#nora sutton

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! 

Trackwomen, 1943. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company

Series: Women Working In Industry, 1940 - 1945. Record Group 86: Records of the Women's Bureau, 1892 - 1995

March is Women’s History Month! Women have shaped this country’s history in more ways than we can count. Long before Rosie the Riveter joined the war effort in the 1940s, women earned wages to support themselves and their families. This series of posts celebrates the diversity of women’s labor, ranging from industry to agriculture to folklore and beyond. 

This archival series (Women Working In Industry, 1940 - 1945) contains images depicting women and their contributions to the war effort during World War II. The photographs show women for the first time on a mass scale and from every social and economical background preforming jobs that have been traditionally considered as men’s work. In addition to the clerical and secretarial fields, women are seen working in the aircraft industry, the metal industry, ordnance, the railroad, the shipyards, as well as the military services. There are approximately 94 different occupations shown in this series where women were performing the work.

Slave Manifest of the Brig Splendid of Baltimore

File Unit: May 1841, 1817 - 1861. Series: Slave Manifests, 1817 - 1861. Record Group 36: Records of the U.S. Customs Service, 1745 - 1997  

Scope & Content note:  “This item is a slave manifest for 26 slaves shipped by H.H. Slatter who were shipped to New Orleans, Louisiana from Baltimore, Maryland on April 24, 1841.”

The enslaved people aboard the Splendid ranged in age from 30 years old to infancy. Manifests such as this one enumerate the slaves’ names, sex, physical characteristics, and master. Such information can help genealogists or curious family members piece together aspects of enslaved ancestors’ lives.

More Resources for Genealogists and Family Historians from the @usnatarchives​

"Mrs. Sarah J. Wilson, Bulls Gap, Tennessee. In addition to daily work around the home, she finds time to raise some cotton, carding and spinning it herself. She also does some hand-weaving.", 10/22/1933

Series: Lewis Hine Photographs for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), 1933 - 1933. Record Group 142: Records of the Tennessee Valley Authority, 1918 - 2000

March is Women’s History Month! Women have shaped this country’s history in more ways than we can count. Long before Rosie the Riveter joined the war effort in the 1940s, women earned wages to support themselves and their families. This series of posts celebrates the diversity of women’s labor, ranging from industry to agriculture to folklore and beyond.

In 1933, photographer Lewis Hine was hired to capture images of rural families who would be displaced by Tennessee Valley Authority construction projects. Here, Hine captured Sarah J. Wilson carding cotton that was raised on her land in Bulls Gap, Tennessee.

“US Air Force (USAF) Second Lieutenant (2LT) Sandra McDonald completes her portion of the Iraq/Boston Marathon at Tallil Air Base (AB), Iraq, as she passes her baton to USAF SENIOR MASTER Sergeant (SMSGT) Vic Talinni to start his portion of the 26.2 mile course. Both are deployed with the 407th Expeditionary Communications Squadron (ECS) at Tallil AB in support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, 4/18/2005″

Series: Combined Military Service Digital Photographic Files, 1982 - 2007 Record Group 330: Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1921 - 2008

Today is the 121st running of the Boston Marathon!

French children waving to 101st Ammunition train, 26th Div., passing thru the village of Soulosse, France, on way to the front., 4/10/1918

Series: Photographs of American Military Activities, ca. 1918 - ca. 1981. Record Group 111: Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, 1860 - 1985

The 101st Ammunition train was organized in Boston, MA in August 1917, then assigned to the 26th Division. The unit participated in four campaigns of World War I: Champagne-Marne, Aisne-Marne, St. Mihiel, and Meuse-Argonne before it was demobilized in May 1919.

Uncover more World War I Centennial Resources at the National Archives

World War I Centennial News, Events and Exhibits

Remembering WWI App: Engage with our extensive collection of moving and still images

Educator Resources: Bring World War I documents into the classroom

Genealogy: Researching Individuals in World War I Records

Prologue Magazine: Articles about World War I drawn from our holdings

Citizen Archivists: Tag and Transcribe World War I records

Shooting World War I: The History of the Army Signal Corps Cameramen, 1917-1918

A Brief Look at African American Soldiers in the Great War

The Women of World War I in Photographs

Accessing World War I Photos in the Digital Age

World War I films collection on the National Archives YouTube Channel

Envelope Addressed to Rose O'Neal Greenhow, ca. 1861

File Unit: Letters from Captain Treadwell S. Moore and His Wife Florence (Son-in-Law and Daughter) to Mrs. Rose O'Neal Greenhow, 8/23/1861 - 8/23/1861. Series: Seized Correspondence of Rose O'Neal Greenhow, 8/23/1861 - 8/23/1861. Record Group 59: General Records of the Department of State, 1763 - 2002

April 3rd is Pony Express Day! Although it only operated for 19 months (April 3, 1860 to October 1861), its riders were the fastest carriers of mail across the west before the telegraph linked the coasts.

This piece of mail was sent via the Pony Express to Rose O’Neal Greenhow, a famous Civil War spy for the South. In 1835, Rose married Dr. Robert Greenhow and they moved to Washington, DC. There, she was a popular socialite and hostess and became friends with prominent political figures such as South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun and President James Buchanan.

Nicknamed Wild Rose and Rebel Rose, Greenhow collected war secrets from her powerful and connected friends and acquaintances. She was a passionate secessionist and passed ciphered messages to Confederates through the spy ring she ran in Washington, DC. She is sometimes credited with providing the Confederates information crucial to their success at the First Battle of Bull Run. Rose was captured on August 23, 1861 by the head of the Union Intelligence Service and was placed under house arrest. She continued her clandestine activities both while under house arrest and after she was moved to Old Capitol Prison in January 1862. She was never found guilty of espionage but was deported to the South in May 1862. In August 1863, Rose traveled to England and France to promote the Confederates’ cause to the European ruling classes. In fall 1864, she left England carrying secret messages meant for the Confederates but her ship encountered Union forces off the coast of Wilmington, NC and ran aground. Rather than risk being recaptured, Rose tried to make it ashore on a smaller boat. It capsized and she drowned under the weight of gold she was carrying - money intended for the Confederate treasury.

Women Making Bohemian Lace, July 1974

Series: DOCUMERICA: The Environmental Protection Agency's Program to Photographically Document  Subjects of Environmental Concern, 1972 - 1977. Record Group 412: Records of the Environmental Protection Agency, 1944 - 2006

Full caption: “Making "bohemian lace" is a tradition and craft handed down through generations of women living in New Ulm, Minnesota. Mrs. Francis Zeug, right foreground, is working on the lace. Thread is stored in small wooden bobbins called "knipples" in German. The bobbins are bought from Germany since the craft is slowly dying out. New Ulm is a county seat trading center of 13,000 in a farming area of south central Minnesota founded in 1854 by a German immigrant land company, 7/1974”

March is Women’s History Month! Women have shaped this country’s history in more ways than we can count. Long before Rosie the Riveter joined the war effort in the 1940s, women earned wages to support themselves and their families. This series of posts celebrates the diversity of women’s labor, ranging from industry to agriculture to folklore and beyond.