This lunch was the last meal that President Nixon ate before announcing later that day–August 8, 1974–that he would resign following damaging revelations in the Watergate scandal.
White House photographer Oliver Atkins made a point of documenting the preparation of the lunch.
You can learn more about President Nixon and his domestic policies in this Prologue magazine article: http://go.usa.gov/jUKG
Image from the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum
DON’T show grim reaper grabbing child! WW2 drawing by Charles Henry Alston for the Office of War Information NARA ID 535617.
DON’T show crying babies! Baby receives polio and tuberculosis vaccine 11/8/1983. NARA ID 6374069.
DON’T show animal testing! Army Camp Upton, NY, 8/19/1918. NARA ID 45494994.
DON’T show “behind the scenes” resembling a prison kitchen! “Making typhoid vaccine for the Army, Navy, and Marines.” WWI image, 2/1918, NARA ID 45496240.
DON’T show “behind the scenes” that resembles a barista making pour over coffee! “Making typhoid vaccine for the Army, Navy, and Marines.” WWI, 2/1918, NARA ID 45496236.
DON’T show unhappy people! Vaccination of German WWI POWs, 9/27/1917, NARA IDs 45496232 and 16579624.
DON’T show kid staring at needle and random medical hands! WWII poster, Office of War Information. NARA ID 514611.
By Miriam Kleiman, Public Affairs
During this largest vaccination drive in history, we again look to history for guidance on public outreach.
DON’T show crying babies! Certainly not those who need to be held down by mom and two soldiers!
DON’T show the Grim Reaper grabbing an innocent child!
DON’T show animal testing!
DON’T show miserable shot recipients!
DON’T show labs that look like prison kitchens or coffee bars!
Vaccinations can be fun! Employees receive Typhoid vaccine, 3/31/1945, Newport News, VA, NARA ID 138926831.
Smiles, Everyone. SMILES! Ricardo Montalbán, Fantasy Island
First Lady Lou Henry Hoover
First Lady Lou Hoover welcomed spring with this undated poem, shared by archivist Matthew Schaefer in his Hoover Heads post, Lou Hoover ‘Spring’s Coming.’
Flower carpets, green slopes, meadowlarks’ trills. Spring in California! It is coming.
We begin to prepare, in fancy, for the inevitable outings, when the call to adventure gets beyond control.
Afoot. Ahorse. En auto. We yield to the invitation of them all. Even when we say, ‘the motor goes too fast; it misses the charm of the wayside; we can’t tell what flowers they are, only their color.’ Even then, we more often take the auto, because it gets us farther afield in less time.
Occasionally having to go to Lost Hills and Taft and Coalings, I will prepare to make as many of these journeys as possible in the next few months, and to take as many routes as possible in order to see as many hundreds of millions of wild flowers as may be before the summer sun drives them away.
Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover, 1928. Hoover Library, NARA ID 40978757.
I had to go to Lost Hill’s this week… and I rejoiced at the hints of spring in sight and smell. It is in the air. Early, this year.
The hills and roadsides are already very green. Green are the more than twenty miles of empty sloping plain between the foothills and the first fields east, hundreds of square miles green here now, where was not a fresh blade all of last year. Dust they lay for more than a year, dry dust of the desert, from which it did not seem that leaf nor flower could ever spring again. And now it is all emerald carpet. A couple of months intervening, and too heavy frost not interfering, hundreds of miles long, and it will be a Persian rug of California flowers, hundreds of miles long. A score or two or three miles wide, the object of pilgrimage to thousands. And yet few people know that it exists.
Now it is green promise. Promise strengthened by a few gay poppy and mustard blooms on hardy year-old wayside plants, as one drives up Salinas valley. The Salinas valley, beautiful on a windless day, a soft hazy day, making the most lovely pastels of broad river flats, of almost leafless willows and poplars, of too closely cropped hillsides, and of blue mystic opalescent mountain distances.
A perfect road, of generous width and broad sweeps and curves, giving constantly changing vista and panorama. A valley of ineffable loveliness today, who could believe that it might be of biting cold or blasting heat, swept by a wind of seeming everlasting unrest!
First Lady Rosalynn Carter seems surprised by this GIANT GREEN BAGEL from Rep. Robert Giaimo, Carter Library, NARA ID 844014.
A leprechaun interrupts President Reagan’s Cabinet meeting, 3/17/1986, Reagan Library, NARA ID 75854671.
President Reagan enjoys St. Patrick’s Day lunch with a unicorn in Alexandria, VA, 3/17/1985. Reagan Library, NARA ID 75856015.
