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  • I gathered two items from the Prologue Magazine.  One item was from their magazine and one item was from the You-Tube video. 

    * I tried out the General Search Box.  Here I found an article from the Fall 1997 Prologue Magazine that related to reindeer herding in Alaska.  The unlikely title of the article was:  Racial Identity and the Case of Captain Michael Healy, USRCS, Part 3.  The captain of the US Revenue Cutter Bear partnered with Sheldon Jackson and bought reindeer in Siberia then transported them to Alaska. 

    *By using the Online Public Access system, I found a journal that mentioned Sheldon Jackson.  Sheldon Jackson was one of 100 people invited to attend the 24th Annual Indian Conference.  In 1906, he reported on the "alleged" failure of reindeer herding in Alaska.  Alleged failure is how the article in the journal referred to his comments.  This was found in Record Group 75:  Record of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1793-1999; Series:  The Indian School Journal 1904-1926; Item:  Indian School Journal, Volume 7, Number 1  11/1906;  Identifier 2745442 in the article:  The Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian.

    *The other Prologue resource I used was the You-tube video.  I watched Louise Boyd 1928 Expedition.  I had heard of expeditions with men who explored the North Pole, I did not realize a women chartered one herself. 

    *I made a poster in digital archives.  It was on the relocation of people during WWII.  Nothing fancy but a chance to explore.  http://www.digitalvaults.org/#/poster/5038/

     

    *I also looked at the NARA Authority Record.  Here I read about the Bering Sea Patrol.  I enjoyed reading this.  It was a Department of Treasury U.S. Coast Guard Bering Sea Patrol. (1915-1964).  http://research.archives.gov/organization/  ID:1124936

     

    *My favorite two articles were the Authority Record and the Prologue article on Captain Healy of the Bear Revenue Cutter.  I found a map created for Sheldon Jackson and his Reindeer Report.  It was in Special List 29.  I plan to order the map.  You could not view it, but could order it.  It sounded pretty cool.  It is a 1893 map of Alaska with reindeer grazing locations, settlements, military posts, and missions.  It was: Filed as RG 75: Central Map File, CA 620

     

    *I can tell I need more practice with the searching.  Many things I looked for were not available digitally yet.  I think, with more practice, I could find more items.

  • My research focus for this course is on documents, photographs and other media that may be of value to ASD's Alaska Studies course rewrite...

    • Prologue Article- "Seward's time-traveling folly".  An interesting little article that provides background on the Russian sale of Alaska to the US, and talks about how Alaskan's ended up with a 354 day year in 1867. Also contains an image of the Treasury Warrant for the sale...
    • Online Public Access search engine document-  I had no idea that in 1940 Anchorage Corporate Limits were as small as they were.  The official map of the City of Anchorage for that year shows the city bounded on the West by the Knik Arm, on the North by 1st Avenue (with a small extension on Government Hill, on the South by 11th Avenue and on the East by what has come to be called Gambell Street, but was back then called East G Street...
    • Digital Vault document-  A picture of Knik Chief Nikaly and his family in 1918, near Anchorage.7314573292?profile=original
    • A movie from the US-NARA channel on YouTube: People of the Arctic, 1958
      Actual footage of Barrow, AK in 1958...
  • 1)  I haven’t quite determined what my final project will be, but this assignment led me to some interesting threads. I found this article when I entered “musk ox” in the search field. It is the only article that came up using the basic search. It’s interesting to me because when the US received two pandas from China, it was big news. What did China get? A pair of musk ox from the San Francisco zoo!  http://blogs.archives.gov/prologue/?p=4680

    2) I put in: “nunivak musk ox” and found this! http://aad.archives.gov/aad/createpdf?dt=2476&rid=180147&dl... It's a digital telegram sent from American Ambassador in Tehran, Iran, (and former CIA director) Richard Helms to Sec. of State, Henry Kissinger in Oct. 1975. re: 1976 hunting trip for Prince Abdorreza, brother of the Shah of Iran. Wonder which “unpleasantness” Helms is referencing. Iran hostage crisis did not take place until Nov. 1979. The document had been classified until 2006 (if I’m reading correctly). Here’s the text of the document.

    R 300926Z OCT 75
    FM AMEMBASSY TEHRAN
    TO SECSTATE WASHDC 4098

    FOR NEA/IRN-NAAS FROM AMBASSADOR

    SUBJ: ALASKAN HUNTING TRIP FOR PRINCE ABDORREZA

    REF: TEHRAN 7517

    1. PASSED GOVERNOR HAMMOND'S LETTER TO ESKANDAR FIROUZ
    WHO IS HANDLING THE PRINCE'S HUNTING TRIPS. HE IS
    OBIVOUSLY DISSATISFIED WITH THE LOTTERY ARRANGEMENT,
    SINCE HE CLAIMS THE PURPOSE OF THE PRINCE'S HUNT WOULD
    BE TO OBTAIN A MALE MUSK-OX, FROM NUNIVAK ISLAND, AS A
    SPECIMEN FOR IRAN'S NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY.
    ON THIS BASIS, HE STATED THAT HIS REQUEST IS FOR A
    MUSEUM PERMIT FOR TAKING SUCH A SPECIMEN IN MARCH 1976.

    2. IN VIEW OF THIS, WOULD APPRECIATE YOU APPROACHING
    THE GOVERNOR AGAIN TO SEE IF SUCH A MUSEUM PERMIT
    CAN BE ISSUED. IT WOULD HELP AVOID WHAT LOOKS LIKE
    UNPLEASANTNESS DEVELOPING
    HELMS”

    3) I found a map that was created for the Dept. of Defense. It’s housed in Records of the Office of the Chief of Engineers.
    http://www.digitalvaults.org/#/detail/1064/?record=1064 (copy & past in browser)
    I’m hoping it leads me to more maps that were created after 1940 that show the globe from new perspectives - not the flat Mercator projections. For example, maps that show the polar regions in a more accurate perspective help us understand relationships between Alaska and the Far East.

    4) I didn’t get anywhere putting “musk ox” or “nunivak” into the search, so I hit the “browse” button and came to this declassified silent film of the Shah or Iran as he left to visit Moscow:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDXQWI8sf78

    Then I put “shah” and “moscow” into the OPA window and got a great blog post about declassified motion and sound recordings.  This way I could find out more about the film which had no accompanying information. Just look at all the declassified materials! http://blogs.archives.gov/mediamatters/2013/01/11/declassified-moti...

    This brings me to a question: when something becomes declassified and material has been redacted, is is still considered “original source” material? We’ve all seen copies of original documents that have had words blacked out, but what about something that has been re-typed to eliminate those words or a film that has been edited?

  • My topic is still evolving. I would like to do research on Anthony J. Dimond, the namesake of my high school, although thus far my searches have yielded little, and nothing of use in a digital format. I'm hoping I can arrange to view some records in person at the Anchorage archives. As such, what I'm posting here are some of the gems I've found along the way. If my research on Dimond dead ends, I'm now pondering the creation of states (Alaska and others) as a back-up topic.
    • Prologue article related to your topic (found by using the general search box at www.archives.gov
      • After coming across the primary source below, I went searching further for a Prologue on statehood. I found an interesting one on the creation of West Virginia (Prologue: Is West Virginia Constitutional?, found at http://blogs.archives.gov/prologue/?p=2417). I have long used West Virginia's story when teaching about the statehood section in the Constitution (Article IV, Section 3), giving it as an example of needing a state's approval to divide itself into multiple states (which was a bit sneaky for West Virginia). This Prologue includes a scan of a subpoena addressed to the President of the United States to appear before the Supreme Court in hearing Virginia v. West Virginia, a case to determine which state would keep certain counties.
    • A primary source document found by using the Online Public Access search engine at http://www.archives.gov/research/search/
      • In regards to the statehood of West Virginia, I found this document (Memorial of the Commissioners Appointed by the Convention of West Virginia, 05/31/1862, ARC locator 595400). While only two "representative" pages of the multipage document have been digitized, it gave a useful background on West Virginia's path to statehood and how they established a new, union-loyal state government for "Virginia" after the state of Virginia seceeded.
    • An interesting document from www.digitalvaults.org
      • While not related to either of my prospective topics, I found an interesting item here on the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill ("Oil Spill," http://www.digitalvaults.org/#/browse/?record=586). It is the cover sheet for the House subcommittee hearings on the oil spill cleanup, followed by a great overlay map showing the extent of the oil spill superimposed over the Atlanic Ocean along the East Coast, with the caption "What if Valdez, Alaska were Cape Cod?"
    • A movie from YouTube www.youtube.com/user/usnationalarchives/
      • I know it's not really content-related, but I may very well use this one in class. It's quite plainly named "Research at the National Archives" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HNYhMlXYhU&list=ECC2FDF1DBD809F049). A graduate student shows you around the public research area of the National Archives in Washington, DC. Having recently read about using the research rooms at the Archives, I found this video to be useful in making sense of how things work. Even though it's not showing the Anchorage Archives, it shows the procedures that are followed at all of the archives. I will show it to my students and talk about the opportunity to search our local branch of the National Archives and the fact that they can go and do so themselves. 
      • I was also intrigued by the Inside the Vaults segment on the 5th page of the Constitution. Very cool to see the process of restoration of the documents (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePF0z-Qr_Hc&list=PL52D84470A66DA...).
    • Also, if you want to, tell us about what you found on any of the other resources listed in this lesson.
      • I found an interesting (and rather lengthy) finding aid for the Sir Henry S. Wellcome Donated Materials Collection. This collection is at the Anchorage archives and contains a wide range of early Alaskan documents. I was intrigued to see that when a group of materials that is already organized (Wellcome had his own filing system), the Archives is likely to leave it that way.
  • Folks, the digital images that I posted yesterday aren't coming through on the discussion board for me.  If the same problem for you, I'm sorry!   I don't know how to make them "appear." Maybe a tech request to John Trampush?  :)

