Purdue in the Cold War

During the Cold War, universities played a crucial role in furthering US security and diplomatic interests. Purdue University was no exception, facilitating cultural ties between NATO and allied states, developing talent and national competitiveness through aerospace and engineering programs, and training and contributing personnel to military endeavors around the world. We work through collections housed in Purdue University Archives to analyze institutional support for Cold War-related efforts and explain how individual community members contributed to the development of US defense between 1949 and 1991. Findings are published as individual posts and story maps, expanding our understanding of Purdue’s many connections to global geopolitics and security during this era.

Image: US Flag on Lunar Surface, 1969, National Archives

Military Service and Political Partisanship

In 2011, the Department of Defense implemented new regulations following the passage of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Act, ending a half century of exclusion of lesbian, gay, and bisexual Americans from the US Military. Although repeal had at that point become a plank of the Democratic Party platform, the party’s leadership in ending exclusion was not always self-evident. This project follows the LGBTQ+ service members who argued against exclusion, using the right to privacy to appeal to both the Republican and Democratic Parties. For this project, we use a digitized database of media articles, government documents, archival materials to examine how service members and their judicial and legislative allies formulated arguments against exclusion between 1955 and 1993. In so doing, we engage with questions of changing political partisanship in the United States, and how domestic social change was unevenly implemented and resisted in the US armed forces.