior officials were unwilling to modify the demand for unconditional surrender.

In a report to Stimson, Oppenheimer and colleagues on the scientific advisory panel--Arthur Compton, Ernest O. Lawrence, and Enrico Fermi--tacitly disagreed with the report of the "Met Lab" scientists.The panel argued for early military use but not before informing key allies about the atomic project to open a dialogue on "how we can cooperate in making this development contribute to improved international relations."

With the devastating battle for Okinawa winding up, Truman and his military advisers stepped back and considered the implications and requirements of the invasion ofJapan. In this meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff Truman reviewed plans to land troops on Kyushu on 1 November, heard a range of casualty estimates, and contemplated the possible impact of eventual Soviet entry into the war withJapan. This account hints at discussion of the atomic bomb ("certain other matters") but no documents disclose that part of the meeting.This document has figured in the highly complex debate over the estimates of casualties stemming from a possible invasion ofJapan.While post-war justifications for the bomb suggested that an invasion ofJapan could have produced very high levels of casualties (dead, wounded, or missing), from hundreds of thousands to a million, historians have vigorously debated the extent to which the post-war estimates were inflated.

This meeting has also played a role in the historical discussions of the alternatives to nuclear weapons use in the summer of 1945. According to accounts based on post-war recollections and interviews, McCloy raised the possibility of winding up the war by guaranteeing the preservation of the emperor albeit as a constitutional monarch.If that failed to persuade Tokyo, he proposed that theUnited States disclose the secret of the atomic bomb to secureJapan's unconditional surrender. While McCloy later recalled that Truman expressed interest, he said that Secretary of State Byrnes quashed the proposal because of his opposition to any "deals" withJapan.Yet, according to Forrest Pogue's account, when Truman asked McCloy if he had any comments, the latter opened up a discussion of nuclear weapons use by asking "Why not use the bomb?"

For Harrison's convenience, Arneson summarized key decisions made at the 21 June meeting of the Interim Committee, including a recommendation that President Truman use the forthcoming conference of allied leaders to inform Stalin about the atomic project. The Committee also reaffirmed earlier recommendations about the use of the bomb at the "earliest opportunity" and urban-industrial targets.In addition, it recommended revocation of part two of the 1944Quebec agreement which stipulated that neither theUnited States nor Great Britain would use the bomb "against third parties without each other's consent."Thus, an impulse for unilateral control of nuclear use decisions predated the first use of the bomb.

Reminding Stimson about the objections of some Manhattan project scientists to military use of the bomb, Harrison summarized the basic arguments of the Franck report.One recommendation shared by many of the scientists, whether they supported the Franck report or not, was that theUnited States should inform Stalin about the bomb before it was used.This proposal had been the subject of positive discussion by the Interim Committee on the grounds that Soviet confidence was necessary to make possible post-war cooperation on atomic energy.

Document 23: Memorandum from George L. Harrison to Secretary of War,, Top Secret, enclosing Ralph Bard "Memorandum on the Use of S-1 Bomb,"
Source: RG 77, MED, H-B files, folder no. 77 (copy from microfilm)

Under Secretary of the Navy Ralph Bard joined those scientists who sought to avoid military use of the bomb; he proposed a "preliminary warning" so that the United States would retain its position as a "great humanitarian nation."Alperovitz cites evidence that Bard discussed his proposal with Truman who told him that he had already thoroughly examined the problem of advanced warning. This document has also figured in the argument framed by Barton Bernstein that Truman and his advisers took it for granted that the bomb was a legitimate weapon and that there was no reason to explore alternatives to military use.Berstein, however, notes that Bard later denied that he had a meeting with Truman and that White House appointment logs support that claim.

Document 24: Memorandum for Mr. McCloy, "Comments re: Proposed Program for Japan ," , Draft, Top Secret

Despite the interest of some senior officials such as Joseph Grew, Henry Stimson, and John J. McCloy in modifying the concept of unconditional surrender so that the Japanese could be sure that the emperor would be preserved, it remained a highly contentious subject. For example, one of McCloy's staffers, Colonel Fahey, argued against modification of unconditional surrender (see "Appendix 'C`").

McCloy was part of a drafting committee that was working on the text of a proclamation to Japan which would be signed by heads of state at the forthcomingPotsdam conference.As McCloy observed the most contentious issue was whether the proclamation should include language about the preservation of the emperor: "This may cause repercussions at home but without it those who seem to know the most aboutJapan feel there would be very little likelihood of acceptance."

Document 26: Memorandum, "Timing of Proposed Demand for Japanese Surrender,"
Source: Record Group 107, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson ("Safe File"), July 1940-September 1945, box 8, Japan (After December 7/41)

Probably the work of General George A. Lincoln at Army Operations, this document was prepared a few weeks before the Potsdam conference when senior officials were starting to finalize the text of the declaration that Truman, Churchill, and Chiang would issue there.The author recommended issuing the declaration "just before the bombardment program [againstJapan] reaches its peak."Next to that suggestion, Stimson, or someone in his immediate office, wrote "S1", implying that the atomic bombing of Japanese cities was highly relevant to the timing issue.Also relevant to Japanese thinking about surrender, the author speculated, was the Soviet attack on their forces after a declaration of war.

Document 27: Minutes, Secretary's Staff Committee, Saturday Morning,
Source: Record Group 353, Records of Interdepartmental and Intradepartmental Committees, Secretary's Staff Meetings Minutes, 1944-1947 (copy from microfilm)

The possibility of modifying the concept of unconditional surrender so that it guaranteed the continuation of the emperor remained hotly contested within the U.S. government. Here senior State Department officials, Under Secretary Joseph Grew on one side, and Assistant Secretary Dean Acheson and Archibald MacLeish on the other, engage in hot debate.

Document 28: Combined Chiefs of Staff, "Estimate of the Enemy Situation (as of, C.C.S 643/3, , Secret (Appendices Not Included)
Source: RG 218, Central Decimal Files, 1943-1945, CCS 381 ( ), Sec. 2 Pt. 5

This review of Japanese capabilities and intentions portrays an economy and society under "tremendous strain"; nevertheless, "the ground component of the Japanese armed forces remains Japan's greatest military asset." Alperovitz sees statements in this estimate about the impact of Soviet entry into the war and the possibility of a conditional surrender involving survival of the emperor as an institution as more evidence that the policymakers saw alternatives to nuclear weapons use.By contrast, Richard Frank takes note of the estimate's depiction of the Japanese army's terms for peace: "for surrender to be acceptable to the Japanese army it would be necessary for the military leaders to believe that it would not entail discrediting the warrior tradition and that it would permit the ultimate resurgence of a military inJapan."That, Frank argues, would have been "unacceptable to any Allied policy maker".

Document 29: "Magic" – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1204 – July 12, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

The day after the Togo message was reported, Army intelligence chief Weckerling proposed several possible explanations of the Japanese diplomatic initiative. Robert J. Maddox has cited this document to support his argument that topU.S. officials recognized thatJapan was not close to surrender becauseJapan was trying to "stave off defeat."Having analyzed the document closely, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa argues that each of the three possibilities proposed by Weckerling "contained an element of truth, but none was entirely correct".For example, the "governing clique" that supported the peace moves was not trying to "stave off defeat" but was seeking Soviet help to end the war.

Source: Record Group 457, Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, "Magic" Diplomatic Summaries 1942-1945,

The day after he told Sato about the current thinking on Soviet mediation, Togo requested the Ambassador to see Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov and tell him of the emperor's "private intention to send Prince Konoye as a Special Envoy" to Moscow.Before he received Togo's message, Sato had already met with Molotov on another matter.

The draft of the proclamation to Japan that reached Truman contained language that modified unconditional surrender by promising to retain the emperor.When former Secretary of State Cordell Hull learned about that development he outlined his objections to Secretary of State Byrnes. The latter was already inclined to reject that part of the draft but Hull's arguments may have reinforced his decision.

Document 33:

Another intercept of a cable from Togo to Sato shows that the Foreign Minister rejected unconditional surrender and that the emperor was not "asking the Russian's mediation in anything like unconditional surrender."Incidentally, this "Magic' Diplomatic Summary" indicates the broad scope and capabilities of the program; for example, it includes translations of intercepted French messages (see pages 8-9).

[Page 14 missing from original]

Document 34: R. E. Lapp, Leo Szilard et al., "A Petition to the President of the United States ,"
Source: RG 77, MED Records, H-B files, folder no. 76 (copy from microfilm)

In a final effort to discourage military use of the bomb, Szilard circulated a petition, which he hoped would reach President Truman, and which was signed by about 68 Manhattan Project scientists, mainly physicists and biologists (copies with the remaining signatures are in the archival file). Not explicitly rejecting military use, the petition raised questions about an arms race that military use could inspire and called Truman to publicize detailed terms for Japanese surrender.Truman, already on his way to Europe, never saw the petition.

V. The Trinity Test, the Potsdam Conference, and the Execution Order

Document 35: Cable War 33556 from Harrison to Secretary of War, , Top Secret
Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File 5e (copy from microfilm)

An elated message from Harrison to Stimson reported on the success of the "Trinity" test of a plutonium implosion weapon.The light from the explosion could been seen "from here [Washington, D.C.] to "high hold" [Stimson's estate on Long Island—250 miles away]"and it was so loud that Harrison could have heard the "screams" from Washington, D.C. to "my farm" [in Upperville, VA, 50 miles away]

Document 36: Memorandum from General L. R. Groves to Secretary of War, "The Test," , Top Secret, Excised Copy
Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 4 (copy from microfilm)

The first atomic test took place in the New Mexico desert on 16 August.General Groves prepared for Stimson, then atPotsdam, a detailed account of the "Trinity" test.

Source:Takashi Itoh, ed., Document 37: Diary Entry for
Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] ( Tokyo ,Japan : Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), 916-917 [Translation by Hikaru Tajima]

In 1944 Navy minister Mitsumasa Yonai put rear admiral Sokichi Takagi on sick leave so that he could undertake a secret mission to find a way to end the war. Takaki was soon at the center of a cabal of Japanese defense officials, civil servants, and academics, which concluded that, in the end, the emperor would have to "impose his decision on the military and the government."Takagi kept a detailed account of his activities, part of which was in diary form, the other part of which he kept on index cards.The material that follows gives a sense of the state of play for Foreign Minister station chief Allen Dulles.The contacts never went far and Dulles never received encouragement to pursue them.Togo's attempt to secure Soviet mediation. Hasegawa cites it and other documents to make a larger point about the inability of the Japanese government to agree on "concrete" proposals to negotiate an end to the war.The last item discusses Japanese contacts with representatives of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) inSwitzerland. The reference to "our contact" may refer to Bank of International Settlements economist Pers Jacobbson who was in contact with Japanese representatives to the Bank as well as Gero von Gävernitz, then on the staff, but with non-official cover, of OSS [28]

Barton J. Bernstein, "Truman At Document 38: Truman's Potsdam Diary Potsdam: His Secret Diary," Foreign Service Journal, July/August 1980, excerpts, used with author's permission[29]

Some years after Truman died a hand-written diary that he kept during the Potsdam conference surfaced in his personal papers. For convenience Barton Bernstein's rendition is provided here but linked here are the scanned versions of Truman's handwriting on the Truman Library's web site (for 16 July and 17-30 July respectively).

The diary entries cover July 16, 17, 18, 20, 25, 26, and 30 and include Truman's thinking about a number of issues and developments, including his reactions to Churchill and Stalin, the atomic bomb and how it should be targeted, the possible impact of the bomb and a Soviet declaration of war on Japan, and his decision to tell Stalin about the bomb. Receptive to pressure from Secretary of War Stimson, Truman recorded his decision to take Japan's "old capital" (Kyoto) off the atomic bomb target list.Barton Bernstein and Richard Frank, among others, have argued that Truman's assertion that the atomic targets were "military objectives" suggested that either he did not understand the power of the new weapons or had simply deceived himself about the nature of the targets. Another statement—"Fini Japs when that [Soviet entry] comes about"—has also been the subject of controversy over whether it meant that Truman thought it possible that the war could end without an invasion ofJapan.

Source: Henry Stimson Diary, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, Henry Lewis Stimson Papers (microfilm at Library of Congress)

Stimson did not always have Truman's ear but historians have frequently cited his diary when he was at the Potsdam conference.There Stimson kept track of S-1 developments, including news of the successful first test (see entry for July 17) and the ongoing nuclear deployments for use againstJapan.When Truman received a detailed account of the test, Stimson reported that the "President was tremendously pepped up by it" and that "it gave him an entirely new feeling of confidence" (see entry for July 21). Whether this meant that Truman was getting ready for a confrontation with Stalin over Eastern Europe and other matters has also been the subject of debate.

An important question that Stimson discussed with Marshall, at Truman's request, was whether Soviet entry into the war remained necessary to secureTokyo's surrender.Marshall was not sure whether that was so although Stimson privately believed that the atomic bomb would suffice to force surrender (see entry for July 23).This entry has been cited by all sides of the controversy over whether Truman was trying to keep the Soviets out of the war. During a meeting on August 24, Truman agreed with Stimson thatKyoto,Japan's cultural capital, would not be one of the nuclear targets.For Stimson destroying that city could have caused such "bitterness" that it might have become impossible "to reconcile the Japanese to us in that area rather than to the Russians."Stimson vainly tried to preserve language in the Potsdam Declaration designed to assure the Japanese about "the continuance of their dynasty" but received Truman's assurance that such a consideration could be conveyed later through diplomatic channels (see entry for July 24). Hasegawa argues that Truman realized that the Japanese would refuse a demand for unconditional surrender without a proviso on a constitutional monarchy and that "he neededJapan's refusal to justify the use of the atomic bomb."
Documents 41 a-d: Framing the Directive for Nuclear Strikes:
This "Magic" summary includes messages from both Togo and Sato.In a long and impassioned message, the latter argued whyJapan must accept defeat: "it is meaningless to prove one's devotion [to the emperor] by wrecking the State."Togo rejected Sato's advice thatJapan accept unconditional surrender except for one provision: the "preservation of the Imperial House."Probably unable or unwilling to take a soft position in an official cable, Togo declared that "the whole country ... will pit itself against the enemy in accordance with the Imperial Will as long as the enemy demands unconditional surrender."

d. Cable VICTORY 261 from Marshall to General Handy, , , Top Secret

Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, Files no. 5b and 5e (copies from microfilm)

Apparently top Army Air Force commanders did not want to take responsibility for the first use of nuclear weapons on urban targets and sought formal authorization from Chief of Staff Marshall who was then in Potsdam.On 22 July Marshall asked Handy to prepare a draft; General Groves wrote a draft which went toPotsdam forMarshall's approval.Colonel John Stone, an assistant to commanding General of the Army Air Forces Henry H. "Hap"Arnold, had just returned fromPotsdam and updated his boss on the plans as they had developed. On 25 July Marshall informed Handy that Secretary of War Stimson had approved the text; that same day, Handy signed off on a directive which ordered use of atomic weapons on Japan, with the first weapon assigned to one of four possible targets—Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, or Nagasaki. "Additional bombs will be delivered on the [targets] as soon as made ready by the project staff."

Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal was a regular recipient of "Magic" intercept reports; this substantial entry reviews the dramatic Sato-Togo exchanges covered in the 22 July "Magic" summary (although Forrestal misdated Sato's cable as "first of July" instead of the 21 st).In contrast to Alperovitz's argument that Forrestal tried to modify the terms of unconditional surrender to give the Japanese an out, Frank sees Forrestal's account of the Sato-Togo exchange as additional evidence that seniorU.S. officials understood thatTokyo was not on the "cusp of surrender."

Having been asked by Truman to join the delegation to the Potsdam conference, former Ambassador Davies sat at the table with the Big Three throughout the discussions. This diary entry has figured in the argument that Byrnes believed that the atomic bomb gave theUnited States a significant advantage in negotiations with the Soviet Union.Plainly Davies thought otherwise.

The day before the governments of China,Great Britain, and theUnited States had issued thePotsdam Declaration demanding the "unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces. "The alternative is prompt and utter destruction."In response to questions from journalists about the government's reaction to the ultimatum, apparently Prime Minister Suzuki said that "We can only ignore [ mokusatsu] it. We will do our utmost to complete the war to the bitter end."That, Bix argues, represents a "missed opportunity" to end the war and spare the Japanese from continuedU.S. aerial attacks.Togo's private position was more nuanced than Suzuki's; he told Sato that "we are adopting a policy of careful study."That Stalin had not signed the declaration (Truman and Churchill did not ask him to) led to questions about the Soviet attitude.Togo asked Sato to try to meet with Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov as soon as possible to "sound out the Russian attitude" on the declaration as well as Japan's end-the-war initiative. Sato cabledTogo earlier that he saw no point in approaching the Soviets on ending the war untilTokyo had "concrete proposals." "Any aid from the Soviets has now become extremely doubtful."

With more information on the Alamogordo test available,Groves providedMarshall with more detail on the destructive power of atomic weapons. Barton J. Berstein has observed thatGroves's recommendation that troops could move into the "immediate explosion area" within a half hour demonstrates the prevalent lack of knowledge of the dangers of nuclear weapons effects.Groves also provided the schedule for the delivery of the weapons: the components of the gun-type bomb to be used onHiroshima had arrived on Tinian, while the parts of the second weapon to be dropped were leaving San Francisco. By the end of November over ten weapons would be available, presumably in the event the war had continued.

This report included an intercept of a message from Sato who reported that it was impossible to see Molotov and that unless Togo had a "concrete and definite plan for terminating the war" he saw no point in attempting to meet with the Soviet Foreign Minister.

An intercepted message from Togo to Sato showed thatTokyo remained interested in securingMoscow's good office but that it "is difficult to decide on concrete peace conditions here at home all at once.""[W]e are exerting ourselves to collect the views of all quarters on the matter of concrete terms."Barton Bernstein, Richard Frank, and Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, among others, have argued that the "Magic" intercepts from the end of July and early August show that the Japanese were far from ready to surrender. According to Herbert Bix, for months Hirohito had believed that the "outlook for a negotiated peace could be improved ifJapan fought and won one last decisive battle," thus, Hirohito delayed surrender, continuing to "procrastinate until the bomb was dropped and the Soviets attacked."

This summary included intercepts of Japanese diplomatic reporting on the Soviet buildup in the Far East as well as a naval intelligence report on Anglo-American discussions ofU.S. plans for the invasion ofJapan.Part II of the summary includes the rest ofTogo's 2 August cable which instructed Sato to do what he could to arrange an interview with Molotov.

Source: Clemson University Libraries, Special Collections, Clemson, SC; Mss 243, Walter J. Brown Papers, box 10, folder 12, Byrnes, James F.: Potsdam, Minutes, July-August 1945
Documents 50a-c: Weather delays
A number of scholars have used this item in the papers of Byrne's aide, Walter Brown, to make a variety of points. Richard Frank sees this brief discussion of Japan's interest in Soviet diplomatic assistance as crucial evidence that Admiral Leahy had been sharing "MAGIC" information with President Truman.He also points out that Truman and his colleagues had no idea what was behind Japanese peace moves, only that Suzuki had declared that he would "ignore" the Potsdam Declaration. Alperovitz, however, treats it as additional evidence that "strongly suggests" that Truman saw alternatives to using the bomb.

Document 50a: CG 313th Bomb Wing, Tinian cable APCOM 5112 to War Department, , Top Secret

Document 50b: CG 313th Bomb Wing, Tinian cable APCOM 5130 to War Department, , Top Secret

Source: RG 77, Document 50c: CG 313th Bomb Wing, Tinian Tinian Files, April-December 1945, (copies courtesy of Barton Bernstein) cable APCOM 5155 to War Department, , Top Secret

The Hiroshima "operation" was originally slated to begin in early August depending on local conditions.As these cables indicate, reports of unfavorable weather delayed the plan. The second cable on 4 August shows that the schedule advanced to late in the evening of 5 August.The transcriptions on the documents appear on the archival originals.

Document 51: "Magic" – Far East Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, no. 502,

This "Far East Summary" included reports on the Japanese army's plans to disperse fuel stocks to reduce vulnerability to bombing attacks, the text of a directive by the commander of naval forces on "Operation Homeland," the preparations and planning to repel a U.S. invasion of Honshu, and the specific identification of army divisions located in, or moving into, Kyushu. Both Richard Frank and Barton Bernstein have used intelligence reporting and analysis of the major buildup of Japanese forces on southern Kyushu to argue that U.S. military planners were so concerned about that development that by early August 1945 they were reconsidering their invasion plans.

Document 52

VI. The First Nuclear Strikes
This summary included several intercepted messages from Sato, who conveyed his despair and exasperation over what he saw as Tokyo's inability to develop terms for ending the war: "[I]f the Government and the Military dilly-dally in bringing this resolution to fruition, then all Japan will be reduced to ashes."Sato remained skeptical that the Soviets would have any interest in discussions with Tokyo: "it is absolutely unthinkable thatRussia would ignore the Three Power Proclamation and then engage in conversations with our special envoy."

How influential the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and later Nagasaki compared to the impact of the Soviet declaration of war were on the Japanese decision to surrender has been the subject of controversy among historians. Sadao Asada emphasizes the shock of the atomic bombs, while Herbert Bix has suggested that Hiroshima and the Soviet declaration of war made Hirohito and his court believe that failure to end the war could lead to the destruction of the imperial house. Frank and Hasegawa divide over the impact of the Soviet declaration of war, with Frank declaring that the Soviet intervention was "significant but not decisive" and Hasegawa arguing that the two atomic bombs "were not sufficient to change the direction of Japanese diplomacy. The Soviet invasion was." [42]
Documents 55a and 55b: Early High-level Reactions to the Hiroshima Bombing
The Soviets already knew about the U.S. atomic project from espionage sources in theUnited States and Britain so Molotov's comment to Ambassador Harriman about the secrecy surrounding theU.S. atomic project can be taken with a grain of salt, although the Soviets may have been unaware of specific plans for nuclear use.

Document 55a: Cabinet Meeting and Togo's Meeting with the Emperor, August 7-8, 1945
Source: Gaimusho (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) ed. Shusen Shiroku (The Historical Records of the End of the War), annotated by Jun Eto, volume 4, 57-60 [Excerpts] [Translation by Toshihiro Higuchi]

Source:Takashi Itoh, ed., Document 55b: Diary Entry for Wednesday, August 8, 1945
Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] ( Tokyo ,Japan : Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), 923-924 [Translation by Hikaru Tajima]

Ground Zero at Hiroshima Today: This was the site of Shima Hospital; the atomic explosion occurred 1,870 feet above it (Photo courtesy of Lynn Eden, www.wholeworldonfire.com)

Excerpts from the Foreign Ministry's compilation about the end of the war show how news of the bombing reached Tokyo as well as how Foreign Minister's Togo initially reacted to reports about Hiroshima. When he learned of the atomic bombing from the Domei News Agency, Togo believed that it was time to give up and advised the cabinet that the atomic attack provided the occasion for Japan to surrender on the basis of the Potsdam Declaration. Togo could not persuade the cabinet, however, and the Army wanted to delay any decisions until it had learned what had happened to Hiroshima. When the Foreign Minister met with the Emperor, Hirohito agreed with him; he declared that the top priority was an early end to the war, although it would be acceptable to seek better surrender terms--probably U.S. acceptance of a figure-head emperor--if it did not interfere with that goal. In light of those instructions, Togo and Prime Minister Suzuki agreed that the Supreme War Council should meet the next day. [42a]

An entry from Admiral Tagaki's diary for August 8 conveys more information on the mood in elite Japanese circles after Hiroshima, but before the Soviet declaration of war and the bombing of Nagasaki. Seeing the bombing of Hiroshima as a sign of a worsening situation at home, Tagaki worried about further deterioration. Nevertheless, his diary suggests that military hard-liners were very much in charge and that Prime Minister Suzuki was talking tough against surrender, by evoking last ditch moments in Japanese history and warning of the danger that subordinate commanders might not obey surrender orders. The last remark aggravated Navy Minister Yonai who saw it as irresponsible. That the Soviets had made no responses to Sato's request for a meeting was understood as a bad sign; Yonai realized that the government had to prepare for the possibility that Moscow might not help. One of the visitors mentioned at the beginning of the entry was Iwao Yamazaki who became Minister of the Interior in the next cabinet.

General Douglas MacArthur had been slated as commander for military operations against Japan's mainland, but this letter to Truman from Forrestal shows that the latter believed that the matter was not so settled. Richard Frank sees this as evidence of the uncertainty felt by senior officials about the situation in early August;Forrestal would not have been so "audacious" to take an action that could ignite a "political firestorm" if he "seriously thought the end of the war was near."

Shortly after the Soviets declared war on Japan, in line with commitments made at theYalta andPotsdam conferences, Ambassador Harriman met with Stalin, with George Kennan keeping theU.S. record of the meeting. After Stalin reviewed in considerable detail Soviet military gains in the Far East, they discussed the possible impact of the atomic bombing onJapan's position (Nagasaki had not yet been attacked) and the dangers and difficulty of an atomic weapons program.According to Hasegawa, this was an important, even "startling," conversation: it showed that Stalin "took the atomic bomb seriously"; moreover, he disclosed that the Soviets were working on their own atomic program.

Document 58: Memorandum of Conference with the President, at
Source: Henry Stimson Diary, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, Henry Lewis Stimson Papers (microfilm at Library of Congress)

At their first meeting after the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima, Stimson briefed Truman on the scale of the destruction, with Truman recognizing the "terrible responsibility" that was on his shoulder.Consistent with his earlier attempts, Stimson encouraged Truman to find ways to expediteJapan's surrender by using "kindness and tact" and not treating them in the same way as the Germans.They also discussed postwar legislation on the atom and the pending Henry D. Smyth report on the scientific work underlying theManhattan Project and postwar domestic control of the atom.

Documents 59 a-c: The Attack on Nagasaki :

b. COMGENAAF 8 cable CMDW 576 to COMGENUSASTAF, for General Farrell, August 9, 1945, Top secret

Source: RG 77, c. COMGENAAF 20 Guam cable AIMCCR 5532 to COMGENUSASTAF Guam,August 10, 1945, Top Secret
Tinian Files, April-December 1945, , Envelope G Tinian Files, Top Secret
Document 60: Ramsey Letter from Tinian Island
The prime target for the second atomic attack was Kokura, which had a large army arsenal and ordnance works, but various problems ruled that city out; instead, the crew of the B-29 that carried "Fat Man" flew to an alternate target at Nagasaki. These cables are the earliest reports of the mission; the bombing of Nagasaki killed immediately at least 39,000 people with more dying later. According to Frank, the "actual total of deaths due to the atomic bombs will never be known," but the "huge number" ranges somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people. Barton J. Bernstein and Martin Sherwin have argued that if top Washington policymakers had kept tight control of the delivery of the bomb instead of delegating it to Groves the attack on Nagasaki could have been avoided. The combination of the first bomb and the Soviet declaration of war would have been enough to induce Tokyo's surrender. By contrast, Maddox argues that Nagasaki was necessary so that Japanese "hardliners" could not "minimize the first explosion" or otherwise explain it away.

a. Letter from Norman Ramsey to J. Robert Oppenheimer, undated [mid-August 1945], Secret, excerpts
Source: Library of Congress, J. Robert Oppenheimer Papers, , Ramsey, Norman

b. Transcript of the letter prepared by editor.
VII. Toward Surrender
Ramsey, a physicist, served as deputy director of the bomb delivery group, Project Alberta. This personal account, written on Tinian, reports his fears about the danger of a nuclear accident, the confusion surrounding theNagasaki attack, and early Air Force thinking about a nuclear strike force.

Within days after the bombing of Hiroshima,U.S. military intelligence intercepted Japanese reports on the destruction of the city.According to an "Eyewitness Account (and Estimates Heard) ... In Regard to the Bombing of Hiroshima": "Casualties have been estimated at 100,000 persons."

Source: Zenshiro Hoshina, War: Memoir of Zenshiro Hoshina] (Tokyo, Japan: Hara-Shobo, 1975), excerpts from Section 5, "The Emperor made Document 62: "Hoshina Memorandum" on the Emperor's "Sacred Decision [go-seidan]," 9-10 August, 1945
Daitoa Senso Hishi: Hoshina Zenshiro Kaiso-roku [Secret History of the Greater East Asia go-seidan [= the sacred decision] – the decision to terminate the war," 139-149 [translation by Hikaru Tajima]

Despite the bombing of Hiroshima, the Soviet declaration of war, and growing worry about domestic instability, the Japanese cabinet (whose decisions required unanimity) could not form a consensus to accept the Potsdam Declaration. Members of the Supreme War Council—"the Big Six"—wanted the reply toPotsdam to include at least four conditions (e.g., no occupation, voluntary disarmament); they were willing to fight to the finish. The peace party, however, deftly maneuvered to break the stalemate by persuading a reluctant emperor to intervene. According to Hasegawa, Hirohito had become convinced that the preservation of the monarchy was at stake. Late in the evening of 9 August, the emperor and his advisers met in the bomb shelter of the Imperial Palace.

Zenshiro Hoshina, a senior naval official, attended the conference and prepared a detailed account.With Prime Minister Suzuki presiding, each of the ministers had a chance to state his view directly to Hirohito.While Army Minister Anami tacitly threatened a coup ("civil war"), the emperor accepted the majority view that the reply to the Potsdam declaration should include only one condition not the four urged by "Big Six." Nevertheless, the condition that Hirohito accepted was not the one that foreign ministerTogo had brought to the conference.What was at stake was the definition of the kokutai (national policy).Togo's proposal would have been generally consistent with a constitutional monarchy because it defined the kokutai narrowly as the emperor and the imperial household.What Hirohito accepted, however, was a proposal by the extreme nationalist Kiichiro Hiranuma which drew upon prevailing understandings of the kokutai: the "mythical notion" that the emperor was a living god. "This was the affirmation of the emperor's theocratic powers, unencumbered by any law, based on Shinto gods in antiquity, and totally incompatible with a constitutional monarchy."Thus, the Japanese response to thePotsdam declaration opposed "any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of his Majesty as a sovereign ruler."This proved to be unacceptable to the Truman administration.

Document 63: "Magic" – Far East Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, no. 508,

Documents 64 a-b: The First Japanese Offer Intercepted
More intercepted messages on the bombing of Hiroshima.

a. "Magic" – Diplomatic Summary, War Department, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, No. 1233 – August 10, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

b. Translation of intercepted Japanese messages, circa 10 August 10, 1945, Top Secret Ultra

The first Japanese surrender offer was intercepted shortly before Tokyo broadcast it. This issue of the diplomatic summary also includesTogo's account of his notification of the Soviet declaration of war, reports of Soviet military operations in the Far East, and intercepts of French diplomatic traffic.A full translation of the surrender offer was circulated separately.The translations differ but they convey the sticking point that preventedU.S. acceptance:Tokyo's condition that the Potsdam Declaration "not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler."

Source: Papers of Henry A. Wallace, Special Collections Department, Document 65: Diary Entry,
University of Iowa Libraries ,Iowa City, Iowa (copy courtesy of Special Collections Department)

Note: The second page of the diary entry includes a newspaper clipping of the Associated Press's transmission of the Byrnes note. Unfortunately, AP would not authorize the Archive to reproduce this item without payment.Therefore, we are publishing an excised version of the entry, with a link to the Byrnes note.

Secretary of Commerce (and former Vice President) Henry Wallace provided a detailed report on the cabinet meeting where Truman and his advisers discussed the Japanese surrender offer, Russian moves into Manchuria, and public opinion on "hard" surrender terms. With Japan close to capitulation, Truman asserted presidential control and ordered a halt to the atomic bombings.Barton J. Bernstein has suggested that Truman's comment about "all those kids" showed his belated recognition that the bomb caused mass casualties and that the target was not purely a military one.

Source: Henry Stimson Diary, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, Henry Lewis Stimson Papers (microfilm at Library of Congress)

Stimson's account of the events of 10 August focused on the debate over the substance of the reply to the Japanese note, especially the question of the emperor's status.The U.S. reply, drafted during the course of the day, did not explicitly reject the Japanese note but suggested that any notion about the "prerogatives" of the emperor would be superceded by the concept that all Japanese would be "Subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers." The language was ambiguous enough to enable Japanese readers, upon Hirohito's urging, to believe that they could decide for themselves the emperor's future role. Stimson accepted the language believing that a speedy reply to the Japanese was necessary so that theUnited States could "get the homeland into our hands before the Russians could put in any substantial claim to occupy and help rule it." If the Note had included specific provision for a constitutional monarchy, Hasegawa argues, it would have "taken the wind out of the sails" of the military faction andJapan might have surrendered several days earlier, on August 11 or 12 instead of August 14.

Source: George C. Marshall Papers, George C. Marshall Library, Document 67: General L. R. Groves to Chief of Staff George C. Marshall,
Lexington ,VA (copy courtesy of Barton J. Bernstein)

Japan's prospective surrender was the subject of detailed discussion between Harriman, British Ambassador Kerr, and Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov during the evening of August 10 (with a follow-up meeting occurring at ).In the course of the conversation, Harriman received a message fromWashington that included the proposedU.S. reply and a request for Soviet support of the reply.After considerable pressure from Harriman, the Soviets signed off on the reply but not before tensions surfaced over the control ofJapan--whetherMoscow would have a Supreme Commander there as well. This marked the beginning of a U.S.-Soviet "tug of war" overoccupation arrangements forJapan.

Source:Takashi Itoh, ed., Document 69: Diary Entry for August 12 [, 1945]
Sokichi Takagi: Nikki to Joho [Sokichi Takagi: Diary and Documents] (Tokyo ,Japan : Misuzu-Shobo, 2000), 926-927 [Translation by Hikaru Tajima]

As various factions in the government were maneuvering on how to respond to the Byrnes note, Navy Minister Yonai and Admiral Tagaki discussed the latest developments.Yonai was upset that Chief of Staff Yoshijiro Umezu and naval chief Suemu Toyada had sent the emperor a memorandum arguing that acceptance of the Brynes note would "desecrate the emperor's dignity" and turn Japan into virtually a "slave nation." The emperor chided Umezu and Toyoda for drawing hasty conclusions; in this he had the support of Yonai, who also dressed them down. As Yonai explained to Tagaki, he also confronted naval vice chief Takijiro Onishi to make sure that he too obeyed any decision by the emperor.Yonai made sure that Takagi understood his reasons for bringing the war to an end and why he believed that the atomic bomb and the Soviet declaration of war were making it easier forJapan to surrender.

Not altogether certain that surrender was imminent, Army intelligence did not rule out the possibility that Tokyo would try to "drag out the negotiations" or reject the Byrnes proposal and continue fighting. If the Japanese decided to keep fighting, G-2 opined that "Atomic bombs will not have a decisive effect in the next 30 days."Richard Frank has pointed out that this and other documents show that high level military figures remained unsure as to how closeJapan really was to surrender.

Source
: Gaimusho [Ministry of Foreign Affairs], ed., Shusen Shiroku [ Historical Record of the End of the War] (Tokyo: Hokuyosha, 1977-1978), vol. 5, 27-35 [Translated by Toshihiro Higuchi]

The Byrnes Note did not break the stalemate at the cabinet level. An account of the cabinet debates on August 13 prepared by Director of Information Toshiro Shimomura showed the same divisions as before with Anami and a few other ministers continuing to argue that the Allies threatened the kokutai and that setting the four conditions (no occupation, etc.) did not mean that the war would continue. Nevertheless, Anami argued, "We are still left with some power to fight." Suzuki, who was working quietly with the peace party, declared that the Allied terms were acceptable because they gave a "dim hope in the dark" of preserving the emperor. At the end of the meeting, he announced that he would report to Hirohito and ask him to make another "Sacred Judgment".Meanwhile, junior Army officers plotted a coup to thwart the plans for surrender.

Source: George C. Marshall Library, Document 72: Telephone conversation transcript, General Hull and Colonel Seaman [sic] – 1325 –
Lexington ,VA , George C. Marshall Papers (copy courtesy of Barton J. Bernstein)

While Truman had rescinded the order to drop nuclear bombs, the war was not yet over and uncertainty about Japan's next step motivated war planner General John E. Hull (assistant chief of staff for the War Department's Operations Division), and one of Groves' associates, Colonel L. E. Seeman, to continue thinking about further nuclear use and its relationship to the problem of an invasion of Japan.AsHull explained, "should we not concentrate on targets that will be of greatest assistance to an invasion rather than industry, morale, psychology, etc." "Nearer the tactical use", Seeman agreed and they discussed the tactics that could be used for beach landings.In 1991 articles, Barton Bernstein and Marc Gallicchio used this and other documents to develop the argument that concepts of tactical nuclear weapons use first came to light at the close of World War II.

That important elements in the Japanese Army were unwilling to surrender is evident from intercepted messages dated 12 and 13 August. Willingness to accept the "destruction of the Army and Navy" rather than surrender inspired the military coup that unfolded and failed during the night of 14 August.

Document 74: "The Second Sacred Judgment",
Source: Hiroshi [Kaian) Shimomura, Shusenki [Account of the End of the War] (Tokyo, Kamakura Bunko, [1948], 148-152 [Translated by Toshihiro Higuchi]

This summary includes an intercepted account of the destruction of Nagasaki.

Document 76: Memorandum of Telephone Conversation Between General Groves and Lt. Col. Rea, Oak Ridge Hospital, 9:00 a.m., August 28, 1945, Top Secret
Source: RG 77, MED Records, Top Secret Documents, File no. 5b
Documents 77a-b: General Farrell Surveys the Destruction
Despite the reports pouring in from Japan about radiation sickness among the victims ofHiroshima andNagasaki, General Groves and Dr. Charles Rea were not ready to accept the evidence and dismissed the news as "propaganda". For them the injuries were nothing more than "good thermal burns."

Source: RG 77, b. Cable CAX 51948 from Commander in Chief Army Forces Pacific Advance Yokohoma Japan Tinian Files, April-December 1945, , Envelope B to Commander in Chief Army Forces Pacific Administration, , Secret

A month after the attacks Groves's deputy, General Farrell, traveled toJapan to see for himself the destruction ofHiroshima andNagasaki.His vivid accounts show that senior military officials in the Manhattan Project were no longer dismissive of reports of radiation poisoning.As he observed in his discussion ofHiroshima, "Summaries of Japanese reports previously sent are essentially correct, as to clinical effects from single gamma radiation dose."

. Walker (2005), 319-320.

.Alperovitz, 242, 245; Frank, 219.

.Hasegawa, 168; Bix, 518.

[43] .Frank, 300.

[51] .Hasegawa, 228-229, 232.

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The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II: A Collection of Primary Sources

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Note: The following documents are in PDF format. Washington, D.C., August 5, 2005 - Sixty years ago this month, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, and the Japanese government surrendered to the United States and its allies.

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The Central Intelligence Agency participated in every aspect of the wars in Indochina, political and military, according to newly declassified CIA histories. The six volumes of formerly secret histories (the Agency's belated response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by National Security Archive senior fellow John Prados) document CIA activities in South and North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in unprecedented detail. The histories contain a great deal of new material and shed light on aspects of the CIA's work that were not well known or were poorly understood.

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Washington, D.C., August 26, 2009 - The Central Intelligence Agency participated in every aspect of the wars in Indochina, political and military, according to newly declassified CIA histories. The six volumes of formerly secret histories (the Agency’s belated response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by National Security Archive senior fellow John Prados) document CIA activities in South and North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in unprecedented detail. The histories contain a great deal of new material and shed light on aspects of the CIA’s work that were not well known or were poorly understood. The new revelations include:

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From 1950 to 1975, Air America served alongside U.S. and allied intelligence agents and military personnel in the Far East, often in dangerous combat and combat support roles. Behind a shroud of strict secrecy, many Air America personnel were unaware that they were "shadow people" in counterinsurgency operations.

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Adventure, intrigue, danger, sacrifice, and patriotism--words that fit Air America well. The United States Government owned Air America during the Cold War against the global menace of communism. From 1950 to 1975, Air America served alongside U.S. and allied intelligence agents and military personnel in the Far East, often in dangerous combat and combat support roles. Behind a shroud of strict secrecy, many Air America personnel were unaware that they were

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The Children in Urban America Project, an online archive funded by Marquette University and the National Endowment for the Humanities, shows the many ways children experienced city life during the last century and a half.

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Introduction - Children in Urban America - Marquette University

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Welcome to the Children in Urban America Project, an online archive funded by Marquette University and the National Endowment for the Humanities that shows the many ways children experienced city life during the last century and a half. Designed for use by teachers, students, historians, and general users, the site features hundreds of documents and images about children in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, drawn from newspapers, government and other official records, oral histories and memoirs, and many other sources. If you’re a first-time user, please select “How to use this site,” where you will find out more about the project and how to find newspaper articles, memoirs and other documents. Otherwise, feel free to begin your child’s-eye journey through the history of Milwaukee.

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In 2000, the Latinx History Project, formerly known as the Latino GLBT History Project, was founded to collect, preserve and share Latinx LQBTQ history. LHP was founded by leaders who had been at the front lines of multiple civil rights movements across race, ethnicity and sexual orientation.

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This has thousands of digitized sources from University of Massachusetts-Amherst. DuBois was a Black activist, author, historian, and sociologist and one of the most influential thinkers of the early twentieth century.

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Slavery and Abolition in the U.S.: Select Publications of the 1800s is a digital collection of books and pamphlets that demonstrate the varying ideas and beliefs about slavery in the United States as expressed by Americans throughout the nineteenth century. The works in this collection reflect arguments on both sides of the slavery debate and include first person narratives, legal proceedings and decisions, anti-slavery tracts, religious sermons, and early secondary works.

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Introduction

Slavery and Abolition in the US: Select Publications of the 1800s is a digital collection of books and pamphlets that demonstrate the varying ideas and beliefs about slavery in the United States as expressed by Americans throughout the nineteenth century. The works in this collection reflect arguments on both sides of the slavery debate and include first person narratives, legal proceedings and decisions, anti-slavery tracts, religious sermons, and early secondary works. The publications are all drawn from the holdings of the Millersville University Library and the Dickinson College Library, as well as each of their respective Special Collections Departments. The collection includes more than 24,000 individual pages of printed text and corresponding searchable transcriptions. This online resource is made freely available to the public, and we hope that providing these rare and important research materials will enhance teaching and learning, at all levels of instruction, about this complex issue.

Acknowledgment

Slavery and Abolition in the US: Select Publications of the 1800s was supported in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in association with Millersville University and Dickinson College.

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Slavery and Abolition in the US: Select Publications of the 1800s is a digital collection of books and pamphlets that demonstrate the varying ideas and beliefs about slavery in the United States as expressed by Americans throughout the nineteenth century.

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This consists of three databases: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, the Intra-American Slave Trade Database, and the African Names Database.

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Drawing on extensive archival records, this digital memorial allows analysis of the ships, traders, and captives in the Atlantic slave trade. The three databases below provide details of 36,000 trans-Atlantic slave voyages, 10,000 intra-American ventures, names and personal information. You can rea…

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This consists of three databases: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, the Intra-American Slave Trade Database, and the African Names Database.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Drawing on extensive archival records, this digital memorial allows analysis of the ships, traders, and captives in the Atlantic slave trade. The three databases below provide details of 36,000 trans-Atlantic slave voyages, 10,000 intra-American ventures, names and personal information. You can rea…

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This is a collection of more than 700,000 digitized pages of all known archival and manuscript materials in the Harvard Library that relate to 17th- and 18th-century North America.

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Explore manuscript materials in the Harvard Library that relate to 17th- and 18th-century North America.

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Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America

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Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America

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This Library of Congress database was originally published as a seven-volume set between 1904 and 1905, Senate Document No. 234 of the U.S. Serial Set, 58th Congress, 2nd session.

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Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America (1861-1865) | Century Presentations | Articles and Essays | A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates 1774-1875 | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

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The Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, 1861-1865 was printed in a seven-volume set between 1904 and 1905 as Senate Document No. 234 of the U.S. Serial Set, 58th Congress, 2nd session.

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Virginia Military Institute Digital Materials

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Virginia Military Institute Digital Materials

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Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is the United States's first government-supported military college, founded in 1839. This contains over 1,000 materials stretching from its founding into the 21st century.

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This is a digital version of the four-volume Proceedings of the Virginia Convention of 1861 published by the Library of Virginia in 1965. On February 13, 1861, delegates representing all counties in Virginia met to decide how the state would respond to recent events, especially Abraham Lincoln's election and South Carolina's secession. They voted to remain in the Union and hoped that a compromise could be reached to defuse the situation. Two months later, the same men voted to secede from the United States, sparking a radically different war than might otherwise have taken place.

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South Carolina and the Civil War brings together eyewitness views and accounts of this period of American history, selected from the rich holdings of University of South Carolina Libraries. Books, diaries, sheet music, maps, letters, photographs and illustrations all provide glimpses of everyday life during exceptional times.

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Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery aims to identify, digitize, transcribe, and publish ads placed in newspapers across the United States (and beyond) by formerly enslaved people searching for family members and loved ones after emancipation. These ads not only document the extensive separation of Black families through the domestic slave trade but also attest to the persistent efforts thousands of people made to reunite with those from whom they had been separated.

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Not just for modern newspapers! Google News Archives includes many older newspapers as well, organized alphabetically--but, it is not being updated.

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Adams County News 354 issues Nov 28, 1908 - Aug 25, 1917

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Newspapers that may not be archived elsewhere are available here, although some sources may require a subscription.

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I found obituaries, marriage, birth and death dates of family members I never knew existed.

My family certainly were not among the town's most prominent residents. However, you wouldn't believe the hundreds of obituaries, marriages, birth and death dates about my family I have found in GenealogyBank. I was truly, honestly, astounded. GenealogyBank is one of the best investments I have ever made.

Donna, Genealogybank.com member

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Genealogy, Family History & Ancestry Search | GenealogyBank

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Find billions of genealogy records from newspapers to obituaries and more. Discover the stories of your ancestors. Trace your family history back to 1690!

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Created to control the movement of enslaved people, runaway ads ultimately preserved the details of individual lives--their personality, appearance, and life story. Taken collectively, these ads constitute a detailed, concise, and rare source of information about the experiences of enslaved people. With your help, Freedom on the Move will serve as a research aid, pedagogical tool, and a resource for genealogists.

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Created to control the movement of enslaved people, runaway ads ultimately preserved the details of individual lives--their personality, appearance, and life story. Taken collectively, these ads constitute a detailed, concise, and rare source of information about the experiences of enslaved people. With your help, Freedom on the Move will serve as a research aid, pedagogical tool, and a resource for genealogists.

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This is a joint digital /print documentary editing project focused on the papers of the eighth president, including his letters, speeches, notes, and miscellaneous material. When completed, this website will contain approximately 14,000 transcribed Van Buren papers.

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Since beginning its work in 1958, the project has published thirteen volumes of the Correspondence of James K. Polk. All are held by numerous libraries and are available online. In 2019 the project completed work on volume 14, which covers the last year of Polk’s presidency and his brief retirement.

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Based in the History Department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, the James K. Polk Project sought to locate all extant letters by or to the United States' eleventh president (1845-49) and to publish an annotated edition of selected letters in print and online. Students, scholars, and all interested in U.S. history can use these resources to learn about one of the most consequential presidents and about a key period in the country's development.

Since beginning its work in 1958, the project has published thirteen volumes of the Correspondence of James K. Polk. All are held by numerous libraries and are available for purchase. They also are available online for free. In 2019 the project completed work on volume 14, which covers the last year of Polk's presidency and his brief retirement. It will be released in the fall of 2020. In the meantime, you can read most of the letters for that volume, without annotation, online.

Please explore this website to learn more about Polk and the project. You can find the project's Twitter feed @Polk_Project.

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The James K. Polk Project | Home of the Correspondence of James K. Polk

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Based in the History Department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, the James K. Polk Project sought to locate all extant letters by or to the United States' eleventh president (1845-49) and to publish an annotated edition of selected letters in print and online. Students, scholars, and all interested in U.S.

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The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) holds five million Federal land title records issued between 1788 and the present. They also have images of survey plats and field notes, land status records, and control document index records. This site does not currently contain every Federal title record issued for the Public Land States.

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Survey plats are part of the official record of a cadastral survey. Surveying is the art and science of measuring the land to locate the limits of an owner's interest thereon. A cadastral survey is a survey which creates, marks, defines, retraces or re-establishes the boundaries and subdivisions of Federal Lands of the United States. The survey plat is the graphic drawing of the boundaries involved with a particular survey project, and contains the official acreage to be used in the legal description.

Field notes are the narrative record of the cadastral survey. They are written in tabular format and contain the detailed descriptions of entire survey process including the instrumentation and procedures utilized, calling all physical evidence evaluated in the survey process, and listing all of the individuals who participated in the work.

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Survey plats are part of the official record of a cadastral survey. Surveying is the art and science of measuring the land to locate the limits of an owner's interest thereon. A cadastral survey is a survey which creates, marks, defines, retraces or re-establishes the boundaries and subdivisions of Federal Lands of the United States.

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Documents from the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention

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Documents from the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention

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Here the Library of Congress (LoC) has made available 277 documents relating to the work of Congress and the drafting and ratification of the Constitution.

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About this Collection | Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789 | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

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Contains 277 documents relating to the work of Congress and the drafting and ratification of the Constitution. Items include extracts of the journals of Congress, resolutions, proclamations, committee reports, treaties, and early printed versions of the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

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A genealogist has compiled this list of Kansas laws and statutes that are available on HathiTrust, Google Books, etc.

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World War II: The African American Experience (U. of Kansas)

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World War II: The African American Experience (U. of Kansas)

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The University of Kansas has documented a small collection of oral histories with Black veterans of World War II.

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World War II: The African American Experience begins to document the experiences of African American World War II veterans through audio recorded interviews. These oral histories are part of the collecting program established by the Kenneth Spencer Research Library's Kansas Collection in 1986 to enhance the region's permanent historical record of the African American experience. The collection includes donated materials that provide information about families, churches, organizations and businesses, especially during the 20th century.

This World War II oral history project is sponsored in part by the Sandra Gautt KU Endowment Fund, which Professor Emerita Gautt established to honor her father, Sgt. Thaddeus A. Whayne, a member of the Tuskegee Airmen unit. It is part of the ongoing efforts of the African American Experience Collections to document life in the Kansas region.
View the finding aid for this collection.

Users of this collection should be aware that these items reflect the attitudes of the people, period, or context in which they were created. Certain images, words, terms, or descriptions may be offensive, culturally insensitive, or considered inappropriate today. These items do not represent the views of the libraries or the university. https://spencer.lib.ku.edu/collections/problematic-description

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World War II: The African American Experience

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World War II: The African American Experience begins to document the experiences of African American World War II veterans through audio recorded interviews. These oral histories are part of the collecting program established by the Kenneth Spencer Research Library's Kansas Collection in 1986 to enhance the region's permanent historical record of the African American experience.

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Kenneth Spencer Research Library Digital Collections (U. of Kansas)

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Kenneth Spencer Research Library Digital Collections (U. of Kansas)

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This digital library contains sources connected to the university (administrators' correspondence, student publications, yearbooks, etc.), but it also has acquired materials from other historical societies like the Nicodemus Historical Society and the Douglas County (KS) Historical Society. Another strength is the Kansas Collection, which is useful for study of Bleeding Kansas and the Civil War.

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The University of Kansas prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, national origin, age, ancestry, disability, status as a veteran, sexual orientation, marital status, parental status, gender identity, gender expression, and genetic information in the university's programs and activities. Retaliation is also prohibited by university policy.

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Kansas State University Digital Archives

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Kansas State University Digital Archives

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In addition to sources about Kansas State University, the first operational land-grant university created under the Morrill Act, the archives includes one of the nation's largest collections of cookbooks. They have also digitized several publications related to agriculture.

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Digital Archives

K-State Libraries' digital collections enables the preservation of important historical documents while still providing access to the wealth of knowledge they hold. These valuable resources range from books and primary records to photographs and other visual aids and are available below.
Important note:K-State Libraries' digital collections may include images and text reflecting various forms of oppression, including but not limited to offensive language or negative stereotypes. Instances of bigotry reflect the attitudes, perspectives and beliefs of those that created and participated in them and should be considered records of the era in which they were produced. The collection period includes the modern day as born digital resources are collected regularly. They are presented here without censorship as evidence of past activities.
Consumer Movement Archives

The Consumer Movement Archives preserves and documents the history of the consumer movement in the United States. It provides a repository for the papers and records of consumer leaders, activists and organizations, and it promotes scholarly use of the material.

Cookery

The Cookery Collection is a comprehensive collection dating from 1487 to the present. In addition to print materials, such as cookbooks, household management guides, etiquette manuals, and dietetics/nutrition books, the collection holds the personal papers of several nationally, and regionally-prominent food writers, journalists, and educators.

K-State History

The K-State History collections document the history of the university through photos, newsletters, and yearbooks. These collections also reflect the university's land grant mission through an emphasis on agriculture and human ecology.

K-State History web archive

The Kansas State University web archives contains online resources and content of official university web pages, recognized student campus organizations and unofficial student groups, academic departments, administrative units, former and current faculty and staff, alumni, and events.

K-State Faculty Research Collections

K-State researchers past and present are expanding knowledge in agriculture, biodiversity and other fields. Exceptional research collections, theses and dissertations are available through the Libraries.

Kansas History

This collection documents the history and research created by organizations and citizens of Kansas.

The Kansas Aerial Photography Initiative (KAPI) is unavailable at this time. The collection includes over 65,000 Kansas aerial photographs created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture between 1950 and 1970.

K-State Partner Collections

K-State Libraries actively partner with local and national organizations to create high-quality online collections.

Related topics

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K-State Libraries' digital collections enables the preservation of important historical documents while still providing access to the wealth of knowledge they hold. These valuable resources range from books and primary records to photographs and other visual aids and are available below.

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The Clinton Digital Library is a virtual research room and digital repository that provides free and open access to the digitized collections of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum to everyone, anywhere in the world.

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The Clinton Digital Library is a virtual research room and digital repository that provides free and open access to the digitized collections of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum to everyone, anywhere in the world. Whether you are a lover of history, a student working on a school project, or a scholar, the Clinton Digital Library allows you to keyword search for archival documents, videos, audio recordings, and photographs and to search, browse, and view whole files, just as you could if you came to the Library's research room in-person.
Learn more...

The daily schedules of President Clinton document meetings, trips, speaking engagements and social activities for the eight years of the Clinton...

Public diplomacy is communicating directly with foreign citizens in order to influence popular opinion in other countries. This Digital Library...

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The Clinton Digital Library is a virtual research room and digital repository that provides free and open access to the digitized collections of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum to everyone, anywhere in the world.

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In May 1989, a group of Vietnam veterans from West Texas gathered at Texas Tech University to discuss what they might do, in a positive way, about their experiences in Vietnam. That group's immediate decision was to form a Vietnam Archive and begin collecting and preserving materials relating to the American Vietnam experience.

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The VNCA will be closed July 3rd and 4th for the holiday. Office hours will resume July 5th.

Try our NEW Volunteer Headquarters for the Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive!

About the VNCA

The Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive collects and preserves the documentary record of the Vietnam War, and supports and encourages research and education regarding all aspects of the American Vietnam Experience. Follow Us

News and Events

West Texas Salute to Veterans
April 30 @ Silent Wings Museum, Lubbock The Vietnam Center and Archive at Texas Tech will be there all day with era items -- please stop by and say hello! SILENT WINGS MUSEUM | 6202 N. I-27 | LUBBOCK, TEXAS 7:00 5K Fun Run/Walk | Team Red, White & Blue9:00 Color Guard & Opening Ceremony9:15 Keynote... (full article)

There are no events currently listed.

Projects and Resources

Information For:

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The Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University

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The Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University collects, preserves, and makes available materials related to the Vietnam War era, and includes the Vietnam Center, the Vietnam Archive, the Virtual Vietnam Archive, and the Oral History Project.

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Vietnam War Era Ephemera Collection (U. of Washington)

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Vietnam War Era Ephemera Collection (U. of Washington)

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This database contains leaflets and newspapers that were distributed on the University of Washington campus during the decades of the 1960s and 1970s. They reflect the social environment and political activities of the youth movement in Seattle during that period.

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In 1960 a small group of young people formed Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and adopted The Port Huron Statement, written by student leader Tom Hayden. The manifesto urged participatory democracy, or the idea that all Americans, not just a small elite, should decide major economic, political, and social issues that shaped the nation. It also criticized American society for its focus on career advancement, material possessions, military strength, and racism. By 1968 some 100,000 young people around the nation had joined SDS.

Student protesters denounced corporate bureaucracy and campus administrators. Universities and colleges, they believed, were dictatorial and exercised too much control over students. Students held rallies and sit-ins to protest restrictions of their rights. In 1964 a coalition of student groups at the University of California, Berkeley, claimed the right to conduct political activities on campus; the coalition became known as the Free Speech Movement. Political activism and protests spread to other campuses in the 1960s.

The youth movement's demonstrations soon merged with the protests of students who opposed the Vietnam War. By the spring of 1968, student protests had reached hundreds of campuses. At the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, antiwar demonstrators clashed with the police, and the images of police beating students shocked television audiences. Violence peaked at an antiwar protest at Ohio's Kent State University in May 1970, when National Guard troops gunned down four student protesters.

The political activities of the youth movement had enduring effects. Colleges became less authoritarian, ending dress codes and curfews and recruiting more minority students. Students also contributed mightily to the movement against the war in Vietnam. Both the counterculture and student activism, finally, fueled a backlash that blossomed in the 1970s and 1980s. The civil rights movement, the women's movement, the youth movement, and the environmental movement changed people's lives. They also created a climate of rebellion, confrontation, and upheaval. ("United States (History)," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2004 http://encarta.msn.com )

The chaotic events of the 60's, including war and social change, seemed destined to continue in the 70's. Major trends included a growing disillusionment of government, advances in civil rights, increased influence of the women's movement, a heightened concern for the environment, and increased space exploration. Many of the "radical" ideas of the 60's gained wider acceptance in the new decade, and were mainstreamed into American life and culture. Amid war, social realignment and presidential impeachment proceedings, American culture flourished. Indeed, the events of the times were reflected in and became the inspiration for much of the music, literature, entertainment, and even fashion of the decade. (Kingwood College Library. American Cultural History 1970-1979 http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade70.html)

This database contains leaflets and newspapers that were distributed on the University of Washington campus during the decades of the 1960s and 1970s. They reflect the social environment and political activities of the youth movement in Seattle during that period.

About the Database

Selection, research and descriptive metadata for the Peoples Protest Database were completed by Kristin Kinsey and Abel Diaz in 2003-4. The text are selections from Vietnam War era ephemera collection of printed ephemera including pamphlets, posters, manifestos, newsletters, booklets, and open letters created by the various Seattle-area and University of Washington manifestations of American civil rights and protest movements of the late 1960's and 1970's. The material centers mainly around the Vietnam War, but includes much about feminism, racism, socialism, labor unions and the rights of farm workers, gay rights, environmental and economic boycotts of large corporations and agro-industry, prisoners' rights, and the Iranian revolution of 1979. Documents include the publications of groups such as the Seattle Liberation Front, the UW chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, WashPIRG, Young Socialist Alliance, UW Staff Rights Organizing Committee, Seattle Gay Liberation Front, Students Against Violent Expression, United Workers Union, and the Northwest Nihilist League. The majority of the materials dates from 1970-1973. The database also includes a selection from the Seattle underground newspaper The Helix edited by Paul Dorpat and illustrated in part by Walt Crowley.

The text was scanned in grayscale and color using a Microtek Scanmaker 9600L and saved in .jpg format. Some manipulation of the images was done to present the clearest possible digital image. The scanned images were then linked with descriptive data using CONTENTdm software. The original collections reside in the UW Libraries Special Collections Division as the Vietnam War Era Ephemera Collection.

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This database contains leaflets, posters and newspapers that were distributed on the University of Washington campus during the decades of the 1960s and 1970s. They reflect the social environment and political activities of the youth movement in Seattle during that period.

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Indian Peoples of the Northern Great Plains (U. of Montana)

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Indian Peoples of the Northern Great Plains (U. of Montana)

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This includes photographs, paintings, ledger drawings, documents, serigraphs, and stereographs from 1874 through the 1940's.

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Indian Peoples of the Northern Great Plains Digital Collection - Montana State University (MSU) Library - Montana State University Library

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Indian Peoples of the Northern Great Plains Digital Collection

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A collaborative digital collection of North American Northern Great Plains Indian Peoples with photos and original artwork from the collections of Museum of the Rockies, Montana State University Bozeman Library Archives and Special Collections, Montana State University Billings Library Special Collections, Montana State University Northern Library, and Little Big Horn College Library.

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We are a collaboration between GBH Public Radio and the Library of Congress with a long-term vision to preserve and make accessible significant historical content created by public media, and to coordinate a national effort to save at-risk public media before its content is lost to posterity.

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A collaboration between GBH and the Library of Congress with a long-term vision to preserve and make accessible significant historical content created by public media.

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With the United States incarcerating more individuals than any other nation–-almost 2 million as of 2023-–these publications represent a vast dimension of media history. These publications from JSTOR's Reveal Digital depict and report on all manner of life within the walls of prisons, from the quotidian to the upsetting. Some publications were produced with the sanction of institutional authorities; others were produced underground.

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Overview

On March 24, 1800, Forlorn Hope was published within a prison in New York state, edited by an incarcerated person. In the intervening 200+ years, over 700 prison newspapers have been published from U.S. prisons in all fifty states. American Prison Newspapers will bring together hundreds of these periodicals from across the country into one collection that will represent penal institutions of all kinds, with special attention paid to women-only institutions.

With the United States incarcerating more individuals than any other nation-almost 2 million as of 2023-these publications represent a vast dimension of media history. These publications depict and report on all manner of life within the walls of prisons, from the quotidian to the upsetting. Incarcerated journalists walk a tightrope between oversight by administration-even censorship-and seeking to report accurately on their experiences inside. Some publications were produced with the sanction of institutional authorities; others were produced underground.

Development of the collection began in July 2020, with new content added regularly. The American Prison Newspapers collection is made possible by libraries that have provided funding to cover the publishing costs, along with institutions and individuals that are opening their archives to provide the source material for digitization. Thanks to their contributions, the collection has been fully open access since July 2021.

Watch featured speakers share more about the collection and about prison journalism:

Open access to the collection on JSTOR

The American Prison Newspapers collection is open access and freely available to everyone who wishes to use it. Libraries can help their users discover the collection by adding it to A-Z lists and incorporating it into research guides in U.S. History, Sociology, Journalism, and Criminology & Criminal Justice. In addition, libraries can activate the collection in the following discovery services: ProQuest Summon, Ex Libris Alma, EBSCO Discovery Service, and OCLC WorldCat Discovery Services.

Privacy

Reveal Digital will undertake diligent efforts to protect the privacy of individuals depicted in the pages of the publications in this collection, and will take steps to notify the individuals and institutions that have contributed to the publications in this collection. If you are a writer, editor, or other contributor to a publication made available as part of American Prison Newspapers and encounter personal information of any kind that should be removed from view, please write to us to request its removal:

Reveal Digital
165 Broadway, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10010
+ 1 212-358-6400
support.revealdigital@ithaka.org

Please include an address or any other contact information at which you can be reached, and we will respond as soon as possible.

Reveal Digital affirms that digitization for American Prison Newspapers is overseen by JSTOR / ITHAKA staff, with a digitization vendor that adheres to standards of fair labor practices. No prison labor is engaged to complete digitization for any Reveal Digital collections.

Feel free to contact us at support.revealdigital@ithaka.org with any further questions about the availability of the newspapers in this collection.

Content contributors

The following libraries, archives, individuals,and publishers have agreed to provide source material for scanning. Please contact us if you or your organization has source material that you would like to contribute to the project:

Funding

The costs associated with publishing this important collection have been provided by 64 academic libraries that contributed to the Diversity & Dissent Fund or directly to the project, as well as the Mellon Foundation, which supported the project through a generous $500,000 grant. We are grateful for the participation and support of all the funders and contributors that have made this work possible.

Legal notice

American Prison Newspapers aims to create a faithful digital reproduction of the collective works as they originally appeared in print and pursuant to 17 U.S.C Section 201(c) of the Copyright Act. Please note that if content items in the American Prison Newspapers collection reference permissible terms of use, such as a Creative Commons license, users may make use of such items in accordance with the stated terms of such license as further detailed in the JSTOR Terms and Conditions of Use.

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American Prison Newspapers - About JSTOR

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A project to create an Open Access collection of newspapers produced by people who have been incarcerated in the United States.

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The collection, part of JSTOR's Reveal Digital, will capture the voices of students across the great range of protest, political actions, and equal-rights advocacy from the twentieth and early-twenty-first century United States. The primary sources intended for inclusion will be broad-based across time, geography, and political viewpoint — from the conservative to the anarchist. It has some sources available is not complete.

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Collection overview

"There have been student protests in the United States for nearly as long as there have been students." So write the curators of the Interference Archive's exhibit Walkout: A Brief History of Student Organizing. Reveal Digital's Student Activism collection aims to provide access to unique, yet essential, primary sources documenting the deep and broad history of student organizing in the United States.

The collection is intended to serve as a scholarly bridge from the extensive history of student protest in the United States to the study of today's vibrant, continually unfolding actions. Angus Johnston, writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, states, "The activists of the '60s and '70s, confronting universities that were hostile to their values and ideals, launched a movement that remade American higher education in their own image - not completely, and perhaps not permanently, but in significant, lasting ways. Today's activists may yet articulate - and enact - a similarly far-reaching agenda."

Open access to the collection on JSTOR

The Student Activism collection is Open Access and freely available to everyone who wishes to use it.

Libraries can help their users discover the collection by adding it to A-Z lists and research guides in U.S. History and Sociology. In addition, libraries can activate the collection in the following discovery services: ProQuest Summon, Ex Libris Alma, EBSCO Discovery Service, and OCLC WorldCat Discovery Services.
Explore the full collection on JSTOR
Scope

The completed collection will contain approximately 75,000 pages drawn from special collection libraries and archives around the country. Materials intended for inclusion are wide-ranging in nature: circulars; leaflets; fliers; pamphlets; newsletters; campaign materials; protest literature; clippings; periodicals; bulletins; letters; press releases; ephemera; and meeting, demonstration, conference, and event documentation.

The collection will capture the voices of students across the great range of protest, political actions, and equal-rights advocacy from the 20th and early 21st century United States. The primary sources intended for inclusion will be broad-based across time, geography, and political viewpoint - from the conservative to the anarchist.

In the interest of sensitivity toward the privacy of activists on the streets and in organizing communities today, the collection does not depict contemporary protests.

Topics and events intended for inclusion

Anti-apartheid divestiture

Student involvement in the civil rights movement

History of Students for a Democratic Society, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and Young Americans for Freedom

Columbia University student strike of 1968

East L.A. student blowout

Free speech movement

Indians of All Tribes' occupation of Alcatraz

Take-Back-the-Night anti-sexual assault activism

Vietnam War opposition and demilitarization activism

Women's rights

LGBTQ+ rights

Orangeburg massacre

Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel

Gulf War and Iraq war opposition

Battle in Seattle (WTO action)

Content contributors

The following libraries have agreed to provide source material. We expect to add many more libraries and archives to this list over the course of the project.

Funding

The costs associated with publishing this important collection have been provided by 61 academic libraries that contributed to the Diversity & Dissent Fund . We are grateful for the participation and support of all the funders and contributors that have made this work possible.

Interested in contributing content?

We are actively approaching a number of libraries for participation, but funding libraries can also contribute some content; ten percent of the collection is being reserved for content provided by those libraries not specifically targeted for inclusion.

Funding libraries are invited to nominate source material from their own collections, from a single document to multiple boxes.
Contact us to learn more

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A project to gather primary source materials surrounding student activism is important to help understand the history of protest movements.

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The collection, part of JSTOR's Reveal Digital, will capture the voices of students across the great range of protest, political actions, and equal-rights advocacy from the twentieth and early-twenty-first century United States. The primary sources intended for inclusion will be broad-based across time, geography, and political viewpoint — from the conservative to the anarchist. It has some sources available is not complete.

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Collection overview

"There have been student protests in the United States for nearly as long as there have been students." So write the curators of the Interference Archive's exhibit Walkout: A Brief History of Student Organizing. Reveal Digital's Student Activism collection aims to provide access to unique, yet essential, primary sources documenting the deep and broad history of student organizing in the United States.