  • Thanks for sharing- that is very interesting about the WWII film footage. And yes, what a great place we love that gives us access to all of this!
  • OK, I can't resist this one:

    From Teaching with Documents, which I somehow accessed through NARA's social media links, then to the Archives in Philadelphial, and then to ARC and:

    Petition of Mrs. Amelia Bloomer for Relief from Taxation or Political Disabilities, ca. 1878

    ARC Identifier 5752699 / Local Identifier HR45A-H11.7

     


      National Archives and Records Administration
      Records of the United States House of Representatives
      Record Group 233
    This appears to be in the Philadelphia Archives, which might help explain how I got to it circuitously.

     

     

    This far-seeing individual was a pioneer for women's suffrage and for the temperance movement as well as a reformer for women's clothing. Scope and Content explains that the petition asks that she either be relieved from taxation or be allowed to vote.

  • Wow--

    The YouTube site has a video of how the Emancipation Proclamation is preserved and is allowed "out" only rarely. The archivists show how the document is treated; and how an earlier, preliminary version of it still exists and still has the folio ribbon which acts as a binding (sort of) as well as the Presidential seat. The video also showed documentary footage of a 1947 tour around the country of the Emancipation Proclamation, with large crowds and very long lines queued up to see the Proclamation in the "Freedom Train."

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITJreHq76xM

    What a resource!  Think I will browse around and see if there is any footage of WWII army field hospitals in the Pacific and North Africa--might catch a glimpse of my father--extremely unlikely but a thrilling thought.

  • On my gosh! A fraktur from the Digital Vaults--critters related to samplers, and commonly used to prove pension rights from the Revolutionary War. In fact, I'm finding quite a few frakturs and samplers with this common purpose.

    http://digitalvaults.org/#/detail/748/?record=748

    More pension claims--beautiful frakturs--from the Digital Vaults. There is a feature on these somewhere in Prologue (I think). I've run into them in the Archives and now must try to find my way back. Overlooked Americana, so carefully wrought, and an appeal for pensions for soldiers, widows, and children of the heroes of the Revolution.   I'm reading John Jessen's post and also feeling, like the person in the film footage, that the Archives is a privilege of being an American. And, the Archives represent the open access and transparency that should be quintessential to being America!

  • Here is a digital image of Robert E. Lee's letter demanding the surrender of John Brown and his party at Harper's Ferry (10/18/1859).  Look at the elegant, flowing hand. I found this through OPA, with a link that then directed me to the ARC. The same series has General Lee's letter of resignation from the U.S. Army in 1861--same beautiful calligraphic style. (ARC 300383). As with Louisa May Alcott's muster, what does this handwriting tell us about this key historical figure?  At any rate, I have been expecting to explore samplers and their place in early  Ameican domestic arts and culture, but I'm drawn to the Abolitionists and now, to historic letters. Guess I'll find what is intriguing and draw a large thematic circle around it!

     

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