Researchers are invited to the next researcher meeting on Friday, September 28, 2012 to meet with Research Services Executive Bill Mayer.  The meeting will be held at the National Archives at College Park  (Archives II) at 1:00 PM in lecture rooms B and C.  See you there!

Today’s post comes from Pascal Massinon, 2012 National Archives Legislative Archives Fellow.  Stay tuned to NARAtions as Pascal provides updates on his research and experience at the National Archives.

Dry fingers, dusty hands, and dirty knees. Common ailments for record collectors scouring through “new arrivals” bins and passed over shelves for rare used LPs. Historians don’t always favor vinyl, but many of us are compulsive record collectors of one kind or another. Hoarders all, we’re on the lookout for elusive documents, long-lost insights, and words that haven’t been read since they were first put to paper.

The obsessiveness required to hunt down both rare LPs and historical documents hit home when I joined archivist Kate Mollan into the stacks at the National Archives. Needles in haystacks come to mind, since the vast quantity of records produced by Congress makes clear cataloguing nearly impossible. According to last year’s Annual Report, the Records of the U.S. Senate take up almost 80,000 cubic feet of space, and in 2011 alone, the Senate sent another 2,523 cubic feet of new records. Whereas collections at the Library of Congress, presidential libraries, or University special collections can be described down to the folder or document level, the contents of the National Archives’ holdings, especially for materials from 20 to 30 years ago, are near mysteries.

To give you a sense of the heroic work performed by archivists to find materials for researchers, the finding aids that Kate found suggested that there were over 200 boxes of materials related to the Senate Commerce Committee from the 97th to 104th Congresses. Looking for anything on the hearings held by the Communications Subcommittee related to Digital Audio Tape in the late 1980s and early 1990s? Well, you might just have to open every one of those boxes to see what’s in their folders. All told, we might have opened nearly 300 boxes to find two folders worth of DAT documents.

One of the more striking lessons to learn in archival research is just how futile it is to strive for comprehensiveness in the amassing of your personal archive. I’m not sure historians always want to talk about it, but there’s always luck and happenstance involved when trying to track down materials, and for every bit of good fortune, bad luck can’t be far behind. Boxes can be mislabeled, documents can be filed incorrectly, a letter might finish after the first page, or a tantalizing document that’s part of a longer series might only appear on its own.

But the ideal of completeness lingers, the search for archival nuggets remains obsessive, and so the photocopies and photographs take up more and more space in filing cabinets and hard drives, waiting to be processed into coherent ideas and narratives. As much as we might yearn for readily accessible complete discographies, there’s no comprehensive iTunes Store or Spotify for historical documents yet (though they are coming, with the increasing digitization of government publications, historical newspapers, and the like), so the search happens in finding aids, the archival stacks, and the dusty boxes. Forgive my romanticism, but I’d hardly want it to be any other way…

Today’s post comes from Stephanie Greenhut, Education Technology Specialist, in the Education and Public Programs division.

It’s almost Constitution Day! This September 17^th marks 225 years since the signing of the United States Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787. At the National Archives we’re commemorating the occasion throughout September with special programs, online media, and learning materials.

If you’re interested in brushing up on your knowledge of the Constitution, try our brand new United States Constitution course on iTunes U.

In it you’ll discover our multi-touch book for iPad – Exploring the United States Constitution – as well as blog posts, articles, videos, documents, and activities in the DocsTeach App for iPad. The course can be accessed for free with the iTunes App for iPad or from http://itunes.apple.com/us/course/united-states-constitution/id559398926

You will learn about the Constitutional Convention, drafting and ratifying the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the three branches of our Federal government, and how the National Archives is preserving our Constitution.

You will see the legislative, executive, and judicial branches in action in Exploring the United States Constitution. In this book we’ve compiled a selection of writings published over the last three decades by our education staff. Each chapter features one or more of the billions of records in the holdings of the National Archives and connects it to the role of one of the branches of government as laid out in the Constitution.

For instance, the resolution proposing the 26th amendment that extended the vote to 18-year-olds demonstrates Congress’ job of initiating amendments, according to Article I of the Constitution. Congressman Abraham Lincoln’s “spot resolutions” challenged President Polk and called into question his actions undertaken as “Commander in Chief,” the role of the President according to Article II. And Supreme Court cases, exemplified in a letter about a book ban, resulted in the doctrine that “free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre,” and showcase the role of the judicial branch based on Article III. These are just three of 22 chapters all about the functions of our government according to the Constitution.

For information about special events and public programs at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC, to access teaching and learning resources, and to connect with the National Archives through social media, visit our Constitution Day page.

Today’s post comes from guest blogger Doug Remley, who is a student research room technician in Research Services (RD-DC) at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC.  Doug offers a history lesson on how the Census Bureau celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.  Future posts will include some of the unique findings from the census schedules that were a part of the 1926 exhibit.  Some of these findings are stories of general interest, while others may be helpful to genealogists researching their families today.

In 1926, the United States celebrated the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence with a world’s fair in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Not only was the Sesquicentennial Exhibition a celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the birth of our country; it was also a celebration of the great changes that had occurred in the world since the Centennial Celebration that had been held in Philadelphia in 1876.

