I received confirmation late last week that the Library of Congress will be preserving The Strawfoot as part of the LOC’s Web Archiving initiative for the World War I Centennial. The Library of Congress’s goal is to collect and preserve materials born digitally during the Centennial. So much of what is online seems transitory and impermanent. I am very excited about the 100th anniversary of the Great War and think it offers all kinds of interpretive and other possibilities. That the blog will be included in the endeavor means a lot to me. Working on the website these past 3 1/2 years has been a labor of love, with equal emphasis on both words: love and labor. It was a lifestyle change. Writing the blog has its rewards; the site might not get the traffic that some others do but it does have a regular readership.

Longtime followers may have noticed a shift of emphasis in recent weeks and months. It may seem that way but to me it is all cut from the same cloth. I have never thought of myself as strictly a Civil War guy, though the events of 1861-65 have always been a source of interest and fascination for me. I have always been more interested  in the causes and consequences of the war; what came just before and after is equally important. That is why I have found volunteering at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace these past ten months rewarding. The Roosevelts–both side of the extended family–offer so many intellectual opportunities.

I am still plugging away on the Theodore Roosevelt Senior and Joseph Hawley biographies, still volunteering at Governors Island over the summers, still writing the content for the TRB social media platforms. There are more connections than might be apparent. For starters, General/Senator Hawley and Theodore Roosevelt knew and admired each other. I find it fascinating that the young Franklin Delano Roosevelt lost a power struggle with his boss, the unreconstructed Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, over the naming of a new ship in 1917. Instead of Roosevelt’s choice, the destroyer was christened in honor of Confederate naval officer Matthew Maury. These types of things fall under what we now call Memory Studies, which I suppose is broader and more encompassing than just historiography. More of these types of things are going to come out here at The Strawfoot in the coming months.

(image: Theodore Roosevelt at Washington’s Union Station during the First World War, LOC)