Archive for November, 2011
What’s Cooking Wednesday: Flour Sack Art
One of the themes throughout our “What’s Cooking Wednesday” posts has been war and food rationing. American citizens were asked to grow their own food, ration sugar, and eat less meat so that there would be more supplies for soldiers fighting overseas and for people with little food left in their war-torn country. As a result, [...]
Posted by Hilary on November 30, 2011, under - Great Depression, - Presidents, - World War I, Uncategorized, Uncle Sam, What's Cooking Wednesdays.
Tags: Belgium, Commission for Relief in Belgium, flour sacks, herbert hoover, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, world war i, WWI
Comments: none
Little Women in the Civil War
About 20,000 women volunteered in military hospitals during the Civil War. Unfortunately, the majority of them left little or no written evidence of their sacrifice in the war. Louisa May Alcott, renowned 19th-century author of Little Women, was one of them, and her service is documented in a Washington, D.C., hospital’s muster roll. Alcott was [...]
Posted by Hilary on November 29, 2011, under - Civil War, Unusual documents.
Tags: 1862, abolitionist, calomel, civil war, Dorothea Dix, Hospital Sketches, Little Women, Louisa May Alcott, mercury poisoning, military hospitals, nurses, typhoid
Comments: none
What’s Cooking Wednesday: Truman and the no-turkey Thursday
What do you if you love Thanksgiving but it falls on a day when you can’t eat turkey? In 1947, President Truman faced an awkward dilemma. Truman took up the office of President during World War II, but even after the war ended, the plight of the Europeans was on his mind. Americans were still urged [...]
Posted by Hilary on November 23, 2011, under - Presidents, - World War II, Myth or History, What's Cooking Wednesdays.
Tags: House, Joint Resolution, menu, President Truman, Senate, thanksgiving, turkey, Wednesday, White house menu
Comments: none
Hit the Road, Jack!
Today’s post is by Miriam Kleiman, public relations specialist at the National Archives. Jack Kerouac—American counterculture hero, king of the Beats, and author of On the Road—was a Navy military recruit who failed boot camp. Navy doctors found Kerouac delusional, grandiose, and promiscuous, and questioned his strange writing obsession. I learned this in 2005, right [...]
Posted by Hilary on November 22, 2011, under - The 1960s, Prologue Magazine, Rare Photos, Unusual documents.
Tags: Basic Training, Clark Cable, delusional, dementia praecox, Elvis, grandiose, Jack Kerouac, Jackie Robinson, national personnel records center, On the Road, promiscuous, St. Louis
Comments: 5
Facial Hair Friday: Rising above party politics
Today in 1886, former President Chester A. Arthur died from complications from Bright’s disease. He had not been relected for second term, and he had left office in 1884. He died in New York City, just 56 years old. Although he sported the facial hair style of the time, Arthur was an unlikely President. He [...]
Posted by Hilary on November 18, 2011, under Facial Hair Fridays.
Tags: assasination, Bright's disease, Chester A. Arthur, civil war, Conkling, Customs House, Elizabeth Jennings, Garfield, Grant, kickbacks, lawyers, Republicans, St. John's church, tariffs, White House
Comments: none