Like other world’s fairs, the planners of the exhibition invited industrialists, manufacturers, and inventors, as well as governments from all over the world to come to Philadelphia and set up exhibits displaying recent changes in technology in America and around the world. A joint resolution in the U.S. Congress provided the funding for the participation of the U.S. Government departments and agencies. This resolution authorized government agencies to prepare for the Exhibition Association “such exhibits as it might be in the interest of the United States Government to display.” Congress appropriated $1,186,500 for the selection, purchase, preparation, transportation, arrangement, safekeeping, exhibition, and return of Government exhibits.

Almost every government department participated. Each department was allotted an exhibit space and each agency under that department was given a portion of that space. Government agencies worked hard to create informative as well as visually appealing exhibits in the hopes of winning one of the coveted medals awarded for exceptional displays at the exhibition.

The U.S. Census Bureau, part of the Commerce Department, was an old pro when it came to creating exhibits at world’s fairs. In fact, as part of their sesquicentennial exhibit, the Census Bureau displayed a medal that had been awarded in San Francisco at the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition in 1915.

Using the decennial census, the Census Bureau exhibit showed the public the changes in the makeup of the United States over the last 150 years. The exhibit displayed numerous charts, maps, and graphs that showed everything from the centers of population and the expansion of large U.S. cities to a chart contrasting the differences in death rates from typhoid fever and automobile accidents.

At the center of the display was a counter that showed the estimated population of the U.S. at that moment. The number went up by one person every 20 seconds. At the time the photograph was taken in the second half of 1926, the population of the U.S. was estimated to be 117,589,970.

Six glass cases filled with examples of census books and pages covered each decennial census from 1790 to 1920. The Census Bureau chose to display pages showing the enumeration of famous people, especially U.S. Presidents and famous statesmen as well as interesting notations found by Census Bureau employees. In the cases of many famous people, notations were even made in the margins by the enumerator to accentuate that there was someone famous located on that page.

In honor of the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Census Bureau exhibit prominently displayed schedules from the first census taken in 1790 that enumerated signers John Hancock (Boston), Samuel Adams (Boston), Thomas Jefferson (Philadelphia), Edmund Randolph (Philadelphia), and Edmund Rutledge (Charleston).

In the 1800 census in Quincy, Massachusetts, John Adams Esq. is enumerated at the top of the first page with “President of the United States” in large lettering below it. While this might seem normal, the 1800 census did not ask about a person’s occupation. Since the 1790 census for Virginia was destroyed by fire in the War of 1812, this 1800 census is the first surviving census enumerating a sitting president.

Also on display at the exhibit were census schedules showing three of the most famous senators of the mid-1800s John C. Calhoun (1840 South Carolina), Daniel Webster (1850 Massachusetts), and Henry Clay (1850 Kentucky), as well as presidents Abraham Lincoln (1860), Theodore Roosevelt (1870), and Rutherford B. Hayes (1880).

One of the most interesting schedules was the 1860 enumeration of the White House. James Buchanan is enumerated at the beginning of the listing of the “President’s House.” On the following five pages, the entire foreign delegations of seven different countries are listed. This was the only time that foreign ministers and their delegations were listed as a part of the White House when it was enumerated.

The Census Bureau exhibit was a huge success at the Sesquicentennial Exhibition. When the awards were tabulated from official papers received from the Executive Jury of Awards, the Census Bureau was awarded with a gold medal based on its exhibit. The Census Bureau also helped the Department of Commerce as a whole bring home the grand prize.

Today’s post comes from Pascal Massinon, recipient of the 2012 National Archives Legislative Archives Fellowship. Pascal is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Michigan, and will be using records at the National Archives to research his dissertation topic, “Home Taping: Participant Listeners and the Political Culture of Home Recording in the U.S.” Stay tuned to NARAtions as Pascal provides updates on his research and fellowship experience at the National Archives.

Sparse finding aids often require a more hands-on approach to the sprawling collections at the National Archives in downtown Washington, so legislative archivist Kate Mollan wanted me to join her in the maze of air-conditioned stacks. We were trying to track down some materials produced by the Office of Technology Assessment in the 1980s relevant to my dissertation project, “Home Taping: Participant Listeners and the Political Culture of Home Recording in the U.S.” “By the way,” she said, “the Historian at the Center for Legislative Archives, who’s been helping with the Fellowship you applied for, would like to meet you.”

Fast-forward two weeks, and after a long game of cat and mouse with Center Historian Richard McCulley, I was startled to be sitting in the office of David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States (AOTUS, in the acronymed parlance of DC). The Archivist told anecdotes about Marines stationed in Da Nang that received treasured reel-to-reel tapes from friends and loved ones back home. One woman, he remembered, sent her boyfriend a mixtape of songs featuring her name (was it Mary? I knew I should have taken notes…) so that he wouldn’t forget her while in Vietnam. When you write about the politics of home recording, you hear tape-related stories from all kinds of folks, and this was a great one to put in my back pocket for the future. But the Archivist didn’t just invite me to his office to share his tale of the mixtape. No, this surprise visit ended with the wonderful news that I’d be named the recipient of this year’s National Archives Legislative Archives Fellowship!

