Black Americans fought for equality long before the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. In 1884, while Jim Crow was in its infancy, a group of black Baltimoreans purchased first-class tickets to board the Steamer Sue, which plied the waters between Maryland and Virginia. About an hour into the voyage, the ship’s chambermaid informed the group that the captain would not permit them to occupy the first class cabin because the ship’s regulations prohibited African Americans from that part of the vessel. The travelers protested their treatment by staying up all night in the ship’s saloon. When the women returned to Baltimore they filed a lawsuit against the Baltimore, Chesapeake, and Richmond Steamboat Company.
Pictured: Scan of the Rules and Regulations of the Baltimore, Chesapeake & Richmond Steamboat Company, which was submitted with the Stenographer’s Record in the case file.
Archives Technician Andrew Salyer may have bitten off more than he could chew with this one…
While searching through our U.S. District Court records for a researcher, Andrew opened the wrong box and found several exhibits of dental products (including fake teeth). After going through the case with a fine tooth comb, he discovered the case was about a product that was alleged to decrease recovery times after dental surgeries (U.S District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Norfolk Division, Civil Case No. 77-732 Harry Snead, Wayland J. Eley, and Louis M. Johnson v. Julian F. Hirst). Andrew has plans to sink his teeth into the case in the coming weeks to write a blog post about it, but we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share his findings.
Interested in learning more about our holdings? Email us at philadelphia.archives@nara.gov or check out our website at www.archives.gov/philadelphia
Check out recent blog post by Archives Specialist Matthew DiBiase: “Face Off: Derek Sanderson vs. the NHL”
A new exhibit showcasing the impact sports have had on America has opened at the National Archives Museum. All American: The Power of Sports (https://museum.archives.gov/all-american) spans centuries of United States history and features more than 75 original items from National Archives’ holdings. The exhibit is free and open to the public and will be on view through January 7, 2024.
A new exhibit showcasing the impact sports have had on America has opened at the National Archives Museum. “All American: The Power of Sports” (https://museum.archives.gov/all-american) spans centuries of United States history and features more than 75 original items from National Archives’ holdings, including items documenting sports at Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools. The exhibit is free and open to the public and will be on view through January 7, 2024.
Thousands of Indigenous women experienced involuntary sterilization and removal of their children in the 1960s and 1970s. A case file from our holdings of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Norma Jean Serena et al. v. Natalie J. Leezer et al., tells the story of Norma Jean Serena’s fight for justice after her forced sterilization and wrongful removal of her children in 1970.
Check out “Sports in Courts: Malcolm Poindexter Jr. v. Granville Hamner,” written by our very own Archives Specialist, Matthew DiBiase. This blog post describes a 1949 incident between Malcolm Poindexter, Jr. of the Philadelphia Tribune and Philadelphia Phillies infielder Granville “Granny” Hamner.
The photograph featured here is a panorama of the vast Olympic National Forest in Washington State.
This photograph was included with information about a fire detection system, which the David W. Taylor Model Basin was looking into procuring in the 1960s.
This is the retired account of the National Archives at Philadelphia - a unit of the U.S. National Archives that serves as a repository for federal documents considered permanently valuable. We hold the records of federal agencies and U.S. Courts in the states of Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. Visit us at www.archives.gov/philadelphia
“We were all shocked and distressed to find it a portrayal of a Princeton student in one drunken debauch after another. … No Mother after seeing such...”
