#quartermaster general

[todaysdocument]

Colonel Samuel Hodgdon, Quartermaster General

Record Group 111: Records of the Office of the Chief Signal OfficerSeries: Photographs of American Military Activities

Portrait of a man in late eighteenth-century clothing.

[riversidearchives]

Coffee, Cigarettes, and Cigars

It is nearing the end of the Federal government’s fiscal year.  Here at The National Archives at Riverside, that means planning for next year’s projects and ordering necessary supplies are top priorities.  While processing a collection from RG 92, Records of the Quartermaster General, Archivist Jennifer found supply requisitions for March Field (our neighbor just across the freeway) from almost 100 years ago.  What’s top on their list?  Cigarettes (of different varieties), cigars, coffee and potatoes!

These records arrived at The National Archives at Riverside in pretty bad shape.  The letter size folders are original to the era and are highly acidic, not to mention flaking apart.  They provide little, if any, support to the light-weight typing paper found within.  The documents have been crinkled on the edges and fastened with brads, staples, and straight pins for nearly 10 decades.  

Our staff and volunteers are slowly straightening the materials, removing fasteners, and rehousing the documents in acid-free folders and boxes.  Then, a full file list inventory will be created and available to researchers.

We’ve provided a few pictures of before and after processing the requisition records.  For more information on the history of March Field, please see March Field Air Museum and Air Force - March Field History.  If you would like more information on archival processing, check out the Wikipedia article (archival processing) and its bibliography.

[riversidearchives]

Oh, button it!

When processing archival collections, we sometimes find wonderful artifacts associated with the records.  While working on an unprocessed series of records created by the Quartermaster General’s Office at Camp Kearny, California, our volunteer Jamie found some World War I era Army buttons. 

These buttons, however, were not worn on a uniform.  They were samples that accompanied an October 25, 1918, solicitation letter from City Button Works in New York. At that time, City Button Works was supplying the War Department and various National Army Camps with uniform buttons.

The samples include the Great Seal of the United States, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dress button, and a plain button.

We hope you enjoy the images of these buttons.

To learn more about button collecting, visit www.nationalbuttonsociety.org, which is holding its annual convention August 4-10 in Portland, Oregon.