The collection is intended to serve as a scholarly bridge from the extensive history of student protest in the United States to the study of today's vibrant, continually unfolding actions. Angus Johnston, writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, states, "The activists of the '60s and '70s, confronting universities that were hostile to their values and ideals, launched a movement that remade American higher education in their own image - not completely, and perhaps not permanently, but in significant, lasting ways. Today's activists may yet articulate - and enact - a similarly far-reaching agenda."

Open access to the collection on JSTOR

The Student Activism collection is Open Access and freely available to everyone who wishes to use it.

Libraries can help their users discover the collection by adding it to A-Z lists and research guides in U.S. History and Sociology. In addition, libraries can activate the collection in the following discovery services: ProQuest Summon, Ex Libris Alma, EBSCO Discovery Service, and OCLC WorldCat Discovery Services.
Explore the full collection on JSTOR
Scope

The completed collection will contain approximately 75,000 pages drawn from special collection libraries and archives around the country. Materials intended for inclusion are wide-ranging in nature: circulars; leaflets; fliers; pamphlets; newsletters; campaign materials; protest literature; clippings; periodicals; bulletins; letters; press releases; ephemera; and meeting, demonstration, conference, and event documentation.

The collection will capture the voices of students across the great range of protest, political actions, and equal-rights advocacy from the 20th and early 21st century United States. The primary sources intended for inclusion will be broad-based across time, geography, and political viewpoint - from the conservative to the anarchist.

In the interest of sensitivity toward the privacy of activists on the streets and in organizing communities today, the collection does not depict contemporary protests.

Topics and events intended for inclusion

Anti-apartheid divestiture

Student involvement in the civil rights movement

History of Students for a Democratic Society, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and Young Americans for Freedom

Columbia University student strike of 1968

East L.A. student blowout

Free speech movement

Indians of All Tribes' occupation of Alcatraz

Take-Back-the-Night anti-sexual assault activism

Vietnam War opposition and demilitarization activism

Women's rights

LGBTQ+ rights

Orangeburg massacre

Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel

Gulf War and Iraq war opposition

Battle in Seattle (WTO action)

Content contributors

The following libraries have agreed to provide source material. We expect to add many more libraries and archives to this list over the course of the project.

Funding

The costs associated with publishing this important collection have been provided by 61 academic libraries that contributed to the Diversity & Dissent Fund . We are grateful for the participation and support of all the funders and contributors that have made this work possible.

Interested in contributing content?

We are actively approaching a number of libraries for participation, but funding libraries can also contribute some content; ten percent of the collection is being reserved for content provided by those libraries not specifically targeted for inclusion.

Funding libraries are invited to nominate source material from their own collections, from a single document to multiple boxes.
Contact us to learn more

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A project to gather primary source materials surrounding student activism is important to help understand the history of protest movements.

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Independent Voices is an open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the twentieth century.

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Collection overview

The flood of publications from an alternative press in the late 1960s expressed the upsurge of dissent and of aspiration of American youth. Feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals and the New Left, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Latinos, and members of the LGBT communities all began to publish newspapers and periodicals.

Drawing their inspiration from the successes and failures of the Civil Rights movement and the movement against the Vietnam War, an amorphous but broad movement for radical change splintered. Black Civil Rights organizations like the SNCC expelled whites from their organization; Students for a Democratic Society became increasingly divided over tactics and goals; radical feminists challenged male-dominated New Left groups as organizations that replicated the gendered roles of society they purportedly were seeking the remake; and marginalized groups like members of the LGBT community resisted police harassment at Stonewall and beyond. All of these groups found their voices in the alternative press.

Independent Voices is composed of ten series on the alternative press focusing on that transformative period of the 1960s to the 1980s:

Open access to the collection on JSTOR

Independent Voices represents the largest digital collection of alternative press titles, with complete runs of more than 1,000 titles and 750,000 pages. The collection includes the complete runs of newspapers, magazines, and journals drawn from the special collections of source libraries.

The entire collection is freely open to anyone thanks to the financial support provided by the project's funding libraries. The collection provides page image-based access with full-text searching, searchable title, and issue-level metadata and browsing by series, and title.

Libraries can help their users discover the collection by adding it to A-Z lists and incorporating it into research guides in U.S. History, Sociology, Journalism, Political Science, Race Studies, and Gender & Sexuality Studies. In addition, libraries can activate the collection in the following discovery services: ProQuest Summon, EBSCO Discovery Service, and OCLC WorldCat Discovery Services.

Content contributors

Source material was provided by more than two dozen libraries and individuals, helping to make this a groundbreaking collaborative project.

Large contributions were made by:

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A collection of publications from an alternative press in the late 1960s expressing the upsurge of dissent and of aspiration of Americans.

# data[].attributes.body
Independent Voices is an open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the twentieth century.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Collection overview

The flood of publications from an alternative press in the late 1960s expressed the upsurge of dissent and of aspiration of American youth. Feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals and the New Left, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Latinos, and members of the LGBT communities all began to publish newspapers and periodicals.

Drawing their inspiration from the successes and failures of the Civil Rights movement and the movement against the Vietnam War, an amorphous but broad movement for radical change splintered. Black Civil Rights organizations like the SNCC expelled whites from their organization; Students for a Democratic Society became increasingly divided over tactics and goals; radical feminists challenged male-dominated New Left groups as organizations that replicated the gendered roles of society they purportedly were seeking the remake; and marginalized groups like members of the LGBT community resisted police harassment at Stonewall and beyond. All of these groups found their voices in the alternative press.

Independent Voices is composed of ten series on the alternative press focusing on that transformative period of the 1960s to the 1980s:

Open access to the collection on JSTOR

Independent Voices represents the largest digital collection of alternative press titles, with complete runs of more than 1,000 titles and 750,000 pages. The collection includes the complete runs of newspapers, magazines, and journals drawn from the special collections of source libraries.

The entire collection is freely open to anyone thanks to the financial support provided by the project's funding libraries. The collection provides page image-based access with full-text searching, searchable title, and issue-level metadata and browsing by series, and title.

Libraries can help their users discover the collection by adding it to A-Z lists and incorporating it into research guides in U.S. History, Sociology, Journalism, Political Science, Race Studies, and Gender & Sexuality Studies. In addition, libraries can activate the collection in the following discovery services: ProQuest Summon, EBSCO Discovery Service, and OCLC WorldCat Discovery Services.

Content contributors

Source material was provided by more than two dozen libraries and individuals, helping to make this a groundbreaking collaborative project.

Large contributions were made by:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A collection of publications from an alternative press in the late 1960s expressing the upsurge of dissent and of aspiration of Americans.

# data[].attributes.body
Independent Voices is an open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the twentieth century.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Collection overview

The flood of publications from an alternative press in the late 1960s expressed the upsurge of dissent and of aspiration of American youth. Feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals and the New Left, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Latinos, and members of the LGBT communities all began to publish newspapers and periodicals.

Drawing their inspiration from the successes and failures of the Civil Rights movement and the movement against the Vietnam War, an amorphous but broad movement for radical change splintered. Black Civil Rights organizations like the SNCC expelled whites from their organization; Students for a Democratic Society became increasingly divided over tactics and goals; radical feminists challenged male-dominated New Left groups as organizations that replicated the gendered roles of society they purportedly were seeking the remake; and marginalized groups like members of the LGBT community resisted police harassment at Stonewall and beyond. All of these groups found their voices in the alternative press.

Independent Voices is composed of ten series on the alternative press focusing on that transformative period of the 1960s to the 1980s:

Open access to the collection on JSTOR

Independent Voices represents the largest digital collection of alternative press titles, with complete runs of more than 1,000 titles and 750,000 pages. The collection includes the complete runs of newspapers, magazines, and journals drawn from the special collections of source libraries.

The entire collection is freely open to anyone thanks to the financial support provided by the project's funding libraries. The collection provides page image-based access with full-text searching, searchable title, and issue-level metadata and browsing by series, and title.

Libraries can help their users discover the collection by adding it to A-Z lists and incorporating it into research guides in U.S. History, Sociology, Journalism, Political Science, Race Studies, and Gender & Sexuality Studies. In addition, libraries can activate the collection in the following discovery services: ProQuest Summon, EBSCO Discovery Service, and OCLC WorldCat Discovery Services.

Content contributors

Source material was provided by more than two dozen libraries and individuals, helping to make this a groundbreaking collaborative project.

Large contributions were made by:

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A collection of publications from an alternative press in the late 1960s expressing the upsurge of dissent and of aspiration of Americans.

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The Black Abolitionist Digital Archive is a collection of over 800 speeches and approximately 1,000 newspaper editorials written by antebellum African Americans. These important documents provide a portrait of Black involvement in the anti-slavery movement; scans of these documents are provided as images and PDF files.

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Black Abolitionist Archive | University of Detroit Mercy Libraries

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From the 1820s to the Civil War, African Americans assumed prominent roles in the transatlantic struggle to abolish slavery. In contrast to the popular belief that the abolitionist crusade was driven by wealthy whites, some 300 black abolitionists were regularly involved in the antislavery movement,…

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The official records of the Dutch colony of New Netherlands have been digitized by the New York State Archives, but note that not all have been translated to English.

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About the Objects
The New York State Archives holds the surviving records of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, which encompassed the earliest European settlements that became the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. These 17th-century records concern the full range of government functions including relations with native inhabitants, particularly the Mohawks, Mahicans, and various groups around New Amsterdam and the Delaware River. The records also play a critical role in documenting the ascension of the Netherlands to its status as the premier trading nation of the world during the seventeenth century.

Overview
Until now, access to the records could be challenging, particularly online.

The records are physically fragile owing to their age, early water damage, and fire damage sustained in 1911.

Most records are written in Dutch in pre-modern handwriting of various styles.

Published English translations are available for many but not all of the records, and not all of the translations are available online.

The translations are only selectively indexed.

With funding from the Dutch National Archives and specifications and standards developed by the New York State Archives, the documents were scanned by an imaging services provider. Document-level metadata was created by extracting descriptive information from E.B. O'Callaghan's Calendar of Historical Manuscripts in the Office of the Secretary of State, 1630-1664. The calendar consists of a brief synopsis of each document, arranged roughly chronologically according to the original volume and page numbers.
The New Netherland Institute (NNI) provided access to digitized copies of translations prepared by NNI staff. Using those files, the New York State Archives produced document-level versions of the available translations, which can be viewed in the context of each digitized document.

Images and descriptions of all of the original documents, and translations of most of them are now available online through the New York State Archives Digital Collections, where researchers can browse or search records and download high resolution TIFFs. From the Digital Collections, researchers can link to our online Encoded Archival Description (EAD) Finding Aids, allowing them to browse document descriptions and link directly to digitized versions.

The Society of Daughters of Holland Dames provided essential support to the project by funding the project archivist, who was responsible for working with project partners, preparing the images, and and insuring quality control throughout the project.

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Digital Collections : Topic : Dutch Records [NYSA_Dutch_Records_TEST]

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About the Objects The New York State Archives holds the surviving records of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, which encompassed the earliest European settlements that became the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.

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The New York Historical Society has digitized some of Abigail Adams's letters from the revolutionary period and Early Republic.

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Abigail Adams letters, 1787-1815, undated

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Personal letter from Abigail Adams to her daughter, Abigail Adams Smith, expressing her sympathy for a sick servant and for ailing members of the family., New-York Historical Society

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Manuscript Records of the French and Indian War

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Manuscript Records of the French and Indian War

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HathiTrust has digitized the American Antiquarian Society's 1909 book of sources on this conflict.

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Transactions and collections of the American Antiquarian Society. v.11 1909.

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Transactions and collections of the American Antiquarian Society. v.11 1909.

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All of the papers available on this website were collected and edited by a team of scholars at Yale University beginning in 1954. Yale University Press has so far published thirty-seven volumes of The Papers of Benjamin Franklin.

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This is a basic list with links to published hymns, sermons, and letters by famed evangelist George Whitefield, who visited the colonies seven times from 1738 to 1770.

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George Whitefield (Whitefield, George, 1714-1770) | The Online Books Page

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A professor in Virginia has compiled court records and documents from the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem and the Massachusetts State Archives in Boston, along with transcriptions of the Salem Witchcraft Papers, for this resource.

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Project Director: Benjamin Ray. Technical Development: Scholars' Lab.
© Copyright 2018 by Benjamin Ray and

The material presented in the Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive is provided freely for non-commercial educational purposes. All other uses require advance permission from the project originators. The University of Virginia

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danvers; salem; witchcraft trials; witch trials; 1692; the witchcraftvictims' memorial; rebecca nurse

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Project Director: Benjamin Ray. Technical Development: Scholars' Lab. © Copyright 2018 by Benjamin Ray and The material presented in the Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive is provided freely for non-commercial educational purposes. All other uses require advance permission from the project originators. The University of Virginia

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The CRDL promotes an enhanced understanding of the Movement through its three principal components: 1) a digital video archive of historical news film allowing learners to be nearly eyewitnesses to key events of the Civil Rights Movement, 2) a civil rights portal providing a seamless virtual library on the Movement by connecting related digital collections on a national scale, and 3) a learning objects component delivering secondary Web-based resources - such as contextual stories, encyclopedia articles, lesson plans, and activities--to facilitate the use of the video content in the learning process.

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Some content (or its descriptions) found on this site may be harmful and difficult to view. These materials may be graphic or reflect biases. In some cases, they may conflict with strongly held cultural values, beliefs or restrictions. We provide access to these materials to preserve the historical record, but we do not endorse the attitudes, prejudices, or behaviors found within them. Read more

The Digital Library of Georgia is part of the GALILEO Initiative and located at The University of Georgia Libraries
© 2023 Digital Library of Georgia

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The Civil Rights Digital Library is a GALILEO initiative based at the University of Georgia Libraries that collaborates with Georgia's Libraries, archives, museums, and other institutions of education and culture to provide access to key information resources on Georgia history, culture, and life.

