Happy Flag Day!
Letter from Sheryl Byland to President Dwight D. Eisenhower Regarding American Flag Design Suggestion, 10/1958
Frenchman’s Flat, Nevada - Atomic Cannon Test - History’s first atomic artillery shell fired from the Army’s new 280-mm artillery gun. Hundreds of high ranking Armed Forces officers and members of Congress are present. The fireball ascending, 05/23/1953
(Ed. note - Although the caption provided with the photo states 5/23/1953, most records indicate this test occurred on May 25, 1953.)
Bill to Break the Sound Barrier
If you were the first woman to break the sound barrier, who would you pick to fly the chase plane behind you?
Jacqueline Cochran tapped her friend, Colonel Chuck Yeager for the task for her May 18, 1953 flight. A logical decision, since he was the first pilot to break the barrier in 1947.
Here is his final bill for his expenses, including the replacement of dead chickens that stampeded when her low-flying Sabre jet flew over a ranch.
More — Jacqueline Cochran, World Famous Aviatrix
-from the Eisenhower Library
Baseball great, Jackie Robinson with President Eisenhower and comedian Joe E. Brown at the White House on May 14, 1957.
-from the Eisenhower Library
“I respectfully remind you sir, that we have been the most patient of all people.”
-Letter from Jackie Robinson to President Eisenhower of May 13, 1958
After he retired from Major League Baseball, Jackie Robinson went on to champion the cause of civil rights from his position as a prominent executive of the Chock Full o’Nuts Corporation.
Robinson had grown increasingly impatient with what he regarded as President Eisenhower’s failure to act decisively in combating racism. In this letter dated May 13, 1958, he expresses his frustration and calls upon the President to finally guarantee Federal support of black civil rights.
Operation Cue - May 5, 1955
Part of the overall “Operation Teapot” series of nuclear test explosions in Nevada, Operation Cue was a civil defense exercise to intended to observe the effects of nuclear weapons on a civilian infrastructure, including the construction of test houses populated with mannequins.
Photographs of Operation Cue from the Records of the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, 1947 - 1962
via DocsTeach
Ernest Hemingway in Havana Harbor after catching a marlin. Included in the picture are Carlos Gutiericz, Ernest Hemingway, and Sidney Franklin. Others are unidentified. July, 1934
From the Ernest Hemingway Collection of the John F. Kennedy Library
Author Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Old Man and the Sea was awarded the Pulitizer Prize for Fiction 60 years ago on May 4, 1953.
“Clasping his wife tightly in his arms, aboard a Combat Cargo C-124 “Globemaster” just after it landed near Tokyo, Capt. Zach W. Dean of El Dorado, Kan., the third U.S. Air Force repatriate returned by the Communists, finishes the first leg of his long trip back from a Red prison camp. Captain Dean, a former F-51 Mustang pilot with the 35th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, was shot down on April 22, 1951 and captured. He was flown to Japan aboard a 374th Troop Carrier Wing transport plane, Monday, April 27, 1953, where his wife, A Red Cross worker in Tokyo for the past two years, was waiting to meet him. With Captain Dean on the huge plane were 16 other repatriates, six of whom were litter cases and 10 ambulatory patients.”
As Administrative Professionals Week comes to a close, do you have what it takes to succeed?
Brooke’s Your Reflector Number I (Personality) Quiz from the Secretarial Training Program in Waco, Texas from January 1959 to June 1959 (Online catalog identifier 7280725).
Among the holdings of the National Archives at Fort Worth are the records of the Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training (RG 300). These documents, dating from the late 1950s to the late 1960s, offer insights into how secretaries were viewed and trained. They also offer a glimpse of an era gone by.
This flashback comes courtesy of our colleagues at the National Archives at Fort Worth, and their blog series: Flashback! Secretaries of the 1950s and 1960s: Do You Have What it Takes to be One
How did you score? Do you have a “good personality rating for the business world”?
Truman to MacArthur: “You’re Fired”
Proposed Orders and Statement on Dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur.
On April 11, 1951, President Truman dismissed General Douglas MacArthur as commander of United Nations forces in Korea due to insubordination, following several incidents in which MacArthur publicly criticized the Commander-in-Chief.
Formerly classified “Top Secret,” this document consists of orders from President Truman relieving General MacArthur of his commands and designating General Matthew Ridgway as his successor, along with a statement explaining MacArthur’s dismissal.
Read more at Prologue: You’re Fired
Related: Abraham Lincoln’s General Order 182 Relieving Major General George B. McClellan of Command
NASA announces the selection of the first astronauts, aka the “Mercury Seven,” on April 9, 1959
Position Description for Mercury Astronaut
(More on Project Mercury)
The first Eisenhower Easter Egg Roll will be held Saturday, March 30, from 1 to 4 p.m. on the grounds of the Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum and Boyhood Home.
This event is free and open to the public and will feature games, crafts, face painting, an Easter egg hunt and more. The egg hunt will begin promptly at 1 p.m. so don’t be late! Admission to the Museum and Boyhood Home will be free all day.
Image: In 1958 Bunny, Hazel, Fred (Skippy), and Darlene Johansen attend the Eisenhowers’ White House Easter Egg Roll. (Eisenhower Library)
Photograph of a Young Jewish Boy with Elders at a Passover Ceremony, 4/16/1951.
In this 1951 photograph, a seven-year-old Jewish boy asks the traditional Passover questions during a Seder dinner with elders Joseph Blantz, 91, and Hannah Skolnick in New York, New York.
Chag Pesach Sameach/Happy Passover!
via DocsTeach
Eleanor Roosevelt in Bombay, India, 03/04/1952
Harvey Lavan “Van” Cliburn, Jr.: American Classical Pianist and Cultural Hero of the Cold War, July 12, 1934 - February 27, 2013
“TEXAS PIANIST WINS TOP SOVIET MUSIC PRIZE In Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre, Texas’ Van Cliburn wins the Tchaikovsky Competition, one of the toughest and most prestigious in the world of music with a bravura performance that makes him the toast of Moscow. A rare feat by an American-born, American-trained musician.”
