 Greetings from the National Archives flagship building in Washington, D.C., which sits on the ancestral lands of the Nacotchtank peoples. I'm David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to today's discussion on records in the National Archives relating to Arlington National Cemetery in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. In this first part of a two-part presentation, Arlington National Cemetery historian Timothy Frank and National Archives Archivist Amy Edwards, Alexander Geitz, and William Wade will discuss motion picture, cartographic, and photographic records. I want to thank the Arlington National Cemetery and historians Alison Finkelstein, Timothy Frank and Stephen Kearney for partnering with us on these presentations and for their tireless support in our efforts to preserve and protect the records about the tomb and make them accessible for education and historical research. I also want to acknowledge and thank the National Archives staff involved for their hard work and dedication in making these presentations a reality. Before we begin, I'd like to tell you about two upcoming programs you can view on our YouTube channel. On Thursday, September 23rd at 1 p.m., Joseph Ellis will tell us about his new book, The Cause, the American Revolution and its discontents. In this work on the American founding, Ellis challenges the story we have long told ourselves about our origins as a people and a nation. And on Tuesday, September 28th at 3 p.m., we will present part two of Here Rests in Honored Glory, which will focus on National Archives textual records relating to Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier are among the most visited sites here in the Washington, D.C. area. We honor the service and sacrifice of more than 400,000 members of our nation's armed forces who are buried there. The National Cemetery is also a place of history, a place to learn about our country through the lives and sacrifices of these brave men and women. As a veteran myself, I am pleased and honored to be able to introduce today's panel discussion. As we look toward the 100th anniversary of the dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, this November, the records you will learn about today help remind us of the honor and dignity of the people, their stories, and the events these records represent. Today, we will see and hear about photographs, films, maps, and architectural drawings that relate to Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. You will see photographs and film that document the November 1921 funeral procession of the World War I Unknown and the Tomb's dedication as well as others which document the Tomb's history over the past 100 years. You will see the history and evolution of the Tomb and Arlington National Cemetery through maps and architectural designs. The National Archives is pleased and honored to preserve and make accessible our records of this important place, and to assist our researchers, our federal partners, and the historians and staff of the Arlington National Cemetery in their efforts to document and share the story of this very significant and symbolic national monument on the 100th anniversary of its dedication. Our moderator for today's discussion is Timothy Frank, who has served as an historian at Arlington National Cemetery since January 2015. He is responsible for maintaining the cemetery's research collection as well as conducting end-of-tour and career interviews with civilian and military personnel. Now let's turn to Timothy Frank to get our program started. Thank you for joining us. Thank you, Mr. Ferriero, for hosting this event and for all of your support of the National Archives and Arlington National Cemetery. Years ago I was heading to the Metro with one of the Tomb Guards and I turned to him and I said, look, on the platform, do you know who that is? That's the archivist of the United States. The puzzled Tomb Guard as Master Sergeant followed me down the escalator wondering what is an archivist of the United States. For the next 20 minutes we talked about Arlington, the National Archives, and the Tomb, and before we arrived at his stop, he invited the Tomb Guards to visit the National Archives vault, something I've wanted to do for over 20 years. The guard later commented at the other guards, Tim acted as though he saw a rock star. Little did they know. A few weeks later, Mr. Ferriero and Trevor Plant, the director of the Textual Records Division at Archives One, spent over an hour showing the guards some of our national treasures, including the actual legislation authorizing the return of the unknown soldier. It was signed by President Woodrow Wilson and it was right there in front of them. We ended in the rotunda where Mr. Ferriero pointed out and discussed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The Constitution that those soldiers took an oath to support and defend. The same, though with fewer amendments, as when Mr. Ferriero himself enlisted in the Navy during the Vietnam War, when the unknown soldier died, and when Private William Christman enlisted to fight in a civil war. Private Christman died of the measles before he could fight defending the Constitution. He is our first burial at Arlington National Cemetery. There it was right in front of them. On the way back to Arlington, the guards were thoroughly convinced that the archivists really are the historians equivalent of rock stars. They couldn't stop talking about what they saw. Without exaggeration, I say that historians can't live without archivists. They are the subject matter experts on the records they maintain. I've always been struck by how the archivists will go above and beyond to answer researcher questions, whether that researcher is a novice like I was back in the mid-1990s, or one of the few Pulitzer Prize-winning authors that I've sat across in the research room. I just can't say enough about archivists. Today we have three archivists from the National Archives who will discuss records under their care. Many of the records they will showcase have been crucial to our centennial history of the burial of the unknown soldier. First we have Amy Edwards, who's an archivist in the cartographic branch within the Special Media Division. She holds bachelor's degrees from both the University of Tennessee and the University of Maryland, as well as a master's degree from the George Washington University. She is a background in both museum studies and field archaeology and is excited with every opportunity to highlight the holdings of the cartographic branch. Next, we have Billy Wade, who began his career as an archives technician within the Still Pictures branch in July 2000. He has held multiple positions within Still Pictures, most notably as a subject matter expert archivist, specializing in both analog and digital photography, and has a supervisory archivist since 2016. And last but not least, Alexandra Geitz is a supervisory archivist in the Moving Image and Sound branch. She has a bachelor's degree in history from Boston College and a master's degrees in history and archives management from Simmons College. She's been working at the National Archives for six years, four and a half of those in the Moving Image and Sound branch. And I'll now turn the program over to Amy Edwards. Thank you, Amy Edwards. Can you hear me? My name is Amy Edwards, and I am an archivist in the Cartographic branch at the National Archives. Next slide, please. Next slide. Today, I'm here to discuss the cartographic branch's holdings relating to Arlington National Cemetery. But first, I