Last month in a “What We’re Reading” post, we mentioned the National Archives’ YouTube channel. Today, we take a closer look at what videos they have to offer.
Playlists
The National Archives’ YouTube channel is broken down into “playlists” or categories, which each hold dozens of videos related to a topic. While the majority of videos are documentary footage, you’ll also find educational videos about archives, cartoons, lectures, interviews, and public programs.
Here are links to all of the National Archives playlists. We’ve split them into what we think are four appropriate categories.
About Archives
Historical Footage
- Prologue Magazine
- Olympics at the Archives
- ARC Film Clips part 1 and part 2
- Visit Our Nation’s Parks
- Harry S. Truman – Man from Independence
- War Comes to America
- Tracing World War II
- From the Archives to the Moon
- The March on Washington
- The 1940 Census
- Native American Records
Cartoons and Movies
Programs, Lectures, Interviews, and More
- Public Programs from the National Archives
- NCAST Research Presentations
- The Lincoln Lectures
- Favorite Things – What’s at Your Presidential Libraries?
The National Archives will be continually adding to and updating its YouTube page (for instance, a new film will be added to the From Archives to the Moon section every Wednesday), so check back to see the most recent changes. Here we’ll just look at just three of the playlists and some of the videos each contains.
Inside the Vaults
Go “behind the scenes” at the National Archives and archives around the country in the videos from the Inside the Vaults playlist. See images and video of recent conservation treatment done to the original Declaration of Independence. In this video, Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero talks about how independent researchers contribute to the archives. Greg Bradsher, archivist at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, discusses in this video the original Nuremberg Laws documents that are within the archives’ holding.
ARC Film Clips Part 1
Watch a variety of short film clips from the National Archives’ Archival Research Catalog (ARC), like this 1946 film from the Department of Defense on those killed in the war. Or learn about “The Story of Gasoline,” in this 1948 film from the Department of the Interior. Or perhaps check out “Know Your Meat: Beef” from the Office for Emergency Management.
From the Archives to the Moon
Track the space race through the films in the From the Archives to Moon section. See The John Glenn Story from 1963, The Eagle Has Landed from 1969, Space for Women in 1981, and more.
This post first appeared on AHA Today.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Attribution must provide author name, article title, Perspectives on History, date of publication, and a link to this page. This license applies only to the article, not to text or images used here by permission.