The next day, the staff at Center for Legislative Archives welcomed me to the fold by bringing me to a baseball game on a sweltering DC afternoon. The Nationals couldn’t figure out R.A. Dickey’s knuckleball (they wouldn’t be the first this year) and the Mets hit Gio Gonzalez pretty hard, but we still had a great time even as the Nats looked more like the Montreal Expos of yore than the leaders of the NL East that they’ve been this season.

Pascal (first row on the left) and National Archives staff members attend a Washington Nationals baseball game

Through the course of the fellowship, I’ll be using this blog to write about my experiences in the archives, share some research thoughts, post documents, and talk about some of the other archival trips I’ll be taking in the coming months. I’ve already done a bit of research in the National Archives, and I’m looking forward to sharing some of the stuff I’ve found so far. Stay tuned.

On May 23, 2012, the White House released the Digital Government Strategy, which outlines how all federal agencies will work to make information and services easily accessible on the internet, anytime, anywhere, and on any device. President Barack Obama said,

“Ultimately, this Strategy will ensure that agencies use emerging technologies to serve the public as effectively as possible. As a government, and as a trusted provider of services, we must never forget who our customers are – the American people.”

At the National Archives, we are working to make our data and information available to you.

Weigh in and let us know what you’d like us to focus on.
We’ve developed two lists. The first list is for proposed services to optimize for mobile use, so you can better access these services via a smartphone, tablet, or another mobile device. The second list is for systems to enable via Web Services like APIs, so that the data will be more accessible, especially for developers to reuse. Candidates were selected based on the possibility of implementation by May 2013. Please also let us know what additional candidates you would like to see optimized for mobile or enabled via APIs in the future.

In the comments below, please let us know what you would like to prioritized and specific recommendations for what will be most useful to you. If you prefer, you can email your recommendations to opengov@nara.gov.

To learn more about the agency’s implementation of the Digital Government Strategy, please visit archives.gov/digitalstrategy and archives.gov/open.

Proposed Mobile Candidates:

• Mobile optimize FederalRegister.gov.
• Develop a mobile application based on the Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents.
• Mobile optimize Archives.gov.
• Mobile optimize the Online Public Access resource, the online public portal for National Archives records.
• Make additional National Archives records available through Wikipedia, which is mobile optimized and available through mobile apps.
• Make additional National Archives records available through Flickr, which is mobile optimized and available through mobile apps.
• Make improvements to Today’s Document mobile application.
• Make improvements to the mobile application for DocsTeach, an online educational resource featuring National Archives records.

• Integration of Regulations.gov API into FederalRegister.gov and its API. This integration would provide greater access to public comments and supporting documents in Regulations.gov, and improve process for submitting public comments from FederalRegister.gov to Regulations.gov.
• Expand the FederalRegister.gov API to include the “Public Inspection Desk.”
• Develop an API for FDsys through the Office of Federal Register – Government Printing Office Partnership.
• Develop an API for the Online Public Access resource, the online public portal for National Archives records.
• Make additional National Archives records available through Wikipedia,  which is accessible through the MediaWiki API.
• Make additional National Archives records available through Flickr, which is accessible through the Flickr API.

Put em in the suggestion box!

In this post I’d like to highlight a particular set of records that probably don’t get as much attention as they deserve: certificates of discharge for Regular Army soldiers from the War of 1812.  The most likely reason for the slight attention these wonderful records receive is likely the fact that only a small portion exist.  Typically, when terms of service ended, soldiers in both the Regular Army and the state militias received an official discharge certificate to document their formal separation from the Army; these documents became the veteran’s personal property and, over time, probably a cherished memento of his military service. The War Department rarely kept file copies of these records during the early 19th century, and so the original certificates usually remained in private hands–with one notable exception.

After the war, many of these 1812 veterans applied to the War Department to collect back pay; in the process they returned their discharge certificates as proof of service.  And so, the original discharge certificates and other related records for approximately 2,200 Regular Army soldiers from the War of 1812 eventually came to the National Archives, mixed together with other War Department pay records that comprised the textual series “Post Revolutionary War Papers, 1784-1815″ (Entry 19) in the Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780′s-1917.  Eventually, the discharge certificates were removed and reproduced on microfilm in National Archives Publication M1856, Discharge Certificates and Miscellaneous Records Relating to the Discharge of Soldiers from the Regular Army, 1792-1815.

Certificates of discharge provide a variety of useful information about the soldier, showing when he was released from service on a particular day and often indicating the reason for separation (in addition to expiration of service, soldiers were often discharged for injuries or ill health). They also typically include the dates of the soldier’s enlistment and discharge, the company and regiment in which he served, an inventory of clothing provided to him, and the period for which he was due pay upon discharge. To prevent fraudulent use in the event the record was lost or stolen from the veteran, the certificates also provide what would now be considered PII (personally identifable information): place of birth, age, a physical description (height, complexion, hair and eye color), and civilian occupation.

Discharge certificate for Pvt. John Waring, 2nd U.S. Light Dragoons.

Along with the original certificