Research Experience

A running tally of the archives I’ve visited over the years.¹

The British National Archives near Kew Gardens, London. Photo taken in 2022.

The Archival Awards

Every archive has its pros and cons. Here is an incredibly subjective (and ongoing) list of some of my personal best in class awards.

Best Hospitality: The George C. Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Virginia. Melissa Davis was a dream to work with—so accommodating, incredibly kind. She once even let me work in the reading room until 9 p.m. on a Monday evening. For someone who has traveled across the country to see a particular collection, those hours were worth their weight in gold.

Best Banter: I always have a great time reuniting with Tom Buffenbarger and co. at the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, PA. Last time I was there, we all had a great time commiserating about the state (and lack) of certain finding aids. Tom put me onto a specific engagement in World War I that tied directly into a dissertation chapter I was writing at the time. I’d never heard about the battle of Hamel before that visit. Archivists are the best.

Best In-House Food: It’s hard to beat the British National Archives. For seven-ish pounds you get a full plate of whatever hot meal they are serving that day (bangers and mash; fresh stew; roast chicken and vegetables; shepherd’s pie; curry). I’ve rarely had a miss there.

Best View: The reading room in the Library and Archives Canada has a stunning view overlooking the Ottawa River. That’s been the best so far, hands down.

Coolest Find: Too many to list here. I enjoyed coming across a provisional plan for a cross-Channel (i.e. Normandy) invasion in the Lucian K. Truscott Jr. collection at the George C. Marshall library. The hand who penned the plan (and indeed, it was handwritten in glorious fountain pen ink)? Why, none other than Sir Winston Churchill himself. There is an eye-opening arsenal of World War II-era firearms in the basement vault at the Fort Douglas Military Museum in Salt Lake City. I volunteered there as a undergraduate and was fortunate enough to see for myself. Most were veteran-donated wartime souvenirs. Pretty incredible to handle those priceless artifacts!

Worst Lighting: This is a random one, but overhead lighting matters a lot when you’re snapping hundreds (even thousands) of pictures of documents and can’t use flash. The award here has to go to the York County Historical Center in York, PA. I loved my time in the archive and the staff was nothing if not helpful. But with no natural light coming into the research space to speak of, the existing lights were so dim you’d run into the inevitable problem of having camera/body shadows looming over the pages at certain angles.

Best Digital Archive: It’s not listed above since I’ve never been there in person, but I got a huge amount of value out of the Ike Skelton Combined Arms Research Library (CARL) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The World War II Operational Documents, Military Review archive, SAMS monographs, and CGSC student papers are invaluable resources. USAHEC is getting close to finishing their ambitious digitization project, too, which has been awesome.