Living Notes from the Archivist ✍️

🌟 Make This Day Special: Experience History

History isn’t just names on a passenger list or faces in a yearbook — it’s real people who lived, traveled, trained, and sacrificed. At the GG Archives, we preserve the documents and ephemera that tell their stories. But you can take it further.

📖 Start here: Explore authentic rosters, contracts, menus, and yearbooks.

🚢 Step there: Visit a ship, museum, or historic site. Sit in a captain’s chair, walk through Ellis Island, or tour a Navy training center.

👣 Feel it: Put yourself in someone else’s shoes and connect the paper trail to lived experience.

👉 Make this day special. Experience history.

From the Page to the Deck: Experiencing History Firsthand

At the GG Archives, most journeys begin with a document, a photograph, or a passenger list. But the true magic of history comes when you take that spark of interest and step into the places where those stories unfolded.

I’ve been fortunate to do just that — to connect the paper trail of archives with the living presence of ships, museums, and historic sites. Each visit reminds me why preserving and sharing these materials matters: they are the gateway to experiences that help us understand the lives of those who came before.

The USS Intrepid: Sitting in the Captain’s Chair

On a trip to New York, I visited the USS Intrepid. What began as a standard museum tour became something extraordinary when a former Navy flight officer, volunteering that day, offered me a one-on-one tour.

He guided me through the officers’ dining room, the Combat Information Center (CIC), and the captain’s private quarters. The highlight came when he invited me to sit in the captain’s chair on the bridge, looking out over the flight deck where planes are now permanently displayed.

In that moment, I imagined the weight of command, the complexity of coordinating thousands of sailors, and the months spent at sea. It wasn’t just a museum anymore — it was a window into the lived reality of those who served aboard a floating airfield.

Ellis Island: Recognizing the “Eye Candy” of Immigration

I first visited Ellis Island as a teenager in the late 1960s, remembering little beyond climbing stairs in the Statue of Liberty. But on a more recent trip, I spent hours photographing exhibits: passenger list covers, fare schedules, passage contracts, brochures, and photographs.

For most visitors, these are curiosities. For me, they were familiar — the very types of ephemera preserved in the GG Archives. Seeing them in a museum reinforced what I already knew: the work of collecting and digitizing these materials provides context, continuity, and accessibility that institutions alone can’t always match.

Submarines and Battleships: Life in Tight Quarters

I’ve also stepped aboard the USS Drum, a World War II submarine next to the battleship USS Alabama. The experience couldn’t have been more different from a carrier: tight passageways, narrow bunks, and no room to breathe.

Much of the Drum was blocked off, but what was open made clear how difficult life under the sea must have been. To live and work in such close quarters required courage and endurance.

A Russian submarine moored near the Queen Mary in Long Beach told a similar story — modernized, but still confining. Walking through, I gained a deeper appreciation for the sacrifice of submariners, whose service often goes unseen.

The Queen Mary: Walking in Glamour

By contrast, the Queen Mary offered grandeur. Walking her promenade deck and dining in her first-class dining room, I could almost hear the clink of silverware, the hum of conversation, and the steady rhythm of the engines propelling her across the Atlantic.

It was easy to imagine the golden age of ocean travel, when liners carried thousands in luxury and style. Standing there, the passenger lists I’ve preserved came alive — no longer just names on paper, but travelers dining, promenading, and living out their journeys.

Why Visit?

These experiences all reinforce the same lesson: documents are the doorway, but presence is the key. Reading a roster, a newsletter, or a brochure introduces you to the past. But walking the decks of a carrier, standing in the cramped quarters of a submarine, or strolling through Ellis Island lets you put yourself in someone else’s shoes.

The GG Archives is your starting point — a resource for discovering the artifacts, rosters, and photographs that catch your interest. But don’t stop there. Go and visit the ships, museums, and historic buildings that preserve these stories in three dimensions.

When you do, history is no longer something in a book. It becomes something you’ve touched, seen, and felt. And that experience — just like the artifacts — is worth preserving and passing on. ⚓