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Published from 1672, this influential periodical promised in its first issue to chronicle the activities of luminaries in metropolitan Paris, in the French provinces, and abroad, and to offer good literature to lovers of novels and stories. It was published first under the title Le Mercure Galant by Donneau de Vise. Upon his death it was taken over by Riviere Dufresny (1710), then Lefevre de Fontenay (1714), and Abbot Bucher. In 1724 the title was changed to Le Mercure de France, and the periodical was split into a literary and a political section.

The United States decision to provide military assistance to France and the Associated States of Indochina was reached informally in February/March 1950, funded by the President on May 1, 1950, and was announced on May 8, 1950. The decision was taken in spite of the U.S. desire to avoid direct involvement in a colonial war, and in spite of a sensing that France's political-military situation in Indochina was deteriorating. This collection consists of unique records of U.S. agencies established to intervene in Vietnam—the country U.S. foreign policy deemed a lynchpin in the free world’s fight against communism. The Subject Files from the Office of the Director, U.S. Operations Missions, document the myriad concerns and rationales that went into the control and direction of U.S. economic and technical assistance programs, as well as the coordination of mutual security activities, with respect to Vietnam.

Fannie Lou Hamer was the daughter of sharecroppers and spent eighteen years of her adult life as a sharecropper and timekeeper on the Dee Marlow plantation in Sunflower County, Mississippi. She was fired in 1962 because of her attempt to register to vote. The following year she became a registered voter and also became the field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. She was instrumental in starting the Delta Ministry, and she was one of the founders of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. She led a delegation to the Democratic National Convention in 1964. She became chairman of the board of the Fannie Lou Hamer Day Care Center founded in Ruleville, Mississippi, in 1970, by the National Council of Negro Women. She also served as a member of the board of the Sunflower County Day Care Center and Family Service Center, and on the policy council of the National Women's Political Party of Mississippi. This collection comprises more than three thousand pieces of correspondence plus financial records, programs, photographs, newspaper articles, invitations, and other printed items.

This collection is a record of the U.S. Operations Mission's experiences in Saudi Arabia. In it are outlined the programs that were initiated, the problems encountered, and the results of the five year effort in the Point Four program. In Saudi Arabia, there were two chief aims that guided the International Cooperation Administration (ICA) effort and the Point Four Program. The first was to promote the acceptance and support of ICA by cooperating and integrating the efforts of local and regional governments and bureaucrats. The second was to initiate projects that would reach as many people as possible, especially the common people who desperately needed opportunities and help. Three kinds of aid were provided: United States technicians advised or worked with the Saudi Government; supplies and equipment were provided for demonstration purposes; and Saudi personnel were sent to the U.S. or third countries for observation or training programs. Much was achieved in public health, education, public administration, community development, and transportation. The aim of the Point Four program was to promote the combined growth of economic and social improvement and political freedom.

Comprising records of the State Department’s Central Classified Files, this collection contains records relating to the internal affairs of India, during the period 1945-1949. The records include instructions sent to and correspondence received by the State Department; the State Department's internal documentation, as well as correspondence between the Department and other federal departments and agencies, Congress, and private individuals and organizations; telegrams, airgrams, instructions, inquiries, studies, memoranda, situation reports, translations, special reports, plans, and official and unofficial correspondence. There is essential documentation on these subjects: political parties and elections; unrest and revolution; human rights; government; administration; fiscal and monetary issues; labor; housing; police and crime; public health; national defense; foreign policymaking; alliances; religion; culture; education; trade; industry; natural resources; communications; transportation; and many more. These State Department records offer authoritative, in-depth, and timely documentation and analysis that cannot be matched.

This collection consists primarily of Department of State cables and CIA intelligence information cables concerning South and North Vietnam. Topics include the Vietnam War, U.S.-South Vietnam relations, South Vietnam’s political climate, opposition groups, religious sects, ethnic groups, labor unions, corruption, press censorship, the North Vietnam’s military and economy, peace negotiations, and events in Cambodia and Laos.

