Primary Source Activity - Katherine Fite Lincoln Letter

The Truman Presidential Museum & Library stores millions of original documents in the "stacks" - huge rooms where the boxes of documents are kept. Archivists carefully preserve the originals and help researchers access whatever documents they need to do their work. The archives boxes contain the official records of Harry Truman's presidency, his personal correspondence and letters he received from the public. Many of the people who worked in the Truman administration or played a role at one of the historic events of the Truman presidency kept letters and mementos from that very important time in their life. Often times the individual or their family will decide to donate their documents and keepsakes to the Truman Library because the items have historic significance.

In 1989 the family of the only woman to serve on the prosecutorial team at the historic war crimes trial at Nuremberg made such a donation. The Library received letters written in 1945 - 1946 by Katherine Fite (Lincoln). An exceptional woman, Fite achieved things that were not the norm for females of her generation. She graduated from Vassar College in 1927 and earned a law degree from Yale in 1930. While working as an attorney in the Department of State, Fite was assigned to work on the staff of Justice Robert Jackson, the chief U.S. prosecutor at the war crimes trial in Nuremberg. She would be a part of the first international effort in recorded history to charge a nation's leaders with war crimes.

Fite's letters not only tell us a great deal about her as a person but they give us her firsthand observations about International Military Tribunal. The letters reveal much about the difficulties and frustrations of preparing for the trial of Hitler's top henchmen. However, reading the letters in their original form is difficult. Most were written in ink on both sides of very thin onionskin paper. For that reason, a transcription of the original should be used to complete the "Document Analysis" questions.

To view the transcribed letter, go to: http://www.trumanlibrary.org/lincoln.htm

Document Analysis

1. Document date: _______________ Author:_____________________________

2. Who received the document? ____________________________________________________

3. Archivists write brief descriptions of all documents in a collection. For this letter the archivists listed seven main topics discussed. Using a word or short phrase, make a list of the seven topics that you consider to be the important topics Katherine Fife writes about.

a. _________________________________ b. __________________________________

c. _________________________________ d. __________________________________

e. _________________________________ f. __________________________________

g. _________________________________

 

4. What does the document reveal about the writer's personality?

5. How would you describe the job status of the writer - an important person or a person who had a lesser role in the proceedings?

6. Why did all of the women have to leave President Roosevelt's battleship before King Ibn Saud came on board?

7. Why is this document a valuable source of information?

8. What questions are left unanswered by the document?

9. Do you think Fite's job might be different if she was on the prosecutor's staff at a war crimes trial today? Explain your answer.

10. What was her job at the trial according to the letter?

11. What event took Fite to Nuremberg?

12. How would you interpret the meaning of the sign-off on the letter?