On April 1, 2025, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) turns 40. Visit the National Archives History Office website for more information on the history of our agency. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed legislation establishing the National Archives on June 19, 1934. For its first 15 years, the National Archives operated as an independent … Continue reading NARA Turns 40
As we look ahead to the nation’s 250th birthday, we’re looking back on the events celebrating our 200th. Today’s post, for Women’s History Month, looks back on a major exhibit at the National Archives during the bicentennial era. To coincide with International Women’s Year and the Bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence, the National Archives … Continue reading Celebrating American Women During the Bicentennial
Join us for our next #ArchivesHashtagParty, #ArchivesLandscape, taking place on Friday, February 7, 2025, on Instagram and X. Today we're sharing an update to Vincent Bartholomew's 2019 post on perhaps one of the greatest landscape photographers of all time: Ansel Adams. A keen landscape photographer, Ansel Adams is best known for his black-and-white photographs of … Continue reading #ArchivesLandscape: Ansel Adams
If you visited the National Archives Exhibition Hall—now known as the Rotunda—between the years 1942 and 1955, you would have likely seen one of the National Archives’ most dedicated and enthusiastic guards, George Bloomquist. Archivist of the United States Wayne Grover presenting an award to guard George W. Bloomquist at his retirement ceremony. Left to … Continue reading Historic Staff Spotlight: George Bloomquist
As we prepare for next week’s inaugural activities, we are looking back on our nation’s very first Presidential inauguration back in 1789. After the U.S. Constitution was ratified on June 21, 1788, the Confederation Congress passed a resolution providing that the states should choose Presidential electors on the first Wednesday in January of 1789. Congress … Continue reading The First Presidential Inauguration
Today’s post comes from Laurel Gray, an archives technician in the Research Rooms Branch at the National Archives in Washington, DC. It is the third of a four-part series on the archival ramifications of the Watergate scandal. When Richard Nixon took office in 1969, he got straight to work on his Presidential Library. He established … Continue reading More Than Watergate: The Perfect Place for a Library
Today’s post on the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act (PRMPA) comes from Laurel Gray, a processing intern with the Textual Division at the National Archives in Washington, DC. It is the second of a four-part series on the archival ramifications of the Watergate scandal. President Nixon sits before edited transcripts of his White House taped conversations … Continue reading More Than Watergate: The PRMPA
December 15 is Bill of Rights Day, which commemorates the ratification of the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Today we’re looking at the man who cared for the original Bill of Rights—and 126 other documents—during the 16-month Freedom Train trip across the country. Visitors looking at the Bill of Rights in the Freedom … Continue reading The Guardian of the Freedom Train’s Cargo: Delmar Robb
We’re celebrating American Archives Month by looking back on the history of the National Archives. Card Catalog in the National Archives Central Search Room, 1940. (National Archives Identifier 3493244) If you have ever researched at the National Archives you are familiar with the concept of a record group. Within the National Archives, a record group is basically … Continue reading The Origins of the Record Group
In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month and American Archives Month, today's Historic Staff Spotlight is on Cuban-born National Archives intern turned staff member, Mario Lopez Feliu. It's from Alyssa Moore in the National Archives History Office. Mario Lopez Feliu preparing a damaged document for repair by lamination, September 20, 1946. (National Archives Identifier 74228333) Mario … Continue reading Historic Staff Spotlight: Mario Lopez Feliu
