Photo: sierraclub.typepad.com “The Right to Dry Movement”
“But what about those windy spring days? You know the drill, you fight the sheets onto the line. Then the wind catches them and makes them want to sail into the next country!” The Texas Homesteader
Kumeyaay are the local Native Americans who originally inhabited the San Diego are. There are still several reservations in San Diego County. In recent years, the Cabrillo National Monument has expanded its exhibits and information about the Kumeyaays.
Click here to read about the recently planted garden at Cabrillo National Monument.
The Kumeyaay gardens here at Cabrillo will showcase:
California Buckwheat Lemonade Berry Coastal Sagebrush Prickly-Pear Cactus Shaw’s Agave Black Sage Giant Wild Rye Lady Fingers Barrel Cactus Laurel Sumac Bush Mallow California Sunflower Bladder Pod Wild Cucumber Broom Baccharis
Denzil Walton, who lives in and often writes about Belgium, shared this incident from the Battle of the Bulge in 1944-1945. Eleven soldiers from a a segregated artillery unit escaped from the advancing German Army. Click here to find out what happened next.
Segregated in life and forgotten by the U.S. government after the war was over.
Library of Congress Completes Digitzation of 23 Early Presidential Collections
Completion of Project Includes Latest Digitization of Papers of Presidents Benjamin Harrison, William Howard Taft, Grover Cleveland and Calvin Coolidge
Only goes up through Calvin Coolidge in the third row.
The Library of Congress has completed a more than two decade-long initiative to digitize the papers of nearly two dozen early presidents. The Library holds the papers of 23 presidents from George Washington to Calvin Coolidge, all of which have been digitized and are now available online.
The Library plans to highlight each presidential collection on social media in the weeks leading up to the next presidential inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021.
“Arguably, no other body of material in the Manuscript Division is of greater significance for the study of American history than the presidential collections,” said Janice E. Ruth, chief of the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress. “They cover the entire sweep of American history from the nation’s founding through the first decade after World War I, including periods of prosperity and depression, war and peace, unity of purpose and political and civil strife.”
The 23 presidential collections in the Library’s holdings, acquired through donation or purchase, are of such significant value that Congress enacted a law in 1957 directing the Library to arrange, index and microfilm the papers, an enormous job that concluded in 1976. With the dawn of the digital age, the collections of presidential papers were among the first manuscripts proposed for digitization. The conclusion of this effort marks the addition of more than 3.3 million images to the Library’s online archives.
“The writings and records of America’s presidents are an invaluable source of information on world events, and many of these collections are the primary sources for books and films that teach us about our nation’s history,” said Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. “We are proud to make these presidential papers available free of charge to even more researchers, students and curious visitors online.”
The digitized presidential collections offer a robust set of primary resources and easy access for researchers, educators and students studying America’s early presidents.
For presidents who followed Coolidge, the National Archives and Records Administration administers the system of presidential libraries that house and manage the presidential records from President Herbert Hoover onward. The Library does not hold the original papers of all 29 presidents before Hoover, however. The papers of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, for example, are housed at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
With the digitization of papers from Presidents Benjamin Harrison, William Howard Taft, Grover Cleveland and Coolidge, the Library’s complete set of presidential collections is now available online for the first time.
Newly Digitized Collections
Papers of President Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901)
The Harrison collection includes 69,600 items (178,479 images), with the bulk of the collection dating from 1853 to 1901. The collection contains correspondence, speeches, articles, notebooks in shorthand, legal papers, financial records, scrapbooks, memorials, printed matter, memorabilia, and other papers, covering every aspect of Harrison’s life and career.
Papers of President William Howard Taft (1857-1930)
The Taft collection includes approximately 676,000 documents (785,977 images), with the bulk of the material dating from 1880 to 1930. These papers constitute the largest collection of original Taft documents in the world and the largest among the Library’s presidential papers. The collection contains family papers, personal and official correspondence, presidential and judicial files, speeches and addresses, legal files and notebooks, business and estate papers, engagement calendars, guest lists, scrapbooks, clippings, printed matter, memorabilia and photographs.
Papers of President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908)
The Cleveland collection includes 108,200 items (192,602 images), with the bulk of the material dating from 1885 to 1908. The collection contains correspondence, diaries, messages to Congress, speeches, writings, printed materials and other papers relating chiefly to Cleveland’s presidencies and presidential campaigns.
Papers of President Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)
The Coolidge collection includes 179,000 documents (218,513 images), constituting the largest collection of original Coolidge documents in the world. The collection contains incoming correspondence with attachments, notes, carbon copies of outgoing letters from Coolidge or one of his secretaries, telegraph messages, appointment books and names and addresses of White House guests.
Full Set of Presidential Collections
The Library of Congress holds the following collections of presidential papers and has made each available online.
