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Posted by: Julie Miller
Filipino politician Apolinario Mabini’s “Manifesto Regarding the American Occupation and the Philippine Insurrection,” 1902, provides insight into the shifting political landscape of the Philippines after the conclusion of the Philippine-American War and the subsequent annexation of the archipelago by the United States.
Posted in: International History, Of Note, War and Society
Posted by: Julie Miller
To gauge American sentiments at the start of the Revolutionary War, the British government ordered American letters opened, read, and copied at London’s post office. Today copies of those copies are at the Library of Congress.
Posted in: Early America, War and Society
Posted by: Julie Miller
The Library of Congress has just received a group of thirteen letters, mostly from Henry Clay to William Harris Crawford, six of which are unpublished. These document the work of the American commissioners who negotiated the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, and the subsequent commercial treaty signed with Britain.
Posted in: Early America, International History, Law, Letters, Politics, War and Society
Posted by: Rachel McNellis
While on board a passenger ship anchored in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861, Confederate surgeon Dr. Edward S. Aldrich witnessed the Battle of Fort Sumter and encountered the USRC Harriet Lane. His personal account is detailed in a family letter in the Manuscript Division’s Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection.
Posted in: Civil War, Letters, Of Note, War and Society
Posted by: Josh Levy
In 1982, former United States Marine Corps historian H. C. L. Merillat published a history of the Guadalcanal Campaign based largely on his wartime diaries, but he left out entries that showed him struggling with his role in the military and in the war. Unpublished excerpts reveal Merillat’s thoughts and insecurities during the campaign and reveal some of the burdens of recording history as it happened.
Posted in: Journalism, War and Society
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.
Posted in: Aviation, Civil War, Science and Technology, War and Society
Posted by: Josh Levy
Staff Favorites is a new interview-based series in which staff members share favorite items from Manuscript Division collections. This guest post is by Manuscript Division cataloging librarian Joy Orillo-Dotson.
Posted in: International History, Staff Favorites, War and Society
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.
Posted in: International History, Sports, War and Society
Posted by: Josh Levy
Join Rachel Gross, author of Shopping All the Way to the Woods: How the Outdoor Industry Sold Nature to America, to learn more about the surprising military origins of your favorite outdoor gear.
Posted in: Events, War and Society