Day 4- January 21st

I finished processing Box 6, which was nice.

Day 5 - January 24th

I was about to go through box 7, but it was crammed full of personal military service records from World War I. I decided that it was a box that needed to have someone process it for the entire semester, rather than just being given a cursory glance through. The military records were held together by rusting metal clips, and will hopefully be preserved much better. It was fascinating to look at a few of the records- one was a William Sharp, who was an 18-year old knitter from Philadelphia that was drafted in 1917. I wonder if he survived and went on to have lots of grandkids, or if he died in the War.

The box also included a book about the psychology of returning servicemen from 1945, and talked about combat nerves. The book didn't include a date, and I assumed judging from a photo of a soldier in the back that it was a 1950's book, because the soldier's hair seemed a little long for the 1940's, but I turned out to have been wrong once I looked the book up on the internet. The bit about combat nerves was interesting- they knew that soldiers were getting traumatized by war, but it was way before the term "post-traumatic stress disorder" was formed.

My favorite part of this box was seeing a journal that held advertisements for a hotel; that I know now as the Pita Pit that I've gone to a couple of times. That's what I like so much about Indiana- rather than tearing down all of their old buildings like Newark, DE has done, they're still around.