The digitization of these collections reflect advancement toward a goal in the Library’s user-centered strategic plan to expand access, making unique collections available when, where and how users need them. Learn more about the Library’s five-year plan at loc.gov/strategic-plan/.
The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States — and extensive materials from around the world — both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov; access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov; and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov.
As we bring this strange year to a close, we wanted to focus on the positive things from 2020, and with that we bring you some photos and memories from Cabrillo to help brighten your day.
The Russian “Trawlers” (NATO designation: AGI for Auxiliary General Intelligence) with what looked like one thousand “fishing” antennas plied the Gulf of Tonkin on a daily basis…needless to say, it was a cat-and-mouse game to see what havoc they could expend towards our two carriers operating there 24 hours a day.
Since the U.S. government had proclaimed the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin three miles off the coast of North Vietnam and Hinan Island, People’s Republic of China, to be international waters, American ships in the Gulf were bound to obey the international rules of the road for ocean navigation. This meant that if the Russian ship maneuvered herself into the path of an aircraft carrier where she had the right of way, the carrier had to give way even if she was engaged in launching or recovering aircraft.
The navigation officer was constantly trying to maneuver the ship so that the trawler wouldn’t be able to get in position to abuse the rules of the road and gain the right of way.
Attestation – This word (certificate) – already crucial to France’s true religion of bureaucracy – became central to life during Lockdown I. Une attestation de déplacement dérogatoire was required for every trip out. The word is commonly used in many other situations for example: une attestation du travail proves that you are in work while une attestation de domicile is proof of where you live.
Denzil Walton lives in Belgium and documents many of the wonders of this lovely country. World War I plays a major part in many of his posts since so much of the fighting was done in Belgium.
During the First World War the old medieval town of Ypres was the centre of one of the most notorious battlefields the world has ever experienced: the Ypres Salient. In the four years of the war, the entire town centre was virtually totally destroyed. By the time the war ended, a person on horseback could look right across the town. Not surprisingly, it was deserted: the whole population had fled or had been forcibly evacuated.
Priscilla Bettis has written seven original and totally fresh Halloween Haikus. Since she’s a horror writer, I am guessing she came by this ability unnaturally (since it’s Halloween) and exercised her penchant for the eery with her normal writings.
Denzil Walton, of Discovering Belgium, has penned a thoughtful essay prior to Armistice/Remembrance Day (Veteran’s Day in the US) next month, on why do we remember the casualties of war.
Some of his points include:
Does it remind us of the horrors of war?
Does remembrance help avoid future conflicts?
Does it express our gratitude?
Old Guard Tomb Soldier at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery
Britain made the decision not to repatriate the bodies of servicemen killed on the Western Front. Instead, the families would be sent a photograph of the grave marker. Denzil’s book review, The Photographer of the Lost by Caroline Scott, covers this, in addition to the story of a widow who receives a photo of her husband looking older than the last time she saw him. The photo arrives in an envelope with a smudged date stamp and no other information. To find out more, click here.
Eyewitness drawings of military life created while Victor Lundy served in the U.S. Army; from his training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina; through transport aboard ship across the Atlantic; to frontline duty at various locations in France.
To Lundy, who survived the war to become an architecture, sketching was as natural as breathing.
From Modern Met, “Lundy, who went on to have an acclaimed architecture career, donated his eight sketchbooks to the Library of Congress in 2009. The sketchbooks have all been digitally archived and are now available for viewing online. Lundy’s gift is a precious one, as in this age of continued war and terror it is more important than ever to learn from our past history.”
Grackles are not normal visitors to the Tide Pools (or the Rocky Intertidal) at Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego. However, this friendly little bird made herself quite at home.
Some of you may recall Operation Holiday salute from last year – well you all did such an AMAZING job that Veteran’s Last Patrol decided to make this annual effort!
Teachers, managers, families, coaches, associations, companies…this is a GREAT group project. There are veterans who are in hospice care confined due to social distancing that could use extra love this holiday season. Please take an hour or so out of your day to write to them.
Patriotic citizens from around the country will join us in bringing some holiday cheer to America’s veterans in hospice care. Last year we received over 4000 cards from Americans that we then delivered to veterans in nursing homes and hospices. The response was amazing. It was a beautiful thing to see the “WOW” in their eyes. This year we again wish to receive cards and small gifts from grateful patriots, folks with a family military connection, children, clubs, schools, and other organizations that would like to help us express gratitude one final time during the holiday season to those who have served in our Armed Forces.We’re motivated to deliver as many Christmas & Holiday Greeting Cards to veterans in hospice care around the country as we can.
To support us please mail your cards to:
Veteran Last Patrol 140B Venture Blvd Spartanburg, SC, 29306The salutation on the card itself should be: “Dear Veteran” or “Dear Hero”We would like to receive all cards not later than DEC 7th. Learn more about Veteran’s Last Patrol’s year-round efforts here.
