Finding Aids:
Once a collection is discovered in your search, you can access its Finding Aid. This document is a description of the collection’s holdings, with an Abstract, Scope and Contents, Dates, etc. that will help you discern what the collection contains.
Requesting Materials:
Once you have read the Researcher Guidelines and filled out and signed the Researcher Registration Form, you can fill out a Researcher Paging Form. This contains fields for you to input the necessary information for staff to find specific collections for you.
The reading room staff will only provide ONE folder at a time and will check that all materials have been returned before providing another. The staff will then sign the form indicating all materials have been returned when you are done for the day.
Using a Collection:
When you have identified a collection and the reading room staff has provided you with a folder to work on, materials are housed in specific orders and in ways to preserve them for the long term as well as make them as accessible as possible to researchers. All correspondence will be housed in chronological order, with the exception of different series of materials within a collection being separated by author, recipient, or some other collection specific arrangement.
If the correspondence comes with an original envelope, the corresponding envelope will be placed in front of the letter, and so on.
Citing the Collection:
If any content you find within a collection is useful to your research and will be used in a paper, article, or book, please cite the materials appropriately using the following format:
[Item title / description; Box "n" / Folder "n"], [John Smith Second World War correspondence (2018.068.w.r)], Center for American War Letters Archives, Chapman University, CA.
For the benefit of current and future researchers, please cite any additional information about sources consulted in this collection, including permanent URLs, item or folder descriptions, and box/folder locations.
General Guidelines
Requesting Materials
Handling Materials
Copying Materials
COPYRIGHT LAW AND PHOTOCOPYING POLICY
The Center for American War Letters Archives promotes open access to its collections for “private study, scholarship, or research” subject to the intellectual property rights of others. Chapman University may not hold copyright or intellectual property rights to all items in the collections, and contents may be subject to restricted access or use. As a condition of accessing and using material from the Archives, you agree that you are responsible for obtaining all required consents of any copyright holder and to indemnify and hold the University harmless from and against any and all claims, losses, liabilities, and expenses, including reasonable attorney fees, that may arise from any third party claims for copyright infringement, torts, or invasion of publicity or privacy rights. You further acknowledge and agree that photocopies or other reproductions may only be made with the University’s prior approval. Requests will be considered on a case by case basis and approval will be in the University’s sole discretion.
What Are Primary Sources?
Wayne State University Library System
Before You Search:
When beginning to look at war letters as primary sources for your research, it is important first to understand what you want to get out of the sources. Narrow your search to include only those types of experiences that are relevant to your research.
For example, and a quick step-down process that is helpful, considering the following in order:
Getting Started:
One you have narrowed your search, you can begin to think about how your soldier(s) will help your research. This helps craft an overall idea of your paper/book because specificity is important. NOT ALL SOLDIERS WERE THE SAME. Though some experiences of a young man overseas during a war may be timeless, the experience of an infantry private in the trenches of WWI is far different than that of a construction officer in the Pacific during WWII. Generations change, locations change, and the unit or job being conducted can greatly affect how someone experienced “their” war.
The next step is to think about how you are using these sources.
These are just some examples of how to get started and in what ways these collections of correspondence, and their supplementary artifacts, can be used in your research.
The Letters:
It is important to understand these sources as you use them in your research. The letters that were sent home by a soldier during war are not a perfect accounting of events. Some collections may be verbose in their discussion of the war and political aspects of the conflict. Most do not, sometimes even avoiding the subject altogether. But just about all of these collections are comprised of interpersonal connections. They are love letters. They are friends keeping in touch. They are sons telling their mothers that they are okay.
The primary importance of preserving these war letters, and thus subsequently them in historical research, is to ascertain an individual’s experience through a snapshot in time. What are they saying? What is important to them in that moment? What are they not saying? Using supplementary evidence, such as the date or the unit written on the envelope, a researcher can discover more about the soldier’s situation in that moment than he/she is letting on in their letters. A 20-year-old kid is not going to tell his mother that he is scared for his life on June 6, 1944 (D-Day). The absence of information can sometimes be just as important.
Additionally, the absence of “action” can be very important. A soldier or sailor in a non-combat support role can provide incredible insight into not only military culture, but the general American culture of the time. From the First World War to Vietnam and the modern conflicts in the Middle East, a soldier that is not worried about immediate danger may speak more casually. They may be more concerned with the latest movie or trend, or how a friend is doing with their guitar lessons, than an infantry Marine on the front lines, only able to scribble some letters when time and safety concerns permit.
Most Importantly:
As the researcher, it is important to be aware of your sources and what they are telling you. Do not go seeking an answer. Beginning your research with a preconceived notion of how something happened, or especially how it was experienced, will slow or derail your research. Looking for a specific connection, like trying to find an infantry soldier in Vietnam with a drug problem, is going to be nearly impossible to find, as well as forcing your paper into a weak argument based on one archival finding.
Let the sources dictate your research. In other words, find a collection that fits your search criteria, read the letters and study the artifacts in the collection, and then determine what you have found. Going looking ends in failure to find what you were looking for. But all of these soldiers, sailors, and marines have a story if your research is willing to tell it. For example, you may hope to write about medicine in combat. You search for a WWII army soldier in Europe. He’s a lieutenant in a medical detachment and this collection looks promising for your research. Unfortunately, his days of medical treatment, from illness to amputation, are not what he discloses to his loved ones. This is not the right source for such a study. However, he does mention his political affiliations and talks at length about the upcoming presidential election in 1944, and the death of President Roosevelt. This is a useful topic. Perhaps his experience led him to meet a Belgian woman, to whom he was later married. That is a story.
Those are the ways in which these primary sources can lead your research and be useful in understanding how Americans went to and were affected by war.
IMPORTANT!!!!
Do not wait to begin researching collections. Look at this Lib Guide and begin looking at collections in our online database DURING THE FIRST WEEK! Then set an appointment and come in before the end of the second week. You don't want to cram reading personal correspondence!
Doing Your Research: