-
Stories: No Interview? No Problem!
The Veterans History Project boasts hundreds of interviews of veterans in America. However, not every person within the collection has an interview. The lack of interviews can be for a number of reasons such as they passed away before an interview was conducted. However, this does not mean they cannot provide insight into the past. In many cases, their relatives were able to provide documents and pictures of that person. Jerome Glaser, born on the 22nd of May, 1898, and died on the 6th of April 1985, left an abundance of documents behind after his death. While he was not a veteran of the Second World War, his documents show…
-
How to Search the Collections
Connecticut’s Veterans History Project boasts hundreds of interviews, publications, and personal papers of Connecticut veterans from the First Great War from 1914-1918 to the current Middle Eastern conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. With such a large and growing collection, searching and exploring the Veterans History project can seem daunting. This post will provide a tutorial on how to search and maneuver the collection. The Veterans Database uses 9 selections to narrow down the search; Last Name, First Name, Gender, Battles, Unit/Ship, Served in, Branch, War, and Commodation. The first three selections mentioned above; Last Name, First Name, and Gender pertain to the veteran(s). The legal first and last name, and…
-
Visualizing: Women and the Veterans History Project
The United States military has never fought a war without women. From the American Revolution to the conflicts of our lifetime, women have served in recognized and unrecognized roles. With time, the work performed by American military women has expanded from support roles and medical work to direct combat. The Veterans History Project includes oral histories from some 52 women. As participants in conflicts ranging from WWII to Iraq and Afghanistan, these veterans offer a valuable perspective on women in the US military. Most veterans interviewed for the Veterans History Project participated in WWII, and the same is true for the subset of female vets. Many served specifically in the Nurse Corps, which predates WWI. Our archive also features two WASPs: Women Airforce…
-
Visualizing: Age at War Start
CHOOSING QUESTIONS The Veterans History Project archive contains nearly 800 oral histories from Connecticut veterans. These interviews are accompanied by written answers to some basic questions about each veteran. The transcribed answers to these questions now form a large database that we can use to quickly learn about these veterans as a group. But one crucial question was missing: How old were you when you enlisted? This question almost always came up over the course of each interview, but the answer wasn’t written down. As a result, a systematic answering of this question would involve viewing hundreds of hours of oral histories and recording the answer when (and if) it was provided. Luckily, two crucial answers were systematically recorded for each interview: What is your date of birth? What wars did you…