would like to offer a brief overview of our holdings in general. We house around 50 million records, dating from 1650 to present, held in 225 different record groups. Branch activities carried out by staff include accessioning, processing, digitization, and reference. As you might guess, based on the Lighthouse image on the left side, not all of the records in this branch are maps. While there are approximately 500 million, I'm sorry, 5 million maps and charts, there are also 5 million architectural drawings and 40 million aerial photographs. Next slide, please. It's time to narrow our focus and again, looking at the record groups and theories that directly relate to Arlington National Cemetery and the tomb of the unknown soldier. While the cartographic branch does not hold the design drawings for the tomb itself, we do have the maps and drawings that tell the earlier story of the land that would eventually become Arlington National Cemetery. Records relating to the cemetery can be found in six different record groups shown on the slide. I'm sorry, six different series across record groups 66, 77, 79, and 92. I will go through most of these series in more detail, but for now you may want to take note of the record groups and the NAID numbers, as these are how you would locate these items in the Archives Catalog online. Some of these series are partially digitized and images may be available for viewing and download from the catalog. The National Archives Catalog can be accessed at www.catalog.archives.gov. Next slide, please. The earliest drawing in this presentation comes from record group 92 in the series Post and Reservation Maps. This series is partially digitized. Consisting of manuscripts and annotated maps, this series is mainly large-scale plans drawn during the Civil War of barracks, stables, forts, hospitals, and other buildings used by the quartermasters for. This particular image depicts a map of the Freedmen's Village that was established in 1863 in the area that would later become Section 3, 4, 8, 18, and 20 of Arlington National Cemetery. This map is dated July the 10th, 1865, and this one is most definitely available online in the catalog. Next slide, please. The next series that we're coming to, also from record group 92, is US Army, Fort, and Facilities Map Plans. Similar to the previous series, this one also consists of site plans and architectural drawings of barracks, stables, fortifications, and this one also includes seven drawings of site plans and structures at Arlington, including these two. These are particularly interesting images. They also date to the late 1800s, and these are the design drawings for the tomb of the Civil War unnoticed and the surrounding area leading up to that vault. These two images are both digitized and available online through the catalog and can be found using the NAID number. Next slide, please. Moving forward in time to the early 1900s, we come to record group 66, architectural drawings of buildings in the Washington DC metropolitan area. This series consists primarily of architectural plans and detailed maps of buildings and other structures in the area and around Washington DC. This particular map shows Arlington National Cemetery as it was in 1912. This series is partially digitized as well. Next slide, please. The next two slides are of particular interest because they show a specific progression in time from one map to another. Arlington Cemetery, general number six, which is this one on the screen, dates to August the 14th, 1912. And if you look very closely, you'll see a small red circle with an X in the middle of it. And that indicated the planned location for the memorial amphitheater. The image on the right is an enlargement so that you can see the circle a bit more clearly. Next slide, please. And as you can see on this slide, which is the very next drawing in that series, Arlington Cemetery, general number seven, the red circle has been replaced with the actual formal drawing of the memorial amphitheater. It's always interesting to see from one map to another if there's a major change on the landscape like that. It doesn't really happen often, but when you get it, you tend to notice it. Next slide, please. This is another illustration from the same series offering a higher level view of the cemetery as it was in 1920. This one showing its position along the banks of the Potomac so that you have a more general idea of how the cemetery is situated. This is Arlington Cemetery, general number 11. Next slide, please. And Arlington Cemetery, general number 46, dated 1921, on the screen, is one of the first drawings in this series to specifically illustrate and label the tomb of the unknown soldiers for the World War. The large open oval in the upper center of the map is the location of the memorial amphitheater and the tomb. Next slide, please. And this one final map of the cemetery as it was in 1921 again shows its location on the landscape this time, not only in relation to the Potomac, but also you can see a little bit of Washington, D.C. so that you can orient yourself a little more properly as to where it is if you're not familiar. Next slide, please. Leaving Record Group 66 behind for a minute, we're gonna move on to Record Group 79, National Capital Parks Number Drawing Series. This series consists of manuscript, annotated, published, and photo-processed maps relating to properties under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. Like the series that I've discussed previously, this one is also partially digitized. This map dates to 1924 and illustrates the proposed treatment of the government experimental farm that was located adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery. So where you see that line that runs vertical through the cemetery, on the left side is the cemetery, as it was and on the right side is where the experimental farm was located. Next slide, please. And now we're gonna take a quick trip back to Record Group 66 for architectural drawings of buildings in the Washington, DC metropolitan area again to explore an architectural drawing instead of a map. This drawing is part of the plan of the Memorial Amphitheater, showing specifically the awning over the roster. I chose to include this slide specifically to give you an idea of the level of detail that these drawings can reach. The image on the bottom, if you zoom in, talks about how long the curtain hanging down should be and even shows the drape in it. This drawing was dated 1930 and is entitled Arlington Cemetery Memorial Amphitheater number 10. Next slide, please. This is another clear or high level view of the cemetery. This one shows the drives and lanes in the National Cemetery and has a clear depiction of the amphitheater and the tomb on the landscape. I included this one specifically because some of the other maps being blue prints and other types of prints, they're a little bit blurry but this is a nice definitively clear map so you can see exactly what's going on at that time period. Next slide, please. This slide from Record Group 79, the National Capital Parks Number Drawings is dated February the 11th, 1950. And it's a very interesting slide because this one we could also call the statue that never was. Though this drawing was originally proposed as the statue to sit atop a pedestal in the center niche, this is now actually the fountain area in front of the Women in Military Service for America Memorial. While it was proposed for Arlington, it just was never used and it's always interesting how things get repurposed. Next slide, please. Finally, I have included