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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…
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Stories: Longshaw Porritt
CONTENT WARNING: This post includes graphic photos of wounded and dead people. Discretion is advised. One of the more varied wartime experiences in the Veterans History Project belongs to a veteran whose voice we cannot hear. Longshaw Kraus Porritt of Canton, Connecticut: one of only two veterans in the archive who served in World War One. In 1982 – nearly 20 years before the Veterans History Project was founded – Longshaw died of natural causes. While we don’t have his oral history, the archive does contains his vast collection of photographs, scrapbooks, and a written memoir. From these resources, we know that Longshaw first enlisted in the American Ambulance Field Service in March 1917, entering a war already 3 years…