The Carter Family celebrates St. Patrick’s Day at the White House, 3/17/1980, Carter Library, NARA ID 6783245.
Ireland’s Ambassador to the US presents LBJ with a bowl of shamrocks, 3/17/1965, Johnson Library, NARA ID 6801637. Yes… he was really tall - 6'4"!
Shamrocks from the Irish Ambassador to President and Mrs. Bush, 3/17/2004, Bush (43) Library, NARA ID 117886259.
Do you think they served green beer? Dinner invite, 3/17/2005, President Bush (43), NARA ID 148029117.
WWI “March Seventeenth” political cartoon by Clifford Berryman shows Uncle Sam preparing to use a club to deal with the many German propagandist snakes slithering in the grass around him, 3/17/18. NARA ID 6011367.
In this “St. Patrick” political cartoon by Clifford Berryman, evil snakes represent problems posed by Prohibition, 3/17/1922, NARA ID 6011716.
Program from the 1921 Battery D Reunion Banquet, Truman Library, NARA ID 7233819.
Top graphic online here; National Archives gif online here.
One of the gifted pandas at DC’s National Zoo, 4/20/1972, NARA ID 66394284
By Miriam Kleiman, Public Affairs
In honor of #NationalPandaDay, we thank President Richard Nixon* and share excerpts from his chat – with a reporter – on panda mating habits! (Washington Star’s foreign editor Crosby Noyes). Read the full conversation of 3/13/1972, listen to the audio tape.
*Nixon’s historic 1972 trip to China led to the BEST GIFT EVER - the two adorable furry goodwill ambassadors Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing. But their U.S. arrival was delayed so the pandas could learn Sex Ed.
Nixon: Now, as a matter of fact, let me tell you an interesting thing about—that you must know, you can only use on your own if you want, but not on comment. I was just talking to [White House Chief of Staff] Bob Haldeman who talked to his Chinese hosts, and this question of mating is very interesting. These are—This is a male and a female.
Noyes: Uh-huh.
Nixon: The problem with, uh—The problem, however, with pandas is that they don’t know how to mate. The only way they learn how is to watch other pandas mate. You see?
Noyes: [laughs]
Nixon: And, so they’re keeping them there a little while—these are younger ones—
Noyes: I see.
Nixon: —to sort of learn, you know, how it’s done.
Noyes: Sure, learn the ropes—
Nixon: Now, if they don’t learn it they’ll get over here and nothing will happen, so I just thought you should just have your best reporter out there to see whether these pandas—
Noyes: Well, we certainly will—
Nixon: —have learned. So, now that I’ve given you the story of pandas let me let you get back to your more serious questions.
More online:
Space Shuttle Columbia Commander Collins on middeck. NARA ID 23178677.
Collins on middeck on STS-63. NARA ID 23894155.
To celebrate Women’s History and Irish-American Heritage Months, we share archives tech Thomas Richardson’s Pieces of History post.
Overview of flight deck with Collins in pilot’s station, NARA ID 23132847.
Paperwork - even in space! NARA ID 23130737.
I think we’d have a better community on Earth if more people traveled in space. – Eileen Collins
Asked “what do you want to be when you grow up?” young Eileen Collins responded both a pilot and an astronaut.
I noticed all the astronauts were male, but that did not deter me. I assumed someday a woman would have an opportunity. It was not until I was in high school that I realized how difficult it actually was. Many women attempted to apply to the astronaut program, but because women were not allowed to fly as military pilots, they did not have the experience required for space. (from here).
She ignored skeptics and broke barriers in STEM. She had many “firsts” in her decades-long career with the Air Force and NASA, during which she logged more than 6,751 hours in 30 different types of aircraft and more than 872 hours in space:
Collins cited the lasting impact of the first moon landing:
On the day of the first moon landing, July 20th, 1969, I was just a child, and I remember how inspiring the space program was to me. I especially admired the astronauts, not just the Apollo astronauts, but the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts. Remember, the Mercury program flew in the early 1960s, and then the Gemini program was kind of a bridge to the Apollo program. And all of those astronauts were a great inspiration to me; I wanted to be just like them. I wanted to learn how to fly, do well in school and math and science, and join the military, become an Air Force pilot, become a test pilot, and then lead into the astronaut program.– Smithsonian interview
President Clinton with Lt. Col. Collins after her selection as the first woman space mission commander, 3/5/1998. NARA ID 183374036).
Miners with lunchboxes, Dixie Darby Fuel Co, Marne Mine, Harlan County, KY, 9/13/1946, NARA ID 541300.
Astronauts Soichi Noguchi (L) and Stephen K. Robinson in Space Shuttle Discovery, NASA records, NARA ID 23397436.
Lunch in the trenches, WWI, Records of the Chief Signal Officer, NARA ID 55164261.
Butter as a food group! WW2 Poster, Office of War Information, NARA ID 514288.
Butter is a “fuel food” - eat it every day! WWII poster, Office of War Information, NARA ID 514197.
“Avoid fatigue - Eat a lunch that packs a punch,” WW2 Poster, Office of War Information, NARA ID 513896.
By Miriam Kleiman, Public Affairs
We celebrate today, “an opportunity to revitalize lunchtime with fresh and healthful meal choices,” with a broader approach to healthy eating. Check out our great online exhibit, What’s Cooking Uncle Sam, for more retro wonders!
Vitamin Donuts Poster, ca. 1942. NARA ID
Circular No. 50-24: Daylight Saving Time, 9/8/1924. NARA ID 6882506.
Not a typo, not un-PC, but Navy’s usage of “retard”
Daylight Savings Time has been discussed, used, amended and abandoned starting around WWI. Our extensive related holdings include Congressional debates, political cartoons, and the surprising (to us) usage of the term “retarded” by the US Navy in reference to this and other time changes.
USS SUMNER - War Diary, 6/1-30/45, NARA ID 77464207.
WWI Poster: Saving Daylight! NARA ID 512689.
Marcus M. Marks, Chair of the Nat'l. Daylight Saving Movement, signals to set hands of the great clock in the Metropolitan Tower, NYC, 3/31/1918. NARA ID 23923627.
Untitled cartoon by Clifford Berryman, 5/25/1922, NARA ID 6011373
Opposition to Daylight Savings, Cartoon by Clifford Berryman, 5/25/1922, NARA ID 6011733.
Diplomatic Records expert archivist David Langbart shares more about the origins and early implementation of Daylight Savings Time around the world in his 3-part The Text Message blog series:
JFK, Anne Sullivan & Helen Keller 4/8/1961. JFK Library ID JFKWHP-1961-04-08-A.
Helen Keller and Mark Twain, 1902, Keller left her records to the American Federation for the Blind (AFB). The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) helped fund online access to this collection.
Helen Keller Met Ann Sullivan #OTW in 1887
By Miriam Kleiman, Public Affairs
“The two most interesting characters of the 19th century are Napoleon and Helen Keller.” –-Mark Twain
Happy Women’s History Month! 134 years ago this week, 6-year-old Helen Keller started working with Anne Sullivan (later dubbed “the miracle worker” & immortalized by Hollywood). Undeterred by her deafness and blindness, Keller became a suffragist, activist, educator, writer, and co-founder of the ACLU. Of course we have related records!
Interesting related fact (source here):
Keller and Sullivan’s were inseparable for nearly 50 years (from 1877 until Sullivan’s death) and remain together today–interred in DC’s National Cathedral crypt, marked by a bronze plaque in braille. Sullivan was the first woman interred at the Cathedral.
Suffragist Helen Keller
Keller participated in the 1913 “Woman Suffrage Parade” in DC and spoke/wrote/advocated in support of not only women’s suffrage but also civil rights, labor rights, reproductive rights, and disability rights.
Petition to support the Federal Suffrage Amendment,6/15/1916, NARA ID 167059922.
We demand the right to vote, not because we think we are better or wiser than men, but because it is our right as much as it is theirs. And… we cannot abuse this right more than the men have done by themselves.
Excerpt from Keller’s speech: “Why Woman Wants to Vote” 1920, made available in part thanks to a grant from the NHPRC.
Helen Keller and Eleanor Roosevelt
The two first met in 1936 and remained friends for decades. They had much in common as famous women actively involved in human rights, women’s rights, and global cooperation. Our FDR Library holds correspondence between Keller and both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.
Eleanor wrote about Keller in her July 3, 1945, My Day column:
Last week I went to the office of the American Federation for the Blind to receive the resolution… which Miss Helen Keller wanted to present to me personally… commemorating my husband’s services as honorary chairman. As I stood and listened to Miss Keller speak, I thought how wonderfully both Miss Keller and my husband typified the triumph over physical handicap.
Many of you may not know that Miss Keller, with her faithful friend and interpreter, has visited a number of our service hospitals. Some people felt that she might discourage our wounded men. Instead of that, the men recognized the greatness of her personality and the serene and courageous spirit which has made of her life a rich and full existence. She carried comfort to the men who were facing their own handicaps and trying to find the courage to build normal lives in spite of them.
Eleanor Roosevelt with Helen Keller, Martha’s Vineyard, MA, 8/25/1954, FDR Library, NARA ID 195945.
