Press/Journalists

Prologue Magazine Highlights Chief Gall's Journey and New Exhibits
Press Release · Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Washington, DC

As one of Sitting Bull’s protégés and a leader at the Battle of Little Big Horn, Lakota Chief Gall was destined for power among his people. But after he surrendered to the U.S. cavalry, he changed dramatically, according to an article in the Fall 2008 issue of Prologue, the quarterly magazine of the National Archives and Records Administration.

“Gall was always more pragmatic about life than Sitting Bull,” writes Robert W. Larson, a professor emeritus at the University of Northern Colorado and author of several books on western history. “As a result, he began to cooperate with the [fort’s commander], changing his lifestyle and becoming a hardworking farmer.”

“Chief Gall’s Journey” tells the remarkable story of this Native American leader, and the Fall Prologue also has features on two new exhibits from the National Archives—one in Washington, DC, and one online.

The exhibit “1783: Subject or Citizen?” commemorates the 225th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War. But it also forced those living in North America to choose “whether to remain loyal British subjects or become citizens of a new American republic,” write curators Lisa Royse of the National Archives and Michael Eamon of Library and Archives Canada.

This exhibit, which features documents from both the National Archives and Library and Archives Canada, is showing through January 2009 in the Lawrence F. O’Brien Gallery at the National Archives Building.

If you’re unable to come to the National Archives Building in Washington to see the permanent and temporary exhibits, the Archives now has something for you—the Digital Vaults, an online version of the popular Public Vaults, a permanent exhibit in the Washington building.

“Unlike a typical online exhibit, the new Digital Vaults is more than the digitization of a physical display,” writes Suzanne Isaacs, digital projects coordinator for the National Archives Experience. “It is an entirely new environment that allows visitors to create their own collections, games, posters, movies, and more based on the primary sources we hold.”

Other articles include:

  • The Ordeal of a Biographer,” in which Timothy Walch, director of the Hoover Library and a former Prologue editor, discusses Herbert Hoover’s book about President Woodrow Wilson. Hoover described an honorable but complicated man whom Hoover, curiously enough, considered sort of a mentor.
     
  • Lynching,” in which Trichita Chestnut describes the era when angry citizens in the American South took the law into their own hands and tortured or killed African Americans for crimes real and imagined.
     
  • The Electoral College,” in which Michael White discusses one of the many responsibilities that the Congress has assigned to the National Archives: managing the Electoral College, which elects our President and Vice President every four years.
     
  • Author on the Record,” in which we discuss the new book, “This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War,” researched heavily at the National Archives by its author Drew Gilpin Faust, a Civil War historian and, since 2007, president of Harvard University.

For four decades, Prologue has shared with readers the rich resources and programs of the National Archives, its regional archives, and the Presidential libraries.

Each issue features historical articles—drawn from National Archives' holdings and written by noted historians, archivists, and experts—as well as articles explaining and describing many of the National Archives’ activities and programs as the nation’s recordkeeping agency.

The Washington Post said, “Prologue . . . can be regarded quite literally as an invitation for further study. It is also consistently absorbing reading.”

A one-year subscription to Prologue costs $24, and you can order in a number of ways:

  • Call 1-800-234-8861 or 202-357-5482.
  • Go to the subscribe page, print out the order formOpen order form PDF file, and mail it to Prologue,
    National Archives Trust Fund (Cashier) NAT,
    8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, MD 20740-6001.
  • Order online.
  • Fax credit card orders to Prologue at 202-357-5918.

Single copies of Prologue are available at the Archives Shop or at the Cashier's Office in the National Archives Building in Washington or at the Publications Sales Office at the National Archives at College Park. Single copies are also available in the shops at some Presidential libraries.

For more information about the National Archives and its programs and exhibits, go to www.archives.gov.

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For press information, contact the National Archives Public Affairs Staff at 202-357-5300.

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