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A Continent Divided: The U.S.-Mexico War

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A Continent Divided: The U.S.-Mexico War

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UT Arlington Library's Special Collections serves as the repository for one of the most comprehensive archives relating to the U.S. - Mexico War in either the United States or Mexico.

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Is the largest and most significant armed struggle between two nations in the western hemisphere. In Mexico, the war left a legacy of bitterness that can be seen to this day. In the United States, tensions between North and South soon eclipsed the clash with Mexico in the national imagination. Abraham Lincoln alluded to these tensions when he described the United States in 1858 as "a house divided." A decade earlier, however, North America was a divided continent, the site of conflict between two republics that had forged two very different destinies since winning their independence from European power.
War Timeline

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A Continent Divided: The U.S.-Mexico War

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The U.S. - Mexico War (1846-1848) is the largest and most significant armed struggle between two nations in the western hemisphere. Learn more about this historical event by browsing source materials from the United States and Mexico such as proclamations, graphics, letters, and diaries from the collections of the University of Texas at Arlington.

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DiscoverLBJ is the LBJ Presidential Library's online digital archive. (The site is currently in BETA mode).

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DiscoverLBJ is the LBJ Presidential Library's online digital archive. (The site is currently in BETA mode).

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Zora Neale Hurston Papers (U. of Florida)

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Zora Neale Hurston Papers (U. of Florida)

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Zora Neale Hurston, (c. 1891-1960), was an African American anthropologist, folklorist, and author of African American literature. This collection, consisting of manuscripts, documents and photos saved from a burn barrel by a friend after Hurston's death, was given to the University in the 1960s.

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Through its digital collections, UF offers public access to a wide range of information, including historical materials that may contain offensive language or negative stereotypes. UF does not endorse the views expressed in such materials.

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Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930 (Harvard)

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Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930 (Harvard)

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This digital collection of historical materials from Harvard's libraries, archives, and museums documents voluntary immigration to the United States from the signing of the Constitution to the start of the Great Depression.

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Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930

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Documenting voluntary immigration to the United States from the signing of the Constitution to the start of the Great Depression.

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Best known as president of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, Jefferson Davis was also a Mexican War hero, served in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and was secretary of war under Franklin Pierce. After the Civil War he became a symbol of the Lost Cause. The Papers of Jefferson Davis, a documentary editing project based at Rice University in Houston, Texas, has published (1971-2015) a 14 volume edition of his letters and speeches, several of which can be found on this website.

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The Papers of Jefferson Davis | Rice University

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Skip to main content

Welcome to The Papers of Jefferson Davis
Best known as president of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, Jefferson Davis was also a Mexican War hero, served in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and was secretary of war under Franklin Pierce. After the Civil War he became a symbol of the Lost Cause.

The Papers of Jefferson Davis, a documentary editing project based at Rice University in Houston, Texas, has published (1971-2015) a 14 volume edition of his letters and speeches, several of which can be found on this web site. The site also provides extensive information on Davis and his family and numerous images.

Photograph by Mathew B. Brady, c1860. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

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Skip to main content Welcome to The Papers of Jefferson Davis Best known as president of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, Jefferson Davis was also a Mexican War hero, served in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and was secretary of war under Franklin Pierce.

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Slavery and Abolition in the U.S.: Select Publications of the 1800s is a digital collection of books and pamphlets that demonstrate the varying ideas and beliefs about slavery in the United States as expressed by Americans throughout the nineteenth century. The works in this collection reflect arguments on both sides of the slavery debate and include first person narratives, legal proceedings and decisions, anti-slavery tracts, religious sermons, and early secondary works.

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Introduction

Slavery and Abolition in the US: Select Publications of the 1800s is a digital collection of books and pamphlets that demonstrate the varying ideas and beliefs about slavery in the United States as expressed by Americans throughout the nineteenth century. The works in this collection reflect arguments on both sides of the slavery debate and include first person narratives, legal proceedings and decisions, anti-slavery tracts, religious sermons, and early secondary works. The publications are all drawn from the holdings of the Millersville University Library and the Dickinson College Library, as well as each of their respective Special Collections Departments. The collection includes more than 24,000 individual pages of printed text and corresponding searchable transcriptions. This online resource is made freely available to the public, and we hope that providing these rare and important research materials will enhance teaching and learning, at all levels of instruction, about this complex issue.

Acknowledgment

Slavery and Abolition in the US: Select Publications of the 1800s was supported in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in association with Millersville University and Dickinson College.

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Slavery and Abolition in the US: Select Publications of the 1800s is a digital collection of books and pamphlets that demonstrate the varying ideas and beliefs about slavery in the United States as expressed by Americans throughout the nineteenth century.

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Though a bit outdated and there are too many ads, you can still find some primary sources here, including diaries, letters, and regimental histories.

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Thank you for visiting our updated website. Inside you will find information related to the U.S. Civil War including Union and Confederate Regimental Histories, Union Corps Histories, Soldier's Letters, Diaries, and a variety of other information including helpful links.

In addition to information currently available through published sources, I will be including new and unpublished materials as they become available. These will include diary and letter excerpts, key reports, etc. For information about submitting materials to be included in this archive, please read my material submission page.

As I continue to add information to this archive, I will also post the sources for the information to assist you in doing further research on the subject. I welcome your comments about the content or layout of the site. If you would like to share your opinions please e-mail me below.

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American Civil War Archive - facts, history, letters and battle.

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Information about The Civil War, collection regimental histories, soldiers, letters from home and diary excerpts, battle picture.

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Numerous newspapers from all 50 states are available through paid subscription, via Ancestry. However, some public libraries, colleges, and universities pay for an institutional subscription, so check out those options first.

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Skip to main content
Newspapers.com by Ancestry

The names, logos, and other source identifying features of newspapers depicted in our database are the trademarks of their respective owners, and our use of newspaper content in the public domain or by private agreement does not imply any affiliation with, or endorsement from, the publishers of the newspaper titles that appear on our site. Newspapers.com makes these newspapers available for the purpose of historical research, and is not responsible for the content of any newspapers archived at our site.

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Historical Newspapers from the 1700's-2000s

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The largest online newspaper archive. Used by millions every month for historical research, family history, crime investigations, journalism, and more.

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The Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP) is the search tool for print and electronic titles of the National Bibliography of U.S. Government Publications, made up of publications from across the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the U.S. government. The CGP is a bibliography, not a document repository--it will only provide links to full-text resources that are the official, authoritative copy, so not all sources here are digitized.

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Entire CGP Catalog - Basic Search: Full Catalog

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Welcome to the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP)!

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Remembering the 1911 Triangle Fire (Cornell)

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Remembering the 1911 Triangle Fire (Cornell)

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In addition to some secondary sources, a timeline, etc., this exhibit includes some unique sources like interviews with survivors and records connected to the state’s investigation.

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Cornell University - ILR School - The Triangle Factory Fire

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Part of the Documenting the American South website, it is worth special attention because it includes over 400 sources ranging from maps to letters.

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"The Southern Homefront, 1861-1865," presents documents related to all aspects of Southern life during the Civil War. In particular, government and civilian publications demonstrate the Confederate States of America's unsuccessful attempt to create a viable nation state. This collection includes over four hundred Civil War era maps, broadsides, photographs, printed works, Confederate currency, and manuscript letters and diaries.

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"The Southern Homefront, 1861-1865," presents documents related to all aspects of Southern life during the Civil War. In particular, government and civilian publications demonstrate the Confederate States of America's unsuccessful attempt to create a viable nation state. This collection includes over four hundred Civil War era maps, broadsides, photographs, printed works, Confederate currency, and manuscript letters and diaries.

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Some of these sources at Duke University are not available online, but they have digitized collections related to several influential women, including the Confederate spy Rose O’Neal Greenhow and Union spy Sarah E. Thompson.

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Rose O'Neal Greenhow Papers, 1861-1864 Letters from Greenhow, a Confederate spy, to Jefferson Davis, Alexander Boteler, and others, regarding war activities. Also several newspaper articles describing her imprisonment in 1861 and her death in 1864. Image of Greenhow at right from My Imprisonment and the First Year of Abolition Rule At Washington, by Rose Greenhow. London: Richard Bentley, 1863.

Sarah E. Thompson Papers, 1859-1898 The materials in this collection center around the murder of Thompson's husband, her intelligence work for the Union army which led to the defeat of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan, and her subsequent post-war struggles against poverty, largely as a single mother.

Hannah Valentine, Lethe Jackson, and Vilet Lester Letters These letters provide a rare firsthand glimpse into the lives of enslaved African American women and the relationships they had with their owners.

Alice Williamson Diary, 1864 Transcription and scanned image from diary of a 16 year old rebel girl living in Gallatin, Tennessee during Union occupation of the area.

Digitized Materials from Other Institutions

Documenting the American South

Documenting the American South (DocSouth), a digital publishing initiative sponsored by the University Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provides access to digitized primary materials that offer Southern perspectives on American history and culture. It supplies teachers, students, and researchers at every educational level with a wide array of titles they can use for reference, studying, teaching, and research. Some sections of interest include:

Valley of the Shadow Project

The Valley of the Shadow is a digital archive of primary sources that document the lives of people in Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania, during the era of the American Civil War. The Valley Project is a part of the Virginia Center for Digital History at the University of Virginia.

Rachel Cormany Diary, June 14-July 6, 1863 An excerpt of this Franklin County, PA., woman's diary describing the town of Chambersburg during the Gettysburg campaign. Taken from The Cormany Diaries: A Northern Family in the Civil War, James C. Mohr, editor, Richard E. Winslow, III, assistant editor, (Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1982), pp. 328-341.

Nancy Emerson Diary, 1862 Memoranda of events and thoughts of woman living in Augusta County, Virginia. Transcription and scanned images of the original manuscript diary held in the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia.

Civil War Reminiscences by Catharine Hunsecker Transcription of a narrative which gives some general information about Hunsecker's life, but mainly focuses on the events of the Civil War and the effect it had on her community in Franklin County, PA.

Memoir of Alansa Rounds Sterrett, c.1859-1865 Transcription of original memoir housed in the Augusta County Historical Society. Alansa Rounds Sterrett was Jedediah Hotchkiss' niece and a teacher at Loch Willow Academy during the Civil War. A Northerner, Alansa Rounds married Franklin F. Sterrett, a friend of Hotchkiss' and a Confederate cavalry officer.

Other Civil War Diaries & Letters Online

Carrie Berry Diary August 1, 1864-January 4, 1865 Passages from the diary of a 10 yr. old Atlanta girl describe the immediate effects of the War on her and her family. Transcription of original diary provided by the Atlanta History Center.

Sallie Seeper Scott Letter, April 15, 1865Transcription of a love letter from Sallie Seeper Scott of "Lower Chanceford" (York Co., PA), to Robert Bennett, Chief Carpenter Shop in Washington, D.C. Original held in the Special Collections Department of the University Libraries at Virginia Tech. Part of their on-line collection of Civil War Love Letters.

10th South Carolina Ladies AuxiliaryThis is a website for Civil War reenactors that contains a wealth of primary source information about women during the war. Site includes links to several WPA memoirs of South Carolina women during the war, detailed information about fashion and fabrics of the times, and a bibliography of suggested readings. The website is under construction but an old version can be found through Internet Archive.

The Ladies Union Aid Society of St. Louis Produced by a women's Civil War reenacting group, this site provides a history of the LUAS which contains excerpts from original documents related to the creation and work of the Society. Includes references to specific women such as Anna Clapp and Jesse Freement, but also illustrates the work of the many unnamed women who aided soldiers. Also has a bibliography for further reading.

Digitized Materials from Duke University

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LibGuides: The Civil War: Women and the Homefront: Primary Sources Online

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Guide to print and manuscript materials at the Rubenstein Library related to women and their roles in the Civil War.

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World War II Diaries, Other Operational Records, and Histories

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World War II Diaries, Other Operational Records, and Histories

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A subcollection within their larger repository of World War II records, this includes many diaries and departmental reports.

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The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America's libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world.

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This museum in New Orleans has digitized thousands of photographs and oral histories.

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Home | The Digital Collections of the National WWII Museum : Oral Histories

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The National World War II Museum is home to thousands of oral histories and hundreds of thousands of photographs. This website offers the visitor a way to browse a sample of these collections and purchase images if interested.

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National World War I Museum and Memorial

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National World War I Museum and Memorial

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This museum in Kansas City at the Liberty Memorial has extensive collections and is mostly focusing now on digitizing photographs.

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The National WWI Museum and Memorial’s online collections database allows you to search digital records of our global collection that began in 1920.

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Indigeous Voices of the Colorado Plateau

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Indigeous Voices of the Colorado Plateau

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Northern Arizona University’s Special Collections has digitized sources about the Havasupai, Hopi, Hualapai, Kaibab Paiute, Navajo/Diné, and White Mountain Apache. Of special interest are collections on the World War II code talkers and the Diné removal from Arizona to New Mexico in 1864, called “the Long Walk.”

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The Colorado Plateau's geographic landscape straddles the Four Corners Region of the United States, an area that includes Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. This diverse landscape, a mix of alpine mountains, conifer forests, high deserts, deep canyons, and sage-covered plateaus, is the ancestral home to the Hopi, Navajo, Havasupai, Hualapai, White Mountain Apache, and Kaibab Paiute.

Voice is not simply found in audible representation. Non-verbal communication is also a rich, powerful means of conveying the essence of a particular group of people. This exhibit, then, is simply the conduit for indigenous voice, offering the audience a glimpse of these ancestral Colorado Plateau communities. Through images representing their history, culture, architecture, art and everyday life as well as direct quotations from tribal members themselves, these indigenous tribes of the Colorado Plateau tell their stories.