this last slide of the planting plan to illustrate the breadth of drawings relating to Arlington National Cemetery and the holdings of the cartographic branch. As you've seen, the holdings are varied when it comes to Arlington Cemetery, not only in time span but also in topic and subject matter. Our records and holdings for this specific thing even get down to how far apart the azaleas should be planted and what species and where they come from. Next slide, please. I hope you've enjoyed this presentation. If you would like more information, please feel free to reach out to the cartographic branch at carto at narra.gov. That's C-A-R-T-O at narra.gov. Thank you very much. Next up, we have Billy Wade. Hello, everyone. I'm Billy Wade, Supervisory Archivist in the Still Picture Branch. In my presentation, we are going to be looking at some of the photographic records ready to the tomb in Arlington National Cemetery found within the Still Picture Branch. First, a short overview of Still Pictures. Next slide. In the Still Picture Branch, we appraise a session, process, preserve, and invite access to the historically valuable, permanent photographs and graphic materials of the federal government. Some people ask, what is the difference between permanent and non-permanent? So each federal agency develops a record retention schedules with disposition instructions for its permanent and temporary records in consultation with the National Archives. Permanent records usually are kept for historic, legal, and intrinsic reasons. In a lot of cases, the National Archives put out a number that generally only one to 3% of government records are considered permanents. For Still Photography, permanent photographic coverage usually documents such things as programs, projects, initiatives, campaigns, activities unique to that particular agency's mission, also subjects such as facilities, top-level officials, and VIP visits. Typical characteristics of non-permanent imagery could be portraits of middle or lower level agency personnel, coverage of employee retirements, permanent ceremonies, things such as blood drives, and other sort of routine photographic assignments. Photographs transferred from the federal government agencies are arranged by record groups and donations collections, and donations arranged by collection identifiers. In addition, the Still Picture Branch assigns unique alphabetical designators to each series within a record group and collection, which you will see in this presentation. Still Picture Holdings consists of over 4,000 distinct photographic and poster series, and approximately 390 donated records series. So these are basically standalone photographic series. A series is a group of records stored and followed together because it relates to a particular subject or function. You will see within the National Archives, you will see photographs mixed and with textual. In a lot of cases, these photographs correspond with the textual records. In our Holdings, we have approximately, I'll be honest, I've never counted every single one, 14 million analog photographs, 4 million digital photographs, so we already have a lot of born digital photography that's been transferred to us, and 50,000 large format panoramas, posters, and other graphic works. Next slide. So now we're gonna move on to some of this series that contain photographs related to the tomb of an unknown soldier. Probably our most popular series, actually in all of our Holdings, for all subject matters, is our Army Signal Corps photography. Our main series is 111SC, so SC is a series that doesn't have to be assigned, 111 is the record group for the Army Signal Corps. This is sort of the main photographic file for the U.S. Army. It contains close to one million prints and corresponding negatives. Finding aids include a card index by subject dating from the Civil War to 1981, which is actually located in our research room. Researchers then use a box list developed by staff to pull the boxes that they need pulled. In addition, there is a catalog to official AEF photography from World One. It can be found in our research room. We also have it on microfilm. We have also digitized it. It's not available on our site yet, but it is available on other sites. The shots that are right here is just a picture from that index. We have digitized 99.5% of the photographs through the late 1930s. We are actively getting those into our catalog. I believe we are probably about, I think we might have around maybe 60,000 or something that are in there already for this series with many more to go. And then we'll be moving on past late 1930s to World Two and so on. Now on to actually some of the photographs related to the tomb of an unknown soldier. Next slide. So this photograph here is a photograph of Sergeant Edward Younger, who selected the unknown soldier on October 24th, 1921 in France. The actual photographic ID number is 104185. With these numbers, if you search basically one of an SC dash number and quotes in our catalog, you should be able to then get the photograph back for download. I believe Sergeant Younger thought that when he was selected, he was selected to be just one of the Paul Bears, the six soldiers. And then the officer in charge handed him a large bouquet of pink and white roses to basically choose the unknown soldier. He was left alone and he had from one to four caskets to choose from. The corresponding negatives for this print as well as this exceeding 111 prints in this presentation, mostly for the World One era, are either glass plate negatives or copy negatives on acetate film. The later images, World Two and beyond, you might have a lot of original acetate negatives with that, but for this area, and this one's also kind of unique with the card too, because a lot of this World One era are mounted. As you can see, just a sort of handwritten on the mount, but you'll see sort of official signal core mounting cards here in a little bit. Next slide. Here's our next photograph from 111 SC. This one I actually cropped. This one is also mounted. This is the unknown soldier going to board the USS Olympia October 25th, 1921 in France for the trip back to the United States. I believe the USS Olympia is still afloat in Philadelphia at the Independence Seaport Museum. So yes, I believe it is still there and afloats. All right, next slide. Here's another image from 111 SC. This is actually the casket of the unknown soldier lying in the rotunda at the Capitol building, which was from November 9th to November 11th, 1921. It is interesting to note that the signal core number here 74401 is actually lower than the previous two. This image would have been taken by a signal core photographer and actually logged into the central file at an earlier date. So the two previous photographs probably were logged in by the signal core later they had received them. It could have been taken by a signal core photographer and just not logged into their central file until a later period where they could have been acquired by the signal core. Next slide. Another 111 SC image. This is the funeral of the unknown soldier in the Arlington National Cemetery Amphitheater November 11th, 1921. I believe the Amphitheater was dedicated actually in May of 1920. This image is also cropped. It is on an original mount. It's also interesting to note that the photograph was taken by Hugh Miller who I believe went on to become chief of the photograph department at the Washington Post. Next slide. Another photograph from the ceremony. Another 111 SC image. President Harding delivering the address at the Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery funeral service for unknown soldier on November 11th. This one too, it was cropped for the presentation. Next slide. So now we're moving on to our later date. President Coolidge places a reef at the tomb of an unknown soldier in 1927. November 11th, better stay. So this was actually without the top marble of sarcophagus, which was not installed until 1931. Next slide. So this is actually, this is an interesting one. This is actually Sergeant Wiggy of Fort Mayer, Virginia, blowing taps in 1930. Interesting to note that I discovered why doing this presentation. Tim Franke actually let me know that actually his name was spelled wrong in our caption. IE at the end is actually how it is on the actual photograph that we have. It actually ends with a Y, not an IE. So it's also interesting to note that we generally in a lot of cases will present captions as we've received them. Obviously, if we know it's a mistake, we will make correction. But if you are ever searching our catalog and you see what you think is a mistake, there is a tagging feature in our catalog and we certainly encourage the public to tag an image if they believe something is incorrect. So we definitely, we don't have the resources to research every image that we have and then we digitize and put online. So we definitely encourage help from the public whenever if you see something incorrect. All right, next slide. This is very interesting one, which I actually had not seen before until I started preparing for this presentation, the approved model of the Tumenah Unknown Soldier, another Signal Corps photograph. What's interesting is I've been told that the figure's carve represent piece Victor and Valor but the wings seen here with the Valor figure did not make the final carving. So you can see that in the middle figure there. So that's the only one this was taken. Next slide. Another Signal Corps image but we're actually now getting into scans that were created from our Signal Corps albums. So basically the images that you saw before were from our Signal Corps file that is sequential by photo number. We do have starting in World War II even though somebody's do pre-date World War II. This is when the albums are actually put together. We have albums by subject that are actually eight by 10 prints and albums, which is where this image came from. Arlington National Cemetery actually has a good number of albums, albums 22 through 30, they're actually, this particular image is interesting because it was taken in 1931. So that means it was actually added at a later date. Possibly as possibly the early 1970s, this would have been added. Of course, this image here was taken in December, 1931 as they're adding the top marble sarcophagus to the top of the tomb. And it sort of displayed with the construction company sign there. I had not looked at until I started 1958. So this was another one that is in those photo go on to the next slide. Also some interesting things, especially with a lot of the Signal Corps albums, you will find some textual records sort of tucked inside them. And even with the Arlington National Cemetery ones, I found it's just some selections of documents, including military press releases from the military district of Washington. The actual document to the right was just part of a press release describing the pallbearers during the internment of the war two in Korean unknown soldiers. So I found that pretty interesting. I've seen the died as documents in the before, but I haven't actually really ever gone through them. So I definitely wanted to include one of those in the presentation. All right, next slide. So we're actually gonna move off of Signal Corps photography right now. And we're gonna move on to Office of the Secretary of Defense and actually our combined military service digital photograph files. We actually do have a combined military service analog photograph file, which in some places correspond to some of the digital images in this series. This particular series here is actually a combination of born digital images and scans at dates from 19 to 2007. It actually contains photographs from all the different military branches, just not one branch. And really in the early 1980s, the Department of Defense started to basically centralize all of its photographic operations into one record center. So that's where these photographs come from. The top image was taken in 2000 and two by Air Force photographer, the image below 1988 by an army photographer. It's interesting that I can tell that both of these are actually born digital images. And if you're ever searching, you can search basically on those photo numbers in our catalog, I would put them in quotes. All this entire series is available online. The series contains both, like I just mentioned before, scans of analog material and born digital. And you can actually tell what branch of the military took the images. And if a scan is born digital, or if the scan is a scan or a born digital image from the file name. The four letters after the 330 CFD is where you can tell that. The D stands for actually after CFD, the D stands for Department of Defense. The next letter is actually to branch. So with the first one, the F is actually Air Force. The bottom one A is the army. The next letter, the S is for still picture. And then the last letter is the copy type. So in this case, the D stands for born digital. I think I have some examples farther in this presentation when it is not actually a born digital image. Actually the next slide, I haven't, this would have actually been an original analog photograph, the flag draped casket of the service man of actually Vietnam is carried into the capital May 25th, 1984. So that's a good point. So it's 1984. The image number actually has an 85 in it because that's when it was actually logged into their system, the DOD systems. The C, so if you see where it says DASC, the CX or possibly a color transparency. On to the next slide. So now we're actually going back in time. And we were actually looking at some civilian agencies with records related to the two men unknown soldier. Record group 66, which I know Amy had some 66 records in her presentation. So this is actually 66G, which is general photographic file to commission of fine arts. They pretty, approximately day from 1910 to 1950, the records, the view here of course, an aerial view of the actual amphitheater. There's actually 123 photographs of Arlington found in this series. The series is actually a combination of film, glass negatives and lantern slides. Lantern slides are usually a positive image on glass covered by another thin piece of glass, sealed with tape. We do have some other glass slides with actually positive film between the two pieces of glass at sort of a later date. Next slide, I think we have some more 66G. And these are actually some ones that I had not seen before until I was preparing for this presentation. The original was a glass, glass plates. And then the next slide, I think I have additional example, one more how to go with four, a design of the unknown soldier. None of these were actually had in our collection, have dates associated with them, glass plate negative by the Fine Arts Commission. All right, next slide. This was very interesting, actual model of the cemetery that was found in 66G. So this was taken when this was taken, but I found this one to be very interesting. And you can actually see an amphitheater in the actual future tune there. Okay, I want to the next slide. The top image was actually taken in 1928, the bottom one in 1933. They were taken by Bureau of Public Road photographers or possibly acquired, Bureau of Public Roads did acquire some images. These prints are basically mounted on envelopes, which you will see in other series within our collection. At one point these probably contained additional prints that could basically pulled out to distribute if somebody requested them. And actually these are actually also in our online catalog if you search on the photo number. We are currently digitizing this entire series and we're almost done, we're almost there. We have some that are currently being prepped for the catalog and we have some additional boxes need to be digitized and then the entire series will be done. Next slide. So from my last few, my last three slides here, I was just going to go look at some just general, let me see here, sorry. Yeah, from my last few slides, I was going to look at some general Arlington National Cemetery photography. These here will be dating back to the Civil War from our Matthew Brady Civil War collection. We have a view of the National, of Arlington National Cemetery on the top. You have the 111B number. That's actually the Rec Group in a series designator. And then actually the negative number, which you can search on in our catalog to retrieve this image. The bottom image is actually also the 74th Infantry at Arlington House in Arlington, Virginia. These are actually original wet clothing glass plates, which of course is one of the earliest photographic processes. Next slide. These I found really interesting. I think it's possible that Amy might have showed the top one. These are actually also a commission of fine arts of Arlington on top of being a map. This is actually a photographic reproduction of original drawing found in cartographic, which is what we have is actually a glass plate negative. The bottom one is I found, this is actually one of the, my favorites that I found was actually showing them actually with the mount, the sketch actually in mount to be digitized, actually digitized. But mount to be actually shot with a camera. So original was a glass plate negative. So it's a sketch of a plan. It's kind of hard to see in the presentation here, but it actually shows how it was mounted and then we've been shot with a camera. And then my last two slides, just additional examples from fine arts, flagpole at Arlington National Cemetery, bottom image, USS Maine Memorial, and all these images too in the fine arts commission. A lot of them were already in our catalog, but there were some issues with the way they actually went up in our catalog. So we actually re-digitized some things, redid some metadata, and we'll be actually replacing it. So all this material will be either already is available or will be available in the catalog. And my last slide, another Bureau of Public Roads, view of Washington, DC from Arlington, a very old image there. And then also one from circa 1942, which is showing that many of our series, you never know what you'll find in them. Here's just another map of Arlington that was found actually to Bureau of Public Roads. And then for my closing slide, I just give, if you have any questions or you wanna contact the Still Picture branch, there's our email stillpics.nr.gov. Certainly Molas and we will try to answer your questions the best we can. And that is my presentation. Thank you. Thank you for that presentation. I just wanna remind the public or let you know that you can ask questions of us if you go to the center of your screen towards the bottom and just type your question into the chat bar and we will try to get to all of those questions. Next up is Alexander Geitz, Supervisor, your archivist in the Moving Image and Sound branch. Thank you. Thanks so much, Tim. Good afternoon. My name is Alexander Geitz and I'm a Supervisory Archivist in the Moving Image and Sound branch located in College Park, Maryland. I will be providing a brief overview of the records our branch holds pertaining to the tomb of the unknown soldier and Arlington National Cemetery. Next slide, please. But first a little bit about who we are and what we do. Our mission is to preserve and make available the permanently valuable Moving Image and Sound records of the federal government. We are also the custodians of a number of donated collections which either fill gaps in the federal records or otherwise ensure significant audio-visual coverage of the workings of the United States government. Our staff perform the accessioning, processing, preservation and reference tasks that make it possible for us to achieve this mission. We also work closely with our colleagues in the Motion Picture Film Preservation Lab and the Audio Video Preservation Lab on projects to ensure proper preservation of our holdings. We hold about 82,000 cubic feet of records consisting of more than 520,000 film reels, 350,000 sound recordings and 200,000 video recordings. We also maintain associated textual records that provide additional information about the creation and development of some of these Moving Image and Audio Recordings, including production files, scripts and shot lists, as well as card catalogs and indexes. We're also receiving an increasing number of born digital video and audio recordings from agencies. Our holdings represent over 330,000 Moving Image titles and over 200,000 sound recording titles. So these titles cover a wide range of topics and were created for a number of purposes, including films that document military operations, speeches and public events, public information campaigns and public service announcements, newsreels, broadcasts, oral histories and more. So the audio-visual records that our branch hold pertaining to the tomb of the unknown soldier date from November 1920, the 21 dedication through the beginning of the 21st century. These records can be found in a large number of our record groups, as many agencies having variety of reasons to document their activities at the site. So for the rest of the presentation, I'll be sharing excerpts from a few of our digitized Moving Image holdings that highlight the tomb of the unknown soldier. These excerpts are all from silent footage. So as a video clips playback on each slide, I will describe the films and talk a little bit about where to find these and other Arlington related audio-visual records in our holdings. So next slide, please. Okay, so jumping right into the good stuff, if you click again, it should playback, excellent. So this is an excerpt from the film, The Unknown Soldier of the World War. This film is part of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer Record Series historical films, also commonly referred to by its series identifier 111H. This film depicts the 1921 journey of the selected World War I unknown soldier as he is transported from France to his final resting place in Arlington National Cemetery. This film includes scenes from France, including footage of the casket being brought on board the USS Olympia, as we saw in Billy's presentation, some still imagery. We can see the Moving Image in this particular film. The film continues after that with the disembarkation of the casket in the US Navy Yard and the unknown soldier lying in state in the US Capitol Rotunda. The film then shows the November 11th procession from the US Capitol to Arlington National Cemetery. And this excerpt playing now shows the casket being brought into the Arlington Memorial Amphitheater for the funeral ceremony. This film then continues through the final steps of the unknown soldier's journey from the amphitheater to the tomb. Unfortunately, with a total running time of 23 minutes, we won't be able to show the entire film during this presentation, but the film can be viewed in its entirety on the National Archives online catalog, along with the scans of the film's production file. As mentioned previously, this film is part of the series 111H. The series is made up of 451 individual titles, representing over 1 million feet of motion picture film shot between 1914 and 1936. If you have to go to the next slide, talk a little bit more about it there. If you hit, again, we can get that clip running as well. So this film series, 111H, it contains a film primarily shot by the US Army Civil Corps during World War I, and includes footage of troop training, soldiers on the front, non-combat and home front support for the war effort, and related post-war footage, including memorials and visits to military cemeteries, including Arlington National Cemetery and the tomb of the unknown soldier. So while the film, The Unknown Soldier of the World War, is certainly one of the most comprehensive films in our holdings that documents the events of the 1921 dedication of the tomb. The 111H series also contains another dozen or so films that depict visits made to the tomb of the unknown soldier in Arlington Cemetery during the 1920s and 30s. As an example, the excerpt that just finished playing depicts major general summer role addressing an audience in the Arlington Memorial Amphitheater in 1928, followed by a refling ceremony at the tomb of the unknown soldier. So all of the films in the 111H series have been fully digitized, thanks to a several years long project that was undertaken to coincide with the 100th anniversary of World War I. The work was largely possible thanks to the support of a generous anonymous donor. And the film scans, as well as the associated production files for each film can be viewed and downloaded on the National Archives catalog. And have also been made available on our National Archives YouTube channel. So next slide, please. It's one more time to get that clip going, perfect. And in addition to the 111 series, footage of the tomb of the unknown soldier in Arlington National Cemetery can also be found in a number of our other signal core record series. So additional footage from the 1921 dedication of the tomb can be found in the series called Documentary Films or 111M, which is another great resource for military footage from the early 20th century. This series also includes footage of other visits made by military officials to the tomb through the 1930s, including a 1936 visit by General Pershing. The film news releases series or 111DD also contains a number of films depicting Arlington, including footage of Queen Elizabeth II's visit to Arlington National Cemetery in 1957. The two remaining series on this list, moving images related to military activities or 111ADC and motion picture films from the Army Library copy collection or 111LC are both excellent sources of additional footage related to the tomb. Between the two series, there are over 22,000 titles documenting a variety of military activities, primarily from the 1940s through 1980. And both of these series contain dozens of films that showcase the tomb of the unknown soldier in Arlington Cemetery during the mid 20th century. The films cover funerals of noted military officials, memorials and other ceremonies and visits to Arlington in the tomb by military officials, diplomats and U.S. and foreign presidents, including the excerpt that just finished playing of the Chilean President Vidalas visit to the tomb of the unknown soldier in 1950. So next slide, please. Perfect. So the Signal Corps is not the only military British documenting activities at Arlington National Cemetery. The footage of events and activities at the site can be found throughout our military holdings, including the records of the United States Navy, the Air Force and the Office of War information, much like the films in Record Group 111, the films you'll find in the rest of our military holdings are created or were created to document military officials visits to Arlington in the tomb, as well as funerals and memorials. So footage found in this series includes the burial at Arlington of the First Naval and Air Force officers who were killed during the Korean War. It also shows footage of funeral services of a number of noted military officials. You also find footage of visits to the tomb of the unknown soldier by military officials and dignitaries and even some footage of the changing of the guard at the tomb, including this excerpt from 1965. It's from a stock footage reel from the records of the US Navy series 428 NPC. Another series, the United News Reels series in the records of the Office of War information. It's an excellent source of footage pertaining to World War II in general and also contains some footage specific to Arlington in the tomb. So these newsreels were created to counter enemy propaganda and advance the Allied cause and depict Allied activities between June 1942 and September 1946. And included in this series are several newsreels that feature the tomb of the unknown soldier, including French general Charles de Gaulle's visit to the site in 1944. Next slide, please. Perfect. So the excerpt playing now is from the US Air Force series 342 USAF. And it depicts a wreath laying ceremony at the tomb of the unknown soldier that occurred during a visit to the United States by representatives of the Air Forces of Latin American nations in 1970. In this scene, you'll see US Major General Kenneth Sanborn in an unidentified lieutenant laying a wreath on the tomb. So in addition to the other military record series I had discussed earlier, you can also find additional footage related to Arlington in the tomb in two of our series from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, commonly referred to by their series designators, 330 Divac and 330 Daimak. These series contain multiple, films from multiple branches of the military and include footage from the mid 20th century through the early 2010s. So the 330 Daimak series in particular includes some of our most recent military records. In this series, we actually have a video recording of US Air Force Major General Jack Posner's Memorial Ceremony at Arlington in 2006, which was the most recent footage from Arlington I was able to locate in our holdings at this time. But I will say the 330 Daimak series is actually still being processed and we actually have more records coming in from that series. So there may be additional footage and I would expect additional footage of the tomb in Arlington to be identified and made available as we get to process that. So next slide, please. So a little bit of our donated materials. They're another great source of records related to the tomb in Arlington. Before discussing further, I do just wanna draw your attention to the film excerpt and the cameraman that are standing on top of the amphitheater. We just missed them, but you saw them earlier. So this is an excerpt of a film from our Ford film collection and it shows footage of the massive crowds that gathered at Arlington Cemetery on November 11th, 1921. So you can almost see the procession of the unknown soldier's casket in the midground of the clip. So this is the same procession you'll remember from that first excerpt in this presentation from the 111H film, The Unknown Soldier of the World War. So those men to see standing on top of the amphitheater in this Ford collection film are actually capturing the footage that was later used in that 111H film. So pretty cool. So the Ford film collection is an excellent source of early 20th century footage in general, including this excerpt taken from Arreal that actually captured various sites and activities around Washington, D.C. in the early 1920s. The CBS, CBS World War I series is another excellent source of World War I related footage. It contains film that was collected by CBS for use in their 1960s television documentary series, World War I. And there are at least two films in that series that include footage from the 1921 dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Finally, our newsreel collections are another great resource for footage of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and Arlington in general. Over the course of several decades, these newsreels would occasionally showcase important visits and services held at Arlington with the footage shown in theaters across the country at the time. The universal newsreels, for example, it includes footage of President and Mrs. Hoover's placing of the wreath, laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on our list to stay in 1929. There's also a 1956 Veterans Day observation at Arlington featuring Hollywood actor and Air Force Reserve Colonel Jimmy Stewart as a speaker. And there's also footage of the Kennedy family's visit to Arlington in 1964 on the one-year anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination. So next slide, please. So other record series of note. This slide is meant to showcase just a few of the many civilian agency record groups that contain footage from Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. And it's by no means comprehensive. There are many series that you may not initially think would it be sources of material? I remember performing your research into the Tomb, but the motion picture holdings of many of our federal agencies include footage from the site for a variety of reasons. So the series in the records of the U.S. Information Agency or USIA holds a number of films featuring the Tomb and the grounds at Arlington National Cemetery. So the USIA created films to provide information about U.S. activities and to influence public opinion of U.S. policies and practices both at home and in foreign countries. And in some of these films, they feature visits to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by foreign dignitaries. There's also coverage in this series of both President John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy's funeral services at Arlington. The 117 General Film Series, the Records of the American Battle Monuments Commission is a great resource for anyone interested in military cemeteries and memorials in general and does contain at least one film with footage of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. And just to show some of the variety of agency records that include footage from Arlington, I've noted in this slide that you'll see footage from Arlington in our Records of the Extension Service, the Records of NASA, and the Records of the National Youth Administration, including that excerpt that just finished playing from a film that follows three National Youth Administration members on their visit to Washington, D.C. in 1939. So there, like I said, there are many more record series in our holdings that contain just one or two films featuring Arlington or the Tomb. These films may have been created to document the funeral of an individual related to that agency. For example, the NASA records include coverage of the funeral services at Arlington for the astronauts who were killed during the Apollo 1 fire. Other films, like the one from the Records of the National Youth Administration, were created to document sites at Washington, D.C. in general, with Arlington and the Tomb often being a featured stop. So while our military records are, for sure, your safest bet for locating footage from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, you shouldn't be surprised to find a film or two in any number of our record series. Next slide, please. So this is actually the last slide I have with footage. I wanted to end the presentation with just another excerpt from that 111H film, The Unknown Soldier of the World War, since it is the 100th anniversary of that event, and that's the reason we're here today. In this particular excerpt, you'll see those final steps of the Unknown Soldier's journey to his resting place in the Tomb. So this presentation primarily highlighted our film holdings, actually exclusively highlighted our film holdings, but I do just want to mention that, at least briefly that we do have a number of audio recordings of ceremonies or speeches that were held at Arlington National Cemetery, and these audio recordings can be found in a number of record series, but most of them can be found in our Voice of America records. And I realized this presentation was only a high level overview of our audio visual holdings, so I encourage anyone who's interested in viewing more of our records to check out the National Archives catalog at catalog.archives.gov. The full video files for all of the excerpts I show today can be viewed and downloaded from the catalog in addition to many other film-scanted videos that I wasn't able to feature today. There are also many film, video, and audio recordings in our holdings that have not been digitized, but you can still find at least a basic item or series description for most of our holdings in the catalog. So next slide is actually my last slide. So if you have specific questions about our holdings, I wanna know more, you can feel free to reach out to our reference staff by email. I'm at mopixandair.gov. You can also find additional information about the Moving Image and Sound branch, including our current operational status of our research-driven reproduction services on our branch's website on archives.gov. And if you're interested in reading up a little bit more in general about the National Archives special media holdings, I encourage you to check out our unwritten record blog. It includes posts about cartographic, still pictures and moving image and sound holdings at the National Archives. So that actually concludes my presentation, but please feel free to reach out to our office with any questions we would love to hear from you. Thanks so much. So those are some interesting presentations. Thank you all for doing these today. I just wanna remind the public watching that if you have any questions, please put them in the chat bar. I'll be monitoring that. Now I'm gonna turn to questions that I have as well as questions from you all. So we've seen some amazing records today. If you all could explain how does a researcher go about looking up the records that you discussed or other records that are held by the National Archives? That's the billing. So if you wanna search our one-line catalog for records that have been digitized or say descriptions of records that have not been digitized yet, I would definitely suggest using the advanced search function so if you go to archives.gov, research our records is the link. It actually take you to the link from the National Archives catalog. From there, you can actually do an advanced search and you can actually search on the record type and you can actually also search on a particular office. From there, you can actually search on the human unknown soldier as a keyword search or Arlington National Cemetery. I suggest putting it in quotes. That's all that comes back, hopefully. And then you can, from there you get the records or you can actually start with the keyword search. Same way, end