May 30, 2000
July and August Public Programs at the National Archives
Washington, DC . . . In July and August, the National Archives and Records Administration presents programs highlighting a variety of subjects including the Civil War, historical fiction, and etiquette in the United States.
The programs are free and open to the public and will take place at the National Archives Building, Pennsylvania Avenue between 7th and 9th Streets, NW. The public may verify times and dates by calling the National Archives public events line at (202) 501-5000. TDD users may call (202) 501-5404.
July
Tuesday, July 11-Historical Fiction
After receiving a box of letters written by her great-grandmother Maisie Thomas in the late 19th century, Sarah Blake researched her family history and wrote this novel in Victorian style and diction. Grange House is the story of one summer in the life of her great-grandmother at her summer home at Grange House on the coast of Maine. With an elaborate plot, this work is about old stories: how we are caught by them and how our lives struggle to rewrite them. Noon. Theater.
Thursday, July 20-Civil War/Women's History
Elizabeth Leonard will discuss her book, All the Daring of the Soldier: Women of the Civil War Armies. Leonard has combed records housed in the National Archives, memoirs, and histories to unearth the stories of the hidden and forgotten women who risked their lives for the blue or the gray as spies or as soldiers. Room 105.
Wednesday, July 26-Picturing the Century
From the Photographic to the Graphic to the Textual: Toward a Broader Vision of the National Archives Poster Holdings.
In today's slide lecture, Nick Natanson, an archivist in the Still Pictures unit, will examine images from our holdings of more than 17,000 posters generated or acquired by the U.S. Government. The lecture will show the intriguing ways in which posters, like photographs, reflected the intersection of creative sensibilities with agency political and cultural agendas. The audience may view the Circular Gallery exhibit, "Picturing the Century," following the lecture. Noon. Room 105.
Thursday, July 27-Civil War
Thomas Lowry will discuss Tarnished Scalpels: The Court-Martials of Fifty Union Surgeons. Based in his research of records housed at the National Archives, Dr. Lowry has chosen 50 Union surgeons to highlight the difficulties in placing civilians unfamiliar with the rigors of army life in medicine. The stories are humorous, tragic, and profane-all are part of the constant struggle between the habits of the citizen and the demands on a soldier in a civil democracy at war. Noon. Room 105.
August
Tuesday, August 1 -Social Science/Etiquette in the United States
On the floor of the House, a U.S. Representative urges Congress to "tell the President to shove his veto pen up his deficit." What accounts for this apparent epidemic of toward incivility? And why do so many of us care about it? In his thought-provoking new book, A Short History of Rudeness: Manners, Morals, and Misbehavior in Modern America, literary/social critic Mark Caldwell gives us a history of the demise of manners and charts the triumphant progress of rudeness in America. The perceived breakdown of civility has in recent years become a national obsession, and our modern climate of boorishness has cultivated a host of etiquette watchdogs, like Miss Manners, who defend us against an onslaught of nastiness. Noon. Room 105.
For additional PRESS information, please contact the National Archives Public Affairs staff at (301) 837-1700 or by e-mail.
00-75
