By David Langbart From time to time while working in the records, NARA staff find documents that provide new perspectives on events through which they lived. I recently had that experience. I remember well the terrible humanitarian disaster that befell local populations as Yugoslavia ripped itself apart during the 1990s. I remember, too, how many … Continue reading Yugoslavia 1970: The Writing on the Wall
By David Langbart Jazz great Dave Brubeck died on December 5, one day short of his 92nd birthday. Since then, there have been many retrospectives – in print, on television, on radio, and on line. Almost all of those remembrances mention the goodwill tour of Poland and the Far East that Brubeck and his quartet … Continue reading Remembering Dave Brubeck
By David Langbart In the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor 71 years ago today, agencies of the U.S. government swung into action. The Army and Navy immediately went on a war footing as did American diplomats in the Department of State and at embassies and consulates around the world. Since the formal … Continue reading Remembering Pearl Harbor
By David Langbart Thanksgiving is considered by many to be the quintessential American holiday. As Thanksgiving 1918 approached, Americans had more reason than the usual to give thanks. On November 11, 1918, Germany signed the armistice that brought World War I to an effective end. In the wake of that event, the United States made … Continue reading Thanksgiving around the world
By David Langbart "This is an American soldier – he is your friend." So read the leaflet prepared by the United States for use in Vietnam. Underneath that caption, it pictured several American infantrymen advancing into combat. The time, however, was not the 1960s; it was mid-1945 and World War II in the Pacific was … Continue reading Vietnam and the Ironies of History
The "National Archives Researcher News" recently carried an FAQ that provides guidance on ways to improve your research experience at the National Archives. It is reissued here to bring it to the attention of readers of The Text Message. HOW CAN I MAKE MY VISIT MORE SUCCESSFUL? The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) reference … Continue reading Make Your Research Visit to NARA More Successful
To assist researchers interested in records of the Department of State and other foreign affairs agencies, the most heavily used records in the National Archives, the Textual Archives Services Division has launched a newly revamped set of pages on the Archives' website for providing an introduction to foreign affairs records. The conduct of foreign affairs … Continue reading Launch of new web pages on Foreign Affairs records
Today's post is written by David Langbart, a senior processing archivist in College Park. Sometimes records long thought to be lost find their way home. One such occurrence took place recently. The U.S. embassy in Germany received from the German government some files from the U.S. consulate in Dresden. The records had been found among … Continue reading Records Lost and Found, or, Dresden on the Eve of Destruction
Today’s post is written by archivist David Langbart who works primarily with diplomatic records. In my earlier post about Despatches, I noted that the correct spelling in Department of State usage is dEspatch and not dIspatch. After writing that post, purely by serendipity, I located a document that shows just how seriously the Department of … Continue reading Foreign Service Friday: Despatch vs. Dispatch
Today’s post is written by archivist David Langbart, who works primarily with diplomatic records. Researchers who use Department of State records may be interested to know a bit more about the types of documents used by Foreign Service Posts to communicate with the Department of State. This is the fifth, and final, in a series … Continue reading Foreign Service Friday! The Official-Informal Letter