quotes, whatever your subject is. And then you can actually filter from the search results. So you can filter on a particular in our office. You can even filter on the actual format of the digital record itself from there. Once you, when you get the search results back, depending on, so you can also search on the level of the actual description. So we have serious descriptions which are sort of the collection. Then we have file units and item descriptions. File units are sort of group level. That might be the description of a folder or for still pictures. It might be actually a divider with photographs behind it. So it's sort of a group level description and you have items. If you have all those that come back, we actually have photographs that are within both file units and items. So an item description usually has one photograph. It might actually have the front and the back if we scan the reverse side of an image, maybe the caption is there. File units might actually, if we don't have individual item descriptions, you might actually see little objects underneath the actual description that you can click on. So we might have 30, 40, 50 or more photographs that are attached to that file unit which are available for download. So you can basically browse through the images. So there's definitely a download icon from the catalog where you can then download the images home. For the most part, I know at least for still photography, we have pretty high-res JPEGs in the catalog. There is some low-res copies. If you see one that you're not, that you better say a low-res GIF file that might have been done a couple of decades ago, you can certainly reach out to stillpics.nr.gov and we can see if we can get you a better copy. We're trying to replace all those right now. You know, I've gotta say as someone who's been researching there since the mid-1990s, I feel like the public has it made right now because back in the mid-90s, I would go to archives one. I'd sign up for a microfilm machine along with 50 of my closest historian friends and I'd wait patiently to get my microfilm reels and get my, I think it was 10 or 15 minutes before the next researcher started pointing to their watch. Then I had to leave and go to the back of the line and now many of the records are online. So thanks for what you are doing, all of you to digitize those records and make them available. So was there anything that surprised you when you're researching for these presentations? For me, it was as Billy mentioned, the figure of victory without wings or with wings that was then changed to the carving without wings. Sorry about that. My surprise was that statue. I had this beautiful in-color drawing, hand sketch of this lovely statue and I recognized the niche that it should be standing in and I pulled up a photo of Arlington now and I'm like, oh, it's not standing there, where did it go? That was my next question is, did we put in all this time and then not do anything? So it's always interesting to find those records of like, wow, that's not where it said it's gonna be but where is it? I won't say mine was a surprise. I already mentioned a little bit the Ford collection film that kind of you can see in the footage, the, you know, the signal core officers videoing the, or filming the procession from above. So that kind of, again, not a surprise but just a nice reminder that there are, you know, the angles of what you're seeing on our records. You know, there's a lot else going on at the time as well and just having those opportunities to see the same event from different perspectives. So that was very cool once I kind of put that together and kind of like what Billy mentioned a little bit earlier the, it was only a surprise in that, you know, our records are only as findable as the descriptions that are available. So like Billy mentioned in his presentation, we in motion picture branch also, you know, if there is agency provided descriptions, we post those into our catalog and so, or donor provided descriptions. So in the case of the Ford collection film, it mentions that it's Arlington and that's, you know, on this date. So I was able to know it was in the date but it doesn't specifically say, you know, this is footage of, you know, signal core. Like you would not know that unless you're actually, you had that kind of knowledge is kind of a, there's always, you never know what you're gonna find, basically. Yeah. That was with the, with our material going through the commission of fine arts, later slides and glass plates. And that's material that actually we had a microfilm that were not digit, we didn't actually do the digitization a partner did. So I have, we had not actually reviewed the images before they went in the catalog. They also are attached to a file unit description as objects that didn't have individual items. So the actual file unit just says Arlington National Cemetery. So we did not realize what two related images were actually in there. So I started looking at the file unit and I was very surprised. I was also surprised to see these, the sketches and the maps that were actually shot by a farmer. So I thought that was pretty cool knowing that some of the actual originals were here at NARA. And here is actually that original being mounted to actually be shot with the camera 100 years ago. So pretty cool. Yeah, it was amazing to see all of the design competition, the designs that did not win. A lot of the public really doesn't, it doesn't really realize that the original tomb was a flat marble tomb. The army had the intention of completing it later, which is the tomb you see today. And as far as the cartographic, it's amazing to see the evolution of the cemetery. And areas like below the tomb, there used to be two parking lots close to the fountain. One of those parking lots is now section 7A. We're gonna start wrapping up and the next slide will be upcoming events to stay tuned for. One of the questions from the public was, how do I participate in Veterans Day? Well, this year, because it's a centennial year, it's gonna be Veterans Day, but also a few days prior. In October, we're gonna have a webinar with the American Battle Monuments Commission in the National World War I Museum. In November, reminiscent of the laying in state at the Capitol, we are gonna allow the public to walk up to the tomb and lay a flower. Now, back in 1921 on November 9th and 10th, over 90,000 people paid their respects. So this is going to be a once in a lifetime experience for many people. The tomb itself, that area, that plaza, has not been open to the public for many decades. Back in the day, you could walk up to the tomb, and we no longer allow that. However, this 9th and 10th will be that experience. I've been at Arlington since 2016, and I've only walked up to the tomb twice, and that was to inspect it with some of our engineering teams. November 11th, the Veterans Day Observance, we'll have the Presidential Reflang, as well as the Joint Forces Flyover. And you can also check out our website and social media for any updates. We're gonna have, we have Arlington Cemetery education materials on our website, and the social media programs I talked about. So once again, I wanna thank Mr. Ferriero, and on behalf of our Executive Director, Ms. Karen Dermagulara, and our Superintendent, Mr. Charles Alexander. I wanna thank you all for participating today. Our Archivists, Amy Edwards, Billy Wade, and Alexander Geitz, and also those who supported this and made it possible. Carol Swain, Daniel Rooney, Megan Guthorn, Tom Mastic, and the entire Archives IT staff. Thank you all.