U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Records find a home at East Carolina University (ECU)

For many years records of Auxiliary historical activities were scattered all over the country in Coast Guard and unit offices and members' homes.  In preparation for celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Coast Guard Auxiliary, efforts were undertaken to collect documents and to find a professional repository for them.  In 1988 a safe, permanent home was found for official and personal papers, photographs, videotapes, and national and unit publications which comprise the record of Auxiliary activities since its establishment in 1939.  The Auxiliary's historical collection goes a long way toward recording recreational boating history during the last half century.

The collection is now housed in an excellent special collections facility in the Joyner Library at East Carolina University in North Carolina.  It was beautifully modernized and expanded in 1996 and is now a location where scholars and other researchers can delve into Coast Guard Auxiliary history or to which one can send appropriate items deserving a place in that history.  East Carolina is a leader in the academic fields of maritime history and archaeology.

Auxiliary District Historians (ADSO-PAHs) are responsible for collecting, evaluating, sorting, and shipping documents to ECU.  **The staff members of the Special Collections Department are grateful to all the district historians of the USCGAUX for their diligent efforts to build the collection. ** Items that are sent include unit minutes, newsletters, statistics, and rosters; unit/personal histories; oral interviews; workshop/course material; scrapbooks; news clippings and articles (date and newspaper name); reports; identified images (who, what, where, when, why); videotapes; and other publications and images.  Do not send: financial reports, individual enrollment/disenrollment data; general correspondence. If you have items you would like to submit to the permanent record collection and/or artifacts to the Coast Guard Exhibit Center (see main menu) consult your District Historian.

Each District Historian must properly evaluate, sort, and submit records to ECU. Submissions must include an inventory list of items being sent so that ECU staff can be sure they have received everything.  Records must also be properly sorted and labeled by unit, person, subject matter, record type, etc. ECU cannot accept heavily damaged records unless critical information is contained. They also cannot accept environmentally damaged material such as wet and/or moldy records or those that might be insect infested. All records sent to ECU must be in acceptable form. Contact the ECU curator with specifics of any damage before sending. For further information contact Dale Sauter, manuscript curator, at sauterd@ecu.edu.

Records can also be sent to you from the Auxiliary Records Collection.  Requests for material have included unit histories, records of family members, etc.  The staff can do limited research; the cost of photocopying is $ .10 per page.  The ECU website can be consulted first, searched for its Auxilairy items. Access this information at:

The Auxiliary Records Collection very much welcomes donations. We encourage donations being sent to honor Auxliary members who have passed over the bar and when large single shipments are sent.  Checks can be made payable to "O. W. Martin, Jr. CGAUX Records Collection" and sent to: