Today, military production is highly mechanized. Machines piece together uniforms, weapons, and all manner of personal equipment issued to soldiers. During World War I, however, soldiers occasionally found themselves making their own supplies.

Take, for example, this tack box which Harry S. Truman carried with him during his service in France. Soldiers crafted these tack boxes from a standard size wood crate, adding the necessary identification markings for each battery, division and rank. Read More

The Age of Eisenhower

Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower may not have always seen eye to eye, but one thing they had in common was that their experience in war shaped the presidents they would become. On Wednesday, June 6, the 74th anniversary of D-Day, author Dr. William I. Hitchcock will speak at a free public program focusing on how Eisenhower’s accomplished military career prepared him for serving as Commander in Chief through the Cold War. Read More

Speaker Spotlight | David McCullough

The following is an excerpt from David McCullough’s speech on December 9, 2001, at the rededication of the Truman Library. McCullough is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Truman, the definitive biography of Harry S. Truman. He will be honored with the Harry S. Truman Legacy of Leadership Award at Wild About Harry, on Thursday, April 19.

Harry Truman, as we all know, is the frst and only president who ever came from Missouri. He was also the only president in the 20th and 21st centuries who never went to college. But very few presidents … have been so conscious of their predecessors as was Harry Truman… He was never without a sense of history. Read More

Welcome guest blogger Kaete O’Connell, a Ph.D. candidate in history at Temple University, who received a Research Grant to explore the archives at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum thanks to the generosity of Truman Library Institute members and donors. Thank you to the American Historical Association for allowing us to reprint her blog post on food relief in post-war Germany.

Read More

Each year some two dozen historians, writers and scholars receive Research Grants to explore the archives at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. These prestigious research grants are made possible thanks to the generosity of Truman Library Institute members and donors.

Donors have made it possible for the Truman Library Institute to give out nearly $2.7 million over the years for researchers all over the world to travel to Independence to immerse themselves in archival research and further our understanding of the Truman era.

The John K. Hulston Scholarship is unique in that it allows a researcher to visit multiple research facilities—including the Truman Library—for their research. Rachel MacMaster, a Ph.D. candidate at Syracuse University, was awarded this grant and recently traveled to the Truman Library to research. We took a few minutes of Rachel’s time to learn about her research and what she learned while on site at the Truman Library. Read More

Each year some two dozen historians, writers and scholars receive Research Grants to explore the archives at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. These prestigious research grants are made possible thanks to the generosity of Truman Library Institute members and donors.

Donors have made it possible for the Truman Library Institute to give out nearly $2.7 million over the years for researchers all over the world to travel to Independence to immerse themselves in archival research and further our understanding of the Truman era. Read More

On April 12, 1945, Harry S. Truman received an urgent summons from the White House. When he arrived, Eleanor Roosevelt told him, “The President is dead.” Truman asked, “Is there anything I can do for you?” Mrs. Roosevelt responded, “Is there anything we can do for you? For you are the one in trouble now.”

The next four months included the fall of Berlin, victory at Okinawa, the controversial decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the eventual end of World War II, the famine in Europe and the beginning of the Cold War. Harry Truman—a Midwesterner with no college degree, little money, and the prototypical ordinary man, who was not briefed by his predecessor—was thrust into the presidency in the midst of this tumultuous time. Read More

The World’s Emergency Famine, Herbert Hoover’s Mission, and the Invisible Year, 1946

Welcome guest blogger Dr. Lisa Payne Ossian, who recently received a Research Grant to explore the archives at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum thanks to the generosity of Truman Library Institute members and donors. Dr. Ossian traveled to the Truman Library to research the famine following World War II and wrote the following about her research.

“At President Truman’s request, Herbert Hoover had travelled 50,000 miles through 38 countries.
Few men except the starving themselves knew so much about food–and famine.”  – Time, 8 July 1946 Read More

Each year some two dozen historians, writers and scholars receive Research Grants to explore the archives at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. These prestigious research grants are made possible thanks to the generosity of Truman Library Institute members and donors.

Donors have made it possible for the Truman Library Institute to give out nearly $2.7 million over the years for researchers all over the world to travel to Independence to immerse themselves in archival research and further our understanding of the Truman era. Read More

Each year some two dozen historians, writers and scholars receive Research Grants to explore the archives at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. These prestigious research grants are made possible thanks to the generosity of Truman Library Institute members and donors.

Donors have made it possible for the Truman Library Institute to give out nearly $2.7 million over the years for researchers all over the world to travel to Independence to immerse themselves in archival research and further our understanding of the Truman era. Read More