In 1967 the Marine Corps Museum implemented a program designed to acquire and preserve the personal papers of former Marines for future students of history. The John L. Broome papers were acquired by the Marine Corps Museum in 1960 and are of considerable utility in documenting the duties of shipboard Marine detachments during the period of the American Civil War. Broome's career spanned the period from the Mexican War, 1848, through 1888 and he saw duty in the Mexican War, the American Civil War and in the New York Whiskey riots of 1868.