American Stories

Important themes in American History, and significant Archives Center collections (and groups of collections), are presented here in photographs, moving images, audio clips, and narration. Our purpose is to offer students, and other interested visitors, easy access to portions of research collections otherwise available only in the Archives Center’s reading room. Each American Story includes links to archival finding aids for researchers wishing additional information.

These selections from the vast Scurlock Studio archives provide unique perspectives into Washington DC's African American history. On these pages you can view our virtual albums, organized by theme, and search the larger database of some 2,000 Scurlock photographs. A grant from Save America's Treasures, and gifts from generous private donors, are helping to preserve this visual record and make it accessible here.

This selection of 1,600 advertisements and related ephemera, 1838-1998, features a representative sample of print advertising for Ivory soap, one of the nation's longest-lived, branded consumer products. Complementing the Ivory materials are examples of advertising, advertising cards, soap wrappers, coupons, pamphlets, and similar ephemera produced for other soap brands and related products. Like the Ivory ads, these marketing materials – for brands such as Kirkman’s, Fairbank’s Gold Dust, Breck, and Pears’ – frequently use images of housecleaning, bathing, women, and children.  (Requires Netscape 7.1 or Explorer 6.0)

In this virtual tour you will meet four American women who succeeded in business in the twentieth century.  Each woman – Freda Diamond, Estelle Ellis, Dorothy Shaver, and Brownie Wise – was exceptional in many respects.  Each achieved a degree of visibility in her field enjoyed by few other women and each earned a comfortable living.  At the same time, each woman’s career typified the experience of many businesswomen during the past fifty years.  The papers of each woman are preserved in the Archives Center.   (Requires Flash 5.0 plug-in.)

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