The standard reference source on the unprecedented industrial mobilization of an entire economy to fight the war of 1914-1918, this 12 volume set has previously only been available in a few select libraries with which the British government deposited copies. It is essential for anyone who wants to study the economics behind World War I, the career of David Lloyd George, and the process of state intervention in industry.

Over 16,000 pages of State Department Central Files on India and Pakistan from 1963 through 1966 make this collection a strong documentary resource for the study of the political relations between India and Pakistan during a crucial period in the Cold War, and the shifting alliances and alignments in South Asia.

The Community Profiles provide an in-depth analysis of poverty in America with an extensive inventory of historical data at a local level. Each profile, composed as a narrative with statistical indices, contains information showing general poverty indicators, size and composition of the poor population, and selected aspects of geography, demography, economy, and social resources. The documents in this archive are from the Presidential Papers of Lyndon Baines Johnson, White House Office Files, Office Files of Fred Panzer: Office of Economic Opportunity Information Center, Community Profiles, in the custody of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin, Texas

Evangelism in India took the form primarily of village itineration where male and female missionaries ministered to the spiritual needs of the populace while simultaneously attending to their medical and educational needs. The collection documents the Board of Foreign Missions' tripartite ministry (Farukhabad, Punjab, and the West Indian missions) in India but also reflects the development of the modern Indian state in a broader sense. Reaction to foreigners generally and Protestant missionaries specifically, discontent with British rule and the development of the Independence movement, and racial and internecine religious warfare between Hindu and Muslim populations are well documented.

Documents in this collection illustrate Cold War contexts, the role of the United States in Venezuela’s foreign affairs, and the centrality of oil in the Venezuelan economy.

The Mesopotamian Campaign deserves to be far better known than it is—both in terms of its impact on the war and the subsequent course of the history of the Middle East. This new collection provides the opportunity to review the telegrams, correspondence, minutes, memoranda, and confidential prints gathered together in the India Office Military Department on Mesopotamia. In 1914 the British/Indian Army expedition to Mesopotamia set out with the modest ambition of protecting the oil concession in Southern Persia but, after numerous misfortunes, ended up capturing Baghdad and Northern Towns in Iraq. Initially the mission was successful in seizing Basra but the British/Indian forces found themselves drawn North, becoming besieged by Turkish forces at Kut. After various failed relief attempts the British surrendered and the prisoners suffered appalling indignities and hardship, culminating in a death march to Turkey. In 1917, a new Commander-in-Chief was appointed but, as usual in Iraq, military policy kept changing. Hopes that the Russians would come into the war were dashed by the Revolution. Operations were further frustrated by the hottest of summers. Fighting against Turkish forces continued right up to the Armistice. The conduct of the Campaign was subject to a Commission of Inquiry which was highly critical of numerous individuals and the administrative arrangements.

Etiquette from the Oxford English Dictionary: "The customary code of polite behaviour in society; good manners." Dena Attar wrote of etiquette in her book A Bibliography of Household Books Published in Britain, 1800-1914: "The literature of etiquette is full of paradoxes. On the surface, it is the written code for a fixed, formal and recognized system of behaviour, yet the volume of books and articles on etiquette produced between 1800 and 1914 speaks more urgently of uncertainty and change. Common themes were the decay of modern manners and the instability of society, and writers often described their books as necessary correctives for wider social problems." The Etiquette and Advice collection from Winterthur Museum contains more than 440 British and American books on etiquette from as early as 1631 well into the 20th century, and represents complete published works as well as scarce printed ephemera.

Much of the 20th century history of Ecuador involved internal struggles between liberals and conservatives, and a territorial dispute between Peru and Ecuador that evolved into armed conflict in 1941 and was settled with the Protocol of Peace, Friendship, and Boundaries between Peru and Ecuador, or Rio Protocol for short, signed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on January 29, 1942. Publications relating to political relations between the United States and other states generally include cables, memoranda, and correspondence addressing the political affairs and concerns affecting the particular state. Covering primarily the early Cold War documents, this collection gives researchers a unique insight into American foreign policy during one of its most stressful periods in international relations. After World War II, with only two superpowers vying for influence, access, and control, the United States looked to its state department to provide detailed analyses and insight into political affairs. As such these records are bound to be of great interest to diplomatic historians and historians studying these countries, seeking to understand American foreign affairs during this period.