Map of Colorado Plateau
Courtesy of Underhill Foundation and the Grand Canyon Trust

Using images, documents, and oral history quotes from the Colorado Plateau Digital Archives, the Cline Library invites visitors to this exhibit to listen closely to these indigenous voices. The unique cultural resonance of each tribe can be clearly heard.

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Indigenous Voices of the Colorado Plateau

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The Colorado Plateau's geographic landscape straddles the Four Corners Region of the United States, an area that includes Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. This diverse landscape, a mix of alpine mountains, conifer forests, high deserts, deep canyons, and sage-covered plateaus, is the ancestral home to the Hopi, Navajo, Havasupai, Hualapai, White Mountain Apache, and Kaibab Paiute.

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Pendergast Years: Kansas City in the Jazz Age & Great Depression

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Pendergast Years: Kansas City in the Jazz Age & Great Depression

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This resource includes both primary and secondary sources about the Kansas City metro, especially images and maps, during the era of corrupt bosses, party machines, bootlegging, and jazz. It takes his name from Tom Pendergast, an unelected dealmaker and leader of the "goat" faction of the local Democratic Party who consolidated control of Kansas City's machine politics and ruled Kansas City's government and criminal underworld.

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Kansas City in the Jazz Age & Great Depression

Kansas City women-members of the Athenaeum, the Woman's City Club, and other organizations-sought to assert power in their community and beyond. Coming from Republican and independent Democratic backgrounds, and abhorring the influence of the Democratic machine, they embraced a progressive spirit that revered what they envisioned as good government.

Explore the Image Gallery

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The Pendergast Years | Kansas City in the Jazz Age & Great Depression

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For nearly a decade and a half between 1925-1939, political boss Thomas J. Pendergast (or simply "Boss Tom"), an unelected dealmaker and leader of the "goat" Democratic faction that had long rivaled Shannon's "rabbits," consolidated control of Kansas City's machine politics and ruled Kansas City's government and criminal underworld with impunity.

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Pendergast Years: Kansas City in the Jazz Age & Great Depression

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Pendergast Years: Kansas City in the Jazz Age & Great Depression

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This resource includes both primary and secondary sources about the Kansas City metro, especially images and maps, during the era of corrupt bosses, party machines, bootlegging, and jazz. It takes his name from Tom Pendergast, an unelected dealmaker and leader of the "goat" faction of the local Democratic Party who consolidated control of Kansas City's machine politics and ruled Kansas City's government and criminal underworld.

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Kansas City in the Jazz Age & Great Depression

Kansas City women-members of the Athenaeum, the Woman's City Club, and other organizations-sought to assert power in their community and beyond. Coming from Republican and independent Democratic backgrounds, and abhorring the influence of the Democratic machine, they embraced a progressive spirit that revered what they envisioned as good government.

Explore the Image Gallery

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The Pendergast Years | Kansas City in the Jazz Age & Great Depression

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For nearly a decade and a half between 1925-1939, political boss Thomas J. Pendergast (or simply "Boss Tom"), an unelected dealmaker and leader of the "goat" Democratic faction that had long rivaled Shannon's "rabbits," consolidated control of Kansas City's machine politics and ruled Kansas City's government and criminal underworld with impunity.

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Discovering American Women's History Online

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Discovering American Women's History Online

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This extensive database includes detailed descriptions and links to more than 700 digital collections, easily searchable and also browsing by subject, place (including an interactive map), time period, place, and type of source.

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Tribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State)

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Tribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State)

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This database includes agreements between tribal nations and the United States (1778-1886) published in the 1904 work Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties (Volume II), compiled and edited by Charles J. Kappler. Editorial margin notes are included.

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This database includes agreements between tribal nations and the United States (1778-1886) published in the 1904 work "Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties" (Volume II), compiled and edited by Charles J. Kappler. As you view the treaties in this database, editorial margin notes are included. Links to Kappler's original text and digitized treaties held at the National Archives can also be found throughout the site. Finally, a recently updated, comprehensive index complements this work.

This database is in high demand by Indigenous people, researchers, journalists, attorneys, legislators, educators and others of both Native and non-Native origins.

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This database includes agreements between tribal nations and the United States (1778-1886) published in the 1904 work "Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties" (Volume II), compiled and edited by Charles J. Kappler. As you view the treaties in this database, editorial margin notes are included.

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Alcohol, Temperance, and Prohibition Collection

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Alcohol, Temperance, and Prohibition Collection

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These are sources housed at Brown University about the campaign to end alcohol consumption. The digitized pamphlets were published by various groups leading up to prohibition, during the prohibition era, and ending with the 21st amendment in 1933, which repealed the 18th amendment from 1919 prohibiting the manufacturing, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors.

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The digitized items in the Alcohol, Temperance and Prohibition Collection are from the Alcoholism and Addiction Studies Collection, as well as from various collections in the Brown University Library - broadsides, sheet music, pamphlets and government publications.

The items have been collected at Brown for over three centuries for researchers and scholars at Brown and worldwide interested in American history, including the history of alcoholism, how the media was used for spreading ideas and information, and in how the arts presented various movements.

The purpose of this digital collection is to give researchers and interested individuals a glimpse into the rich and diverse resources at Brown's library. All of the digital items are in the public domain.

The digitized pamphlets were published by various groups leading up to prohibition, during the prohibition era, and ending with the 21st amendment in 1933, which repealed the 18th amendment from 1919 prohibiting the manufacturing, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors.

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Brown Digital Repository | Collection | Alcohol, Temperance ...

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The digitized items in the Alcohol, Temperance and Prohibition Collection are from the Alcoholism and Addiction Studies Collection, as well as from various collections in the Brown University Library - broadsides, sheet music, pamphlets and government publications.

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Alcohol, Temperance, and Prohibition Collection

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Alcohol, Temperance, and Prohibition Collection

# data[].attributes.body
These are sources housed at Brown University about the campaign to end alcohol consumption. The digitized pamphlets were published by various groups leading up to prohibition, during the prohibition era, and ending with the 21st amendment in 1933, which repealed the 18th amendment from 1919 prohibiting the manufacturing, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors.

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The digitized items in the Alcohol, Temperance and Prohibition Collection are from the Alcoholism and Addiction Studies Collection, as well as from various collections in the Brown University Library - broadsides, sheet music, pamphlets and government publications.

The items have been collected at Brown for over three centuries for researchers and scholars at Brown and worldwide interested in American history, including the history of alcoholism, how the media was used for spreading ideas and information, and in how the arts presented various movements.

The purpose of this digital collection is to give researchers and interested individuals a glimpse into the rich and diverse resources at Brown's library. All of the digital items are in the public domain.

The digitized pamphlets were published by various groups leading up to prohibition, during the prohibition era, and ending with the 21st amendment in 1933, which repealed the 18th amendment from 1919 prohibiting the manufacturing, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors.

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Brown Digital Repository | Collection | Alcohol, Temperance ...

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The digitized items in the Alcohol, Temperance and Prohibition Collection are from the Alcoholism and Addiction Studies Collection, as well as from various collections in the Brown University Library - broadsides, sheet music, pamphlets and government publications.

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Robert and Elizabeth Dole Archives (U. of Kansas)

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Robert and Elizabeth Dole Archives (U. of Kansas)

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Robert Dole (originally from Russell, Kansas) served in Congress from 1960 to 1996 and ran for President in 1996 against Bill Clinton. His congressional archive is located on KU's campus and is one of the largest such archives outside of the presidential library system. Unfortunately their digitized sources are hard to find, but their topic guides will send you to Sharepoint folders with digitized sources including speeches, memos, pamphlets, photographs, and more. (See for instance this topic guide on the Americans with Disabilities Act, https://dolearchives.ku.edu/research/topic/ada.)

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Senator Bob Dole's leadership shaped Congress, our nation, and the world.

To commemorate his 100th birthday, the Dole Archives presents never-displayed materials highlighting his landmark career.
Learn More About The Exhibit and Visiting the Museum

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Robert and Elizabeth Dole Archive and Special Collections

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Congressional Archive of Senator Robert J. Dole & Senator Elizabeth H. Dole

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The Congressional Globe is a record of the congressional debates from the 23rd U.S. Congress in 1833 through the 42nd U.S. Congress in 1873. The Globe provides summaries of congressional debates in the early volumes, but in 1851 it started to provide more complete record of the debates. It is preceded by the Annals of Congress and the Register of Debates and succeeded by the Congressional Record.

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The Congressional Globe - UNT Digital Library

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The _Congressional Globe_ is a record of the congressional debates from the Twenty-Third U.S. Congress in 1833 through the Forty-Second U.S. Congress in 1873.

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The Congressional Globe is a record of the congressional debates from the 23rd U.S. Congress in 1833 through the 42nd U.S. Congress in 1873. The Globe provides summaries of congressional debates in the early volumes, but in 1851 it started to provide more complete record of the debates. It is preceded by the Annals of Congress and the Register of Debates and succeeded by the Congressional Record.

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The Congressional Globe - UNT Digital Library

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The _Congressional Globe_ is a record of the congressional debates from the Twenty-Third U.S. Congress in 1833 through the Forty-Second U.S. Congress in 1873.

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Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum

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Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum

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Not all material housed here is digitized, but it includes all of his public papers, some of his staff's papers, as well as documents surrounding specific topics or events, such as the 1981 assassination attempt. The library also contains some documents connected to when he was governor of California.

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Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum | Ronald Reagan

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University of Southern California (USC) Digital Library

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University of Southern California (USC) Digital Library

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This includes a wide variety of primary source materials organized into collections including the Gospel Music History Archive, Automobile Club of Southern California Collection, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, Filipino American Library Collection, Korean American Digital Archive, and Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Archive, among many others.

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These categories represent a set of collection strengths in the Digital Library that support the research, teaching, performance and patient care mission of the University and inspire our students, faculty and staff in their scholarly and creative endeavors. These categories will change and evolve over time to reflect changes in the university's mission and the interests of our students and faculty.

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These categories represent a set of collection strengths in the Digital Library that support the research, teaching, performance and patient care mission of the University and inspire our students, faculty and staff in their scholarly and creative endeavors. These categories will change and evolve over time to reflect changes in the university's mission and the interests of our students and faculty.

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The papers of vice president, senator, and representative Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), who became the seventeenth president of the Unites States in 1865 after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, consist of 40,000 items (63,710 images), most of which were digitized from 55 reels of previously produced microfilm.

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About this Collection | Andrew Johnson Papers | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

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The papers of vice president, senator, and representative Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), who became the seventeenth president of the Unites States in 1865 after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, consist of 40,000 items (63,710 images), most of which were digitized from 55 reels of previously produced microfilm. Spanning the years 1783-1947, with the bulk dating 1865-1869, the collection contains correspondence, memoranda, diaries, messages and speeches, courts-martial and amnesty records, financial records, lists, newspaper clippings, printed matter, scrapbooks, photographs, and other papers relating chiefly to Johnson’s presidency. Subjects include the Civil War, National Union Party, Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln’s presidency and assassination, Reconstruction, and Johnson’s presidential administration and impeachment. The collection also documents Johnson’s service as military governor of Tennessee (1862-1865) and his business affairs, including his tailor shop in Greeneville, Tennessee. Shorthand diaries kept by Johnson’s secretary, William G. Moore, are included in the collection and accompanied by typed transcriptions.

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The September 11 Digital Archive uses electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the history of September 11, 2001 and its aftermath.

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The September 11 Digital Archive uses electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the history of September 11, 2001 and its aftermath. The Archive contains more than 150,000 digital items, a tally that includes more than 40,000 emails and other electronic communications, more than 40,000 first-hand stories, and more than 15,000 digital images. In September 2003, the Library of Congress accepted the Archive into its collections, an event that both ensured the Archive's long-term preservation and marked the library's first major digital acquisition.

Browse: Explore the collection for stories, images, emails, documents, sounds, and videos of September 11

Research Search, sort, and examine the entire collection

Michael Ragsdale - a video producer in New York City - collected posters, letters, cards, brochures, event programs, press releases, and announcements...

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The September 11 Digital Archive uses electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the history of September 11, 2001 and its aftermath. The Archive contains more than 150,000 digital items, a tally that includes more than 40,000 emails and other electronic communications, more than 40,000 first-hand stories, and more than 15,000 digital images.

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Christine Dunlap Farnham Archive (Brown University)

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Christine Dunlap Farnham Archive (Brown University)

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Founded in 1986, the Christine Dunlap Farnham Archive documents the history of cis and trans women and non-binary people at Brown University and in the state of Rhode Island.

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Founded in 1986, the Christine Dunlap Farnham Archive documents the history of cis and trans women and non-binary people at Brown University and in the state of Rhode Island. A research collection housed at Brown University's John Hay Library, the Farnham Archive is open to the public for research.

Named in honor of Pembroke College alumna Christine Dunlap Farnham '48, a leader in volunteer support for the Pembroke Center, the archive began with the Pembroke Center Oral History Project and has grown to include a wide variety of archival materials. Notable collections are the records of Pembroke College, files on student organizations and activities, campus publications, student scrapbooks, alumnae papers, photographs, audiovisual material, and memorabilia. Collections relating to Rhode Islanders include records from the Rhode Island Society for the Collegiate Education of Women, Women for a Non-Nuclear Future, COYOTE-RI, and The Womxn Project.

Researchers can access collections of the Christine Dunlap Farnham Archive by visiting the John Hay Library, using the publication Research Guide to the Christine Dunlap Farnham Archive, researching the collection online through the Christine Dunlap Farnham LibGuide, and/or browsing the Brown University Library catalog using the search term, "Women."

For more information about donating or accessing material, please contact pembroke_archives@brown.edu.

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A research collection documenting the history of cis and trans women and non-binary people at Brown University and in Rhode Island, spanning from the 19th century to the present.

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This has thousands of digitized sources from University of Massachusetts-Amherst. DuBois was a Black activist, author, historian, and sociologist and one of the most influential thinkers of the early twentieth century.