Guide to Federal Archives Relating to the Civil War PDF Download

Author: Kenneth White Munden
Publisher: Washington, National Archives, National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration
ISBN:
Category : Administrative agencies
Languages : en
Pages : 740

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Author: United States. National Archives and Records Service
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Finance, Public
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Author: United States. National Archives and Records Administration
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Government publications
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 778

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Author: Kenneth White Munden
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Archives
Languages : en
Pages : 754

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Author: United States. National Archives and Records Administration
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Archival resources
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Author: Michael W. Harper
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic government information
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Author: Mark R. Wilson
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812293541
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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During World War II, the United States helped vanquish the Axis powers by converting its enormous economic capacities into military might. Producing nearly two-thirds of all the munitions used by Allied forces, American industry became what President Franklin D. Roosevelt called "the arsenal of democracy." Crucial in this effort were business leaders. Some of these captains of industry went to Washington to coordinate the mobilization, while others led their companies to churn out weapons. In this way, the private sector won the war—or so the story goes. Based on new research in business and military archives, Destructive Creation shows that the enormous mobilization effort relied not only on the capacities of private companies but also on massive public investment and robust government regulation. This public-private partnership involved plenty of government-business cooperation, but it also generated antagonism in the American business community that had lasting repercussions for American politics. Many business leaders, still engaged in political battles against the New Deal, regarded the wartime government as an overreaching regulator and a threatening rival. In response, they mounted an aggressive campaign that touted the achievements of for-profit firms while dismissing the value of public-sector contributions. This probusiness story about mobilization was a political success, not just during the war, but afterward, as it shaped reconversion policy and the transformation of the American military-industrial complex. Offering a groundbreaking account of the inner workings of the "arsenal of democracy," Destructive Creation also suggests how the struggle to define its heroes and villains has continued to shape economic and political development to the present day.

Author: T. Dennis Reece
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1462812007
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Bomb disposal was the most technically demanding and dangerous job outside of combat during World War II. Fewer than five thousand men did it in the American armed forces. During the war their activities were shrouded in secrecy, so that the Axis would not know what techniques the Allies were using. When they came home the citizen soldiers and officers who had done the work preferred anonymity to publicity. Furthermore, the units they had served in, often squads of six enlisted men and one officer, had been too small and independent to attract much notice by American chroniclers, official or unofficial, of the biggest armed conflict in history. Captains of Bomb Disposal, 1942-1946 attempts to bring some long-overdue public attention to this small group of neglected heroes. It chronicles two of their two most significant achievements during the World War II era: the contributions of the thirty-three bomb disposal squads of the Ninth Air Force, and the top-secret intelligence mission code named Operation Hidden Documents. In 1944 the Ninth Air Force was the most powerful tactical air force the world had ever seen. In the European Theater of Operations (ETO) it controlled more bomb disposal personnel than any other high command. Part I of Captains of Bomb Disposal, 1942-1946 mainly describes training at the Bomb Disposal School at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, and the support thirty-three bomb disposal squads gave the Ninth Air Force. Interwoven in the narrative covering events after D-Day is the wider context in which those squads, and all of the Ninth Air Force, operated, namely, air and ground forces pioneering a large-scale, close partnership which defeated the Germans in northwest Europe. Also discussed is how Ninth Air Force bomb disposal squads helped handle the problem after V-E Day of up to two million tons of surplus explosive ordnance in the theater. Most of the sources for Part I on bomb disposal operations are unpublished unit histories, Ninth and Eighth Air Force ordnance reports, theater-level reports, and related documents at either the National Archives at College Park, Maryland (NACP), or the Air Force Historical Research Agency (AFHRA), at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. Part I is organized around, but definitely not limited to, the World War II experiences of Capt. Thomas R. Reece. Now deceased and the authors father, he was one of the four highest-ranking bomb disposal officers in the Ninth Air Force. Some of his official and personal papers are utilized. Background material on the course of the war in the ETO is taken mainly from published official histories, and for the Ninth Air Force, also from unpublished documents at AFHRA. One of the passages in Part I describes how two men in the 80th Bomb Disposal Squad, Sgt. Russell F. McCarthy and T/5 Walter V. Smith, in 1945 won the Soldiers Medal, Americas highest military award for bravery in action not against the enemy. They were not the only bomb disposal personnel to win that award during the World War II era. Part II revolves around Capt. Stephen M. Richards, who was commanding officer of the 123rd Bomb Disposal Squad, attached during the war to General Pattons Third Army. Captain Richards and two combat engineers won the award for disarming a cache of booby-trapped documents outside Stechovice, Czechoslovakia in February 1946, as part of Operation Hidden Documents. The trio was apprehended by Czechoslovak authorities while the other mission members took the documents to Germany, and was only released after the documents were returned. Meanwhile, a diplomatic crisis was ignited as Czechoslovakia officially protested the American infringement of its sovereignty. Moreover, the Czechoslovak Communist Party used the controversy for propaganda purposes shortly before the national elections of May 1946. Shortly before the trio was released, the operation received fairly extensive publicity, in

Author: James J. Farley
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 9780271010007
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Making Arms in the Machine Age traces the growth and development of the United States Arsenal at Frankford, Pennsylvania, from its origin in 1816 to 1870. During this period, the arsenal evolved from a small post where skilled workers hand-produced small arms ammunition to a full-scale industrial complex employing a large civilian workforce. James Farley uses the history of the arsenal to examine larger issues including the changing technology of early nineteenth-century warfare, the impact of new technology on the United States Army, and the reactions of workers and their families and communities to the coming of industrialization. Shortly after the War of 1812, the U. S. Army founded several new arsenals, including Frankford, to build up supplies of arms and ammunition then in short supply. At that time, the Army was held in low regard because of its perceived poor performance in the war, so the arrival of arsenals was not welcomed. By 1870, however, the arsenal at Frankford had integrated itself into the community and become a valued and respected member of it. Farley argues that the Ordnance Department of the U. S. Army created an industrial system of manufacture at Frankford well in advance of private industry. He also contends that the evolution of the Army into an employer of a large-scale civilian workforce helped to end the isolation and anti-militarism that plagued it after the War of 1812. Farley's study joins recent work in the history of technology, such as Judith McGaw's That Wonderful Machine, that seeks to understand technological change in its social and cultural context.