#today's document

[deadpresidents]

Can you recommend any active history blogs?

I don't follow all that many blogs, so I'm sure some of my readers can share their recommendations in the replies. Of the blogs that I do follow, here are a few activate sites that regularly update with some great material:

•The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum (@richardnixonlibrary)

•The California State Library (@californiastatelibrary)

•The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library (@fdrlibrary)

•Today's Document from the National Archives (@todaysdocument)

•The National Archives (@usnatarchives)

I really wish that the LBJ Library (@lbjlibrary) still updated their Tumblr regularly because they used to post some interesting stuff. The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum (@fordlibrarymuseum) has also been inactive for a few months, but they were one of my favorite things to see on my dashboard when they posted regularly. A few years ago, the National Archives actually started an awesome Tumblr called Our Presidents (@ourpresidents) that was like the mothership for all of the other Presidential Library blogs in the NARA's Presidential Library system. It was a GREAT idea and one of my favorite blogs, but it just stopped posting a couple years ago. I wish they would get that one going again. I think those inactive sites still have their old posts and archives available, so you can still go back and see what we're missing.

Like I said, I'm sure some of my readers have better suggestions than I do about this that they can share in the replies, so what are some of your favorite history blogs?

[todaysdocument]

We love finding gems to feature here for you! Have you ever wanted to be the one digging through our Catalog? Here’s your chance!

To celebrate our social media birthday, we are hosting a takeover of our Today's Document accounts for the whole month of April.

Participating is easy! Simply use our search link to browse documents with APRIL anniversary dates. 

If you are submitting a document from your own search please remember that the document needs to have an APRIL date to be considered for our Document of the Day!

Once you've found a document from the National Archives that you think would make a great feature, enter it through our submission form.

We hope you love it as much as we do!

[todaysdocument]

Our #CitizenArchivistTakeover is almost here! Follow these steps to submit a document:

1. Go to https://catalog.archives.gov/advancedsearch. 

2. Use "Search by Recurring Date" to search for an October date. 

3. Select "Image" as the level of archival description. 

4. Hit “Search” to find a document you love and submit it here: https://goo.gl/forms/8fXlSthfbx1vHzYE3. #AmericanArchivesMonth

[todaysdocument]

We’re back!  Give us a few minutes while we spin this back up!

Excerpted from:  Ford Air Transportation, ca. 1925 Series: Motion Picture Films Relating to the Ford Motor Company, the Henry Ford Family, Noted Personalities, Industry, and Numerous Americana and Other Subjects, ca. 1903 - ca. 1954 Collection: Ford Motor Company Collection, ca. 1903 - ca. 1954

Congress has restored funding of appropriated activities and NARA is resuming normal operations. Please visit archives.gov for more information.

[todaysdocument]

Reflections on a Today’s Document Internship

You may have noticed a message on some Today’s Document posts this past spring reading, “Today’s post comes via Nora Sutton, one of our interns from the Department of State’s Virtual Student Foreign Service (VSFS) program. Nora is finishing her Master’s in Public History at West Virginia University this semester.”

The National Archives staff who curate Today’s Document participated in the VSFS program to add different perspectives and more diverse content to the blog. As part of the internship, I spent about 10 hours a week scouring the NARA online catalog to find unique and engaging items to add to post about. Following in the vein of the new social history of the 1960s and 1970s, a movement that advocated for broader inclusion of women, minorities, and lower classes in the historical narrative, my main goal was to showcase people, stories, and events that you may not have seen in your history books. I wrote one post a week during January, February, and April. In March, I wrote a series of posts related to both Women’s History Month and Irish-American Heritage Month. A labor theme tied the series together.

Through my coursework in Public History, I have been trained to be responsive to an audience’s historical interests and their reactions to information.  This experience taught me a great deal about engaging with audiences through a digital platform. I monitored notes on my posts in order to track engagement, because I wanted to provide analysis of my guest posts to NARA staff to help them evaluate the success of the internship program. Tumblr’s tools, likes and reblogs, do not always demonstrate a user’s significant feelings. From the notes, though, I could discern a few trends. For instance, readers liked photographs more than textual records. When a post coincided with a popular holiday (like Martin Luther King, Jr. Day) or popular historical topic, it typically did well. Posts related to women’s history, labor history, and African-American history received a good number of notes, probably indicating that readers have diverse historical interests.

Sharing pieces of history with followers of this blog was a valuable and rewarding professional experience. It was truly enjoyable to delve deeper into the NARA catalog and share my finds with Today’s Document’s followers. I entered the history field to help audiences form their own connections to historical events, places, and figures, and this project proved to be a digital extension of that work.

Find all of Nora’s posts here

We appreciated all of Nora’s contributions this spring --  we hope all our Today’s Document followers enjoyed her added perspective as well.  We wish her all the best in her next endeavor! 

Interested in a Today’s Document internship? Stay tuned for the next round of VSFS internships to be announced in the next few weeks!

[todaysdocument]

Today's Document turned 6 today!

Six years and over 5,000 posts later, we still enjoy bringing you daily historic, important, and otherwise curious records from the @usnatarchives. Thanks to all our fans, followers, and fellow history nerds!

Missed a post? Check out our archive!

And in the spirit of Museum Memories Day, what was your favorite Today’s Document?

[the-interbrigade]

Ernest Hemingway 1923 Passport Photograph, 1923 von The U.S. National Archives Über Flickr: Title: Ernest Hemingway 1923 Passport Photograph, 1923 Creator(s): Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961 Persistent URL: arcweb.archives.gov/arc/action/ExternalIdSearch?id=192693 Access Restrictions: Unrestricted Use Restrictions: Unrestricted