In 1940, Nelson Rockefeller (1908–1979) began a long career in government when President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him as coordinator of inter-American affairs. He served in various federal posts until he was elected governor of New York in 1958. In 1973, after three unsuccessful runs for the Republican presidential nomination, Rockefeller resigned as New York's governor. In 1974, President Gerald Ford appointed him vice-president. This file on Nelson Rockefeller contains papers relating to the background checks conducted by the FBI in advance of his appointment to various positions in the federal government.

The backstory to this archive revolves around the rise of the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR), which emerged as a broadly based party. Under President Victor Paz Estenssoro (1907-2001), the MNR “introduced universal adult suffrage, carried out a sweeping land reform, promoted rural education, and nationalized the country's largest tin mines. Twelve years of tumultuous rule left the MNR divided.” In 1964, a military junta overthrew President Paz Estenssoro at the outset of his third term. Documents in this collection offer insight into the U.S. state department during the Cold War. Examples include analysis of labor union leadership and its relationship to Communists “united in opposition” and attempting to impose a “Fascist regime in Bolivia.” Periodicals such as Prescenia and El Diario are characterized as “organs at service of Communists” (December 1960). The embassy notes how El Pueblo, the Communist newspaper in La Paz, reports a Pravda correspondent expressing “great interest in ‘promoting’ relations with USSR” (March 1962).

The Watergate scandal grew out of the scheme to conceal the connection between the White House and the accused Watergate burglars, who had succeeded in a plan to wiretap telephones at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, D.C. Early in the morning of June 17, 1972, a security guard foiled the break-in to install the bugs. After the election a federal judge refused to accept the claim of those on trial for the break-in that they had acted on their own. In February 1973, the U.S. Senate established the Special Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities to investigate alleged election misdeeds. This archive is a valuable resource for students of the Watergate scandal and modern American political history. Included here are all of the reports and evidence acquired by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as data that was gathered in the campaign activities of the 1972 presidential candidates.

The subject matter is varied, and deals with many aspects of Canadian history, literature, social and political conditions. Included are pamphlets on religion and churches, all levels of government, elections, peace movements and war service, Communism, local communities and labour organizations, to name but a few of the topics covered. Approximately 250 pamphlets date from before 1867. Several of the pamphlets are in the French language.

On May 2, 1979, President Jimmy Carter and Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira met in Washington, D.C. and agreed to establish the Japan-U.S. Economic Relations Group—informally known as the “Wise Men.” This small group of distinguished persons drawn from private life would submit recommendations to Carter and Ohira for maintaining a healthy bilateral economic relationship between the United States and Japan. Among the issues considered were the role of economic issues in the overall “political-security-cultural relationship,” especially Japan’s emerging position as a world power; Japan’s future comprehensive economic security needs; and its involvement in foreign assistance programs. The Group actively solicited the views of the American public (Congress, business, labor, agriculture, public interest groups) to provide an additional forum for those who wished to be heard. The Group also drew upon research that was currently under way in the two countries and sponsored a modest program of separate independent research.

Published in cooperation with the Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, DE. The Association against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA) and the Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform (WONPR) were in the forefront of the movement to repeal Prohibition. The AAPA was founded in 1918 and by 1926 claimed a membership of 750,000. In 1928 the association began a sophisticated publicity campaign against Prohibition. It was joined by the WONPR, founded in 1929 by Pauline Morton Sabin, who rallied over one million women to the cause. After the anti-Prohibition organizations celebrated repeal in 1933, they disbanded, and their records were scattered. The papers of the AAPA published here were gleaned from the personal files of Pierre S. du Pont, his brother Irénée, and John Raskob. The WONPR papers come from the files of Alice Belin du Pont, who was active in that group. The entire collection includes the following: correspondence, minutes, financial reports, membership lists, records of lobbying activities, and publications and press releases issued by the AAPA and WONPR.