Here is where you add what you found on ARC this week.
Keep in mind that learning this is an exercise that will serve you well when searching on OPA or the search engines of other archival facilities. This is particularly true when you are deciding what search terms to use.
You do not need to master ARC, because some day (sooner or later) it will be gone.
Using ARC while it is still available is a great way to experience the thinking behind archival description and some practice time spent here should help you understand ways in which records might be found in other archival search engines.
Replies
My Robeson search discovered lots of pictures and artistic renderings such as:
03-0070a.jpg
I begin by looking for Dorothea Dix materials....I started searching her name, then went on to metal health, then reform, etc. Using the advanced search seemed also fruitless. I switched topics to Paul Robeson, famous singer and activist in the 1940's. Discovered a lot more. I realized that the more contemporary you are the more resources are available to you. Interesting in that if we teach modern history we have pretty good resources; but it may be difficult the farther back in time you search, or the more relatively obscure the figure?
I stumbled across this in my last lesson search. I am not sure that I liked it in all honesty. I do feel like I am uncovering slowly in doing these lessons like I am learning some sort of secret coding system, haha.
I spent a lot of time today exploring the archives, the ARC, OPA etc. I practiced refining my searches. I found this log book from the Revenue Cutter Bear through the ARC in the digital copies. The whole book is digitized. The log book talks about Dr. Jackson and Dr. Gambell on board. It talks about stopping at reindeer stations. It was a fascinating log book. It also talks about Lapp herders being transported. For me, the National Archives are not the first place I would go. I would do other research first, then when I have more information on time periods, possible government agencies involved and a specific topic, then I would go to the National Archives. The research there may take me other places, but I would have the information necessary to begin a research project. I found many valuable pieces today for my topic.
USRCS Bear, 07/1901 - 10/1901
ARC Identifier 6919230 / MLR Number NC-31 159A
Textual Records from the Department of the Treasury. U.S. Coast Guard. (1915 - 04/01/1967)
National Archives at Washington, DC - Textual Reference, Washington, DC
File Unit from Record Group 26: Records of the U.S. Coast Guard, 1785 - 2005
After searching for documents pertaining to native schools, particularly BIA schools that served many Alaskan Natives, and finding very little that was interesting to me, I decided to change my topic to the National Park System. I did a search on ARC for national park service AND history. I limited my results to Record Groups, Collections, and Series in order to get a better idea where this information was generated. I found 78 series that met my criteria, and found most of information came from RG 79: Records of the National Park Service, 1785-2006. One series I thought might be interesting was
Photographs of the Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks, 1929, compiled 1929 - 1929
ARC Identifier 520209 / Local Identifier 79-ZBC.
I looked it over, and it turns out that there are 364 items (photographs of various parts of both of these beautiful National Parks) in this series. I was thinking about reasons why someone would have taken these pictures in a way that would have them included in the National Archives, and the best I can come up with is that it was done in order to either assist in creating maps of the parks, or as a means of documenting the landforms. I did a little additional research on the parks, and as it turns out Bryce Canyon was not yet a National Park at this time. It was still a National Monument, so maybe the photos were used as a tool to determine whether or not the Monument should be upgraded to Park status. I'm just guessing here. This is a photograph of Ebeneezer Bryce's home.
For this particular lesson I focused on explorations of Record Group 261 and intend to visit the ANC facility in the next several days to look through some of the microfilm...
Here are some of my thoughts:
I continued my ARC Search trying to find audio or video records from the Little Rock Nine, the same subject I researched for Lesson 6. I started with a general term, "Civil Rights," from which I then found:
Class 144 (Civil Rights) Sound Recordings, compiled 1939 - 1970
ARC Identifier 1078586 / Local Identifier 60-CRa
Sound Recordings and Textual Records from the Department of Justice. Civil Rights Division. (12/09/1957 - )
National Archives at College Park - Motion Pictures, College Park, MD
Series from Record Group 60: General Records of the Department of Justice, 1790 - 2002
Although there were 84 items they are being held in College Park Maryland and not available online. The scope and content states, "The recordings primarily relate to the Department of Justice's role in the court - ordered desegregation of the University of Mississippi and the enrollment of James Meredith, its first African - American student. Most recordings contain statements given by federal officials, national guardsmen, and local police officials who witnessed the events on the campus and in the town of Oxford, Mississippi in October, 1962."
I then searched the "Digital Copies" tab for "Civil Rights" and including words "Little Rock," and I refined the search to only include audio recordings or moving images. The search resulted one video recording of the "Little Rock Nine" Receiving the Congressional Gold Medal: 11/09/1999 - 11/09/1999
ARC Identifier 6850859, William J. Clinton Library, Little Rock, AR, Item from Collection WJC-WHTV: Video Recordings of the White House Television Office (Clinton Administration), 01/20/1993 - 01/20/2001.
