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Category: War and Society

Published engraved image showing a crowd observing the balloon "Intrepid," leaving the ground in the distance.

Nothing Happens in Washington without a Purchase Order: William J. Rhees and Thaddeus Lowe’s Balloons, 1861.

Posted by: Michelle Krowl

In summer 1861, William J. Rhees, chief clerk of the Smithsonian Institution, wrote to his wife about Professor Thaddeus Lowe’s balloon experiments on the National Mall . . . including the reason one ascent never got off the ground. Because (almost) nothing in Washington happens without first securing a purchase order or an appropriation.

Full body shot of Cannon standing on deck of ship

An American Tourist in Nazi Germany

Posted by: Josh Levy

Wendell Cannon, a high school teacher from Illinois, toured Europe during his summer break in 1936. His journal, photographs, and other souvenirs capture familiar tourist activities such as a visit to Paris’s Arc de Triomphe as well as the unique experience of visiting Nazi Germany and witnessing Jesse Owens win gold in the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics.

Monochrome photograph of Lincoln standing with hand on chair, uniformed Union soldiers standing at left and right, with military tents in background

Made at the Library: “Conflict of Command: George McClellan, Abraham Lincoln, and the Politics of War,” with George C. Rable

Posted by: Michelle Krowl

Join us on September 17, the anniversary of the 1862 battle of Antietam, as Manuscript Division historian Michelle Krowl and reference librarian Lara Szypszak interview historian George C. Rable about his new book Conflict of Command: George McClellan, Abraham Lincoln, and the Politics of War, which reevaluates the command relationship between General McClellan and President Lincoln during the Civil War.