American Originals

By Stacey Bredhoff

Original documents are the raw stuff of history. They are physical links to the past. The original documents of the U.S. Government - those that have been identified as having permanent value - are preserved and made available to the public by the National Archives and Records Administration. American Originals presents a selection of the United States' most significant and compelling documents, pieces of history-the glorious and the inglorious-in its most unprocessed form.George Washington's account of expenses, kept throughout the Revolutionary War. Harriet Tubman's pension claim for her service during the Civil War. Richard Nixon's letter resigning the Presidency. These and other rarely seen documents from the National Archives offer fascinating insights into the towering figures and events in American history.Combining the familiar with the obscure, American Originals presents glimpses of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, Helen Keller, Elvis Presley, John Muir, Rosa Parks, Benedict Arnold, John Brown, Susan B. Anthony, and many others, through a selection of America's greatest documentary treasures.Stacey Bredhoff is a senior exhibits curator at the National Archives. She is the author of Powers of Persuasion: Poster Art from World War II and Draw! Political Cartoons from Left to Right.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 029598077X
• ISBN13: 9780295980775
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 8.5" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

American Documents Wonderfully Packaged

Wonderful vignettes of American history are illustrated in this book with brief descriptions and a picture of the archival document around which the story is built. It's all here from the Louisiana Purchase to the Emancipation Proclamation to the telegram notifying FDR of the raid on Pearl Harbor to a photo of Neil Armstrong on the moon to the infamous picture of Nixon and Elvis (the US Archives most requested document I understand). The format is a document and description to a page. This is a great book to flip through or to introduce the young teen reader to interesting snippets of US history.

Wonderfully Done!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Seeing important historical original documents that you would otherwise have to go to Washington, DC to see (if on display), was a delight. My teenage son also enjoyed seeing and reading about the documents in this book. Highly recommended for people interested in historical archived documents.