Selecting “view” didn’t allow me to view the A/V file
Selecting control+click allowed me to save the movie as an .mp4 (1.0GB)
Spent about an hour perusing to find information about the American "colonization" of Alaska, but I've not been very good at searching so far. Part of it is my fault, but I cannot get 1000 or 2000 results at a time. I get the message :
Service Temporarily Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.
However, when I do the 100 results, it works just fine. I shall try again tomorrow, perhaps there's something going on with the server today.
Okay, my brain is about to explode and my eyes are bleary from the computer. I have spent many, many hours on this lesson. (Not complaining mind you, I love research, but it’s been frustrating.) Anyway, I’m going with what I have so I can move on to the next lesson! I started out thinking my topic would be Andersonville Prison, then I checked out the Star Spangled Banner, and after that I found interesting articles about women soldiers in the civil war. I tried all sorts of search terms in ARC without any satisfactory results for all three topics. So, since I’m doing a jazz unit with my kiddos, out of curiosity I typed in Louis Armstrong. Well, what do you know, there was plenty there.
I found a good number of sound recordings and movies to be found at the National Archives, College Park, MD, for example:
ARC Identifier 135103 / Local Identifier 306-EN-71-8154
Sound Recordings from the U.S. Information Agency. Voice of America. (08/01/1953 - 04/01/1978)
National Archives at College Park - Motion Pictures, College Park, MD Item from Record Group 306: Records of the U.S. Information Agency, 1900 – 2003
ARC Identifier 2050320 / Local Identifier 200-UN-33-88
Moving Images from the MCA/Universal Pictures.
National Archives at College Park - Motion Pictures, College Park, MD
Item from Collection UN: MCA/Universal Pictures Collection, 1929 - 1967
SATCHMO SWINGS IN CONGO: One of American's most extraordinary ambassadors, Louis Armstrong, arrives in the troubled Congo with his jazz band on a State Department - sponsored good-will mission, and receives a real swinging reception.
Digital copies found were:
ARC Identifier 6948729 / Local Identifier 306-PPB-2
National Archives at College Park - Still Pictures, College Park, MD
Item from Record Group 306: Records of the U.S. Information Agency, 1900 - 2003
ARC Identifier 596218
Textual Records from the War Department. Office of the Provost Marshal General. Selective Service System. (1917 - 07/15/1919)
National Archives at Atlanta, Morrow, GA
Item from Record Group 163: Records of the Selective Service System (World War I), 1917 - 1939
Louis Armstrong's draft card indicates that he registered in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he was born.
As I continued to look for information related to A.J. Dimond, I came across some interesting materials regarding the territorial years leading up to Alaskan statehood.
The photograph below from Dutch Harbor after a Japanese attack fits in nicely with my research on Dimond. I read in Dimond of Alaska by Edward Herron and learned that Dimond raised the alarm in Congress in the late 1930s about the suspicious number of Japanese "fishermen" in the Aleutians before hostilities began between Japan and the US. It seemed quite clear to Dimond that there was little fishing going on, and that their presence was much more about getting a good lay of the land.
"Japanese attack on Dutch Harbor, June 3, 1942. Group of Marines on the "alert" between attacks. Smoke from burning fuel tanks in background had been set afire by a dive bomber the previous day. Alaska., 1943 - 1958," ARC Identifier 520589, Record Group 80: General Records of the Department of the Navy, 1804 - 1983.
Continuing with my theme of the Progressive Era, I found The Keating-Owen bill of 1916.
An Act to Prevent Interstate Commerce in the Products of Child Labor, and for Other Purposes, 09/01/1916
ARC Identifier 5730381 / MLR Number A-1 5A (1789-1823 segment), A-1 5B (1824-1956 segment) (...)
Item from Record Group 11: General Records of the United States Government, 1778 - 2006.
This document was the first child labor law passed as a result of Congress flexing its right to regulate interstate trade, and thus, child labor. "The act banned the sale of products from any factory, shop, or cannery that employed children under the age of 14, from any mine that employed children under the age of 16, and from any facility that had children under the age of 16 work at night or for more than 8 hours during the day." Interstingly, though, it was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1918 because the government had gone outside its duties to regulate interstate commerce.
In conjunction with this I found letters supporting both sides, including a petition of support from a group of high schoolers
(Letter from Lyons Township High School Students Supporting Keating-Owen Child Labor Bill, 03/07/1916
ARC Identifier 5685998 / Local Identifier SEN64A-J38 )
as well as a letter opposing the bill (
Letter from Marshall Dilling Opposing Keating-Owen Child Labor Bill, 03/20/1916
ARC Identifier 5685999 / Local Identifier SEN64A-J38 )
written by a man who was himself put to work in the mills at age 11 by his father to help provide for his family.
On a separate note, I feel my search capabilities are extremely inefficient at this time. While obviously practice will help with this, as a teacher my time is a very precious commodity and something I never have enough of. I just don't see when I will have time to devote to getting better at using these tools, which is disheartening because there are so many interesting documents out there! This class is helping, but I feel my learning curve is so steep that my progress by the end of class will be minimal.