Tag: primary sources

Under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI vigorously investigated and tracked the activities of Communist groups, Communist-front groups, and other radical organizations in the United States. This module consists of records of the FBI and the Subversive Activities Control Board from 1945-1972. Highlights of this module include J. Edgar Hoover’s office files; documentation on the FBI’s so-called “black bag jobs,” as they were called before being renamed “surreptitious entries”; and the “Do Not File” File. The “Do Not File” file consists of records that were originally supposed to be destroyed on FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s order, however, through both intended and inadvertent exceptions to this order, large portions of these files survived. Another key collection in this module consists of the records of the Subversive Activities Control Board (SACB). The SACB files constitute one of the most valuable resources for the study of left-wing radicalism during the 1950s and 1960s.

 The records presented in Southern Life and African American History, 1775-1915, Plantation Records: Part 2, come from the holdings of the University of Virginia and Duke University. One of the extraordinary collections from the University of Virginia, especially for the study of slavery, is the papers of General John Hartwell Cocke. The papers of the Berkeley family from 1653 to 1865 are exceptional for the 18th and 19th centuries on such matters as land and crop sales, slave and medical accounts, and family and overseers’ correspondence. The massive collection from the wealthy Bruce family is valuable for overseer correspondence and business records as well as for personal correspondence, women’s diaries, and slave records. Other collections from University of Virginia include correspondence from overseers; documents on slave sales, runaway slaves, discipline, diet, health, and the work loads of adults and children; plantation management, and westward migration to Arkansas and Louisiana prior to the Civil War. Major collections from the Duke University holdings document plantation life in the Alabama, as well as South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. Records from Alabama and Mississippi depict the opening of the southern frontier in response to the cotton boom of the early 19th century. Among the exceptional collections are the Henry Watson papers and the Clement Claiborne Clay papers from Alabama, and the John Knight and Duncan McLaurin collections from the Natchez area in Mississippi. Another major collection from the Duke holdings is the William Patterson Smith Collection. William Patterson Smith, along with his brother Thomas operated a mercantile firm in Gloucester, Virginia

 Student demonstrations, political unrest, coup d’etats, assassinations, political trials, meetings and visits of foreign leaders, economic and agricultural assistance, disputes over the use of international waters, international trade, military conflicts. These are just a small sampling of the subjects covered by Confidential U.S. State Department Central Files on the turbulent 1960s around the world. The U.S. State Department Central Files are an important source of American diplomatic reporting on political, military, social, and economic developments throughout the world in the 20th century. Concentrating exclusively on those U.S. State Department Central Files Central Files that have not been microfilmed by the National Archives or distributed by other publishers, the U.S. State Department Central Files Central Files in History Vault contain a wide range of materials from U.S. diplomats in foreign countries: reports on political, military, and socioeconomic matters; interviews and minutes of meetings with foreign government officials; important letters, instructions, and cables sent and received by U.S. diplomatic personnel; and reports and translations from foreign journals and newspapers. The Africa and Middle East files document a number of fascinating issues. The Africa files cover the brutal civil war between Biafra and Nigeria in the late 1960s, the 1964 Rivonia trial of Nelson Mandela and seven leaders of the African National Congress, violent protest against the South African government coupled with police crackdowns on the resistance, the troubled relationship between the U.S. and the apartheid regime, and the first years of independence in Ghana and the Congo. The files on Egypt offer considerable detail on the Egyptian political structure which was dominated by Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1960s. Political issues are also covered in extensive detail in the files on Iran, Iraq, and Israel. Documents on Iran follow Ali Amin’s tenure as prime minister and his succession by Asadollah Alam. In Israel, State Department personnel tracked developments in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), the political fortunes of important members of the Israeli government, and the fragile security situation faced by Israel. The countries covered in this module are: Biafra/Nigeria; Congo; Egypt; Ghana; South Africa; Iran; Iraq; Israel; Lebanon; Palestine; Saudi Arabia; the Persian Gulf States (Aden, Bahrein, Kuwait, Muscat & Oman, Qatar, Trucial Sheiks); and Yemen.

 Women at Work during World War II consists of two major sets of records documenting the experience of American women during World War II: Records of the Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor, and Correspondence of the Director of the Women’s Army Corps. Records of the Women’s Bureau consist of two major series. The first series documents the role of the Women’s Bureau as an investigative agency, as a clearinghouse for proposed changes in working conditions, and as a source of public information and education. Items in this first series include reports of the bureau director to the secretary of labor, records of bureau-sponsored conferences, and speeches and articles by women officials of the bureau. The second series of Women’s Bureau records consists of a detailed study on the treatment of women by unions in several midwestern industrial centers, complete with extensive background interviews and other research materials; community studies conducted nationwide on the influx of women to industrial centers during the war; and subject files and correspondence on women’s work in war industries, including issues like equal pay and child care. The Correspondence of the Director of the Women’s Army Corps dates from 1942–1946 and documents the women who joined and served in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC, known as the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps [WAAC] from May 1942 until July 1943) during World War II. Every topic of importance to the WAC is covered in the correspondence, with an emphasis on issues such as recruiting, public support for the WAC, personnel matters like discipline and conduct, and race.