Letter from Keller to President Hoover, 2/5/1933, Hoover Library, NARA ID 7722949.
Helen Keller and President Hoover
Keller asked President Hoover to visit the American Foundation for the Blind’s NY recording studio to see “talking books recorded on a phonograph disc.”
Excerpt:
Your presence at the Foundation studio would give a tremendous impetus to this project, and the blind in this country would be gladdened by a message from you saying that a new pathway of light is being blazed through their darkness.
See also:
Portrait of Dred Scott by Louis Schultze, commissioned by “a group of Negro citizens” and presented to the Missouri Historical Society in 1882. Supreme Court, Dred Scott case summary, 3/6/1857, NARA ID 301673.
#OTD in 1857, the Supreme Court ruled that slaves and their descendants were not citizens – a decision decried by legal scholars as the worst ever rendered by the Court, one that later Chief Justice Evans Hughes called a “self-inflicted wound that almost destroyed the Supreme Court.”
By Miriam Kleiman, Public Affairs
This decision was overturned by the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution, which abolished slavery and declared all persons born in the United States to be citizens of the United States. This decision is one of the hundreds of thousands of Supreme Court case files at the National Archives, dating from 1792.
Will nobody speak for me at Washington, even without hope of other reward than the blessings of a poor black man and his family? Dred Scott, July 4, 1854
Background:
In 1846 a slave named Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet, sued for their freedom in a St. Louis city court. The odds were in their favor. They had lived with their owner, an army surgeon, at Fort Snelling, then in the free Territory of Wisconsin. The Scotts’ freedom could be established on the grounds that they were held in bondage for extended periods in a free territory and were then returned to a slave state. Courts had ruled this way in the past. However, what appeared to be a straightforward lawsuit between two private parties became an 11-year legal struggle that culminated in one of the most notorious decisions ever issued by the United States Supreme Court.
I declare that the opinion of the chief justice in the case of Dred Scott was more thoroughly abominable than anything of the kind in the history of courts. Judicial baseness reached its lowest point on that occasion.” –Charles Sumner
Supreme Court Judgment , Dred Scott v. Sandford, 3/6/1857, NARA ID 301674.
More online:
Warrant for Habeas Corpus, U.S. v. Cinque and the Africans, 1839, NARA ID 2641484.
“Joseph Cinquez, the brave Congolese Chief, who prefers death to slavery, and who now lies in jail…,” Library of Congress image online here.
#OTD in 1841, the Supreme Court issued a ruling freeing the remaining 35 survivors of the Amistad mutiny. Although most of the justices were from the South, only one dissented from Justice Joseph Story’s majority opinion. Private donations ensured the Africans’ safe return to Sierra Leone in January 1842.
“…each of them are natives of Africa and were born free, and ever since have been and still of right are and ought to be free and not slaves …” S. Staples, R. Baldwin, and T. Sedgewick, Proctors for the Amistad Africans, 1/7/1840
Background:
In February 1839, Portuguese slave hunters abducted a large group of Africans from Sierra Leone and shipped them to Havana, Cuba, a center for the slave trade. This abduction violated all treaties then in existence. Two Spanish plantation owners, Pedro Montes and Jose Ruiz, purchased 53 Africans and put them on the Cuban schooner Amistad to ship them to a Caribbean plantation. On July 1, 1839, the Africans seized the ship, killed the captain and the cook, and ordered the plantation owners to sail to Africa.
Instead, they sailed north; and on August 24, 1839, the Amistad was seized off Long Island. The schooner, its cargo, and all on board were taken to New London, CT, where the plantation owners were freed and the Africans were imprisoned and charged with murder.
This warrant above ordered the mutiny leader Sengbe Pieh (also known as Joseph Cinque, and written as Jinqua), and the other Africans from the Amistad to appear in court.
The murder charges were dismissed, but the Africans continued to be held in confinement and the case went to trial in the Federal District Court in Connecticut. The plantation owners, Spanish government, and captain of the Washington each claimed rights to the Africans or compensation. The court ruled that the case fell within Federal jurisdiction and that the claims to the Africans as property were not legitimate because they were illegally held as slaves. The U.S. District Attorney filed an appeal to the Supreme Court.
In January 1841, former President John Quincy Adams argued the defendants’ case in the Supreme Court. He defended the right of the accused to fight to regain their freedom. The Supreme Court decided in favor of the Africans, stating that the Africans had never been enslaved but were free individuals, kidnapped and transported illegally. 35 were returned to their homeland; the others died at sea or in prison while awaiting trial.
The records of the case heard in US District Court and US Circuit Court for Connecticut are in the holdings of the National Archives at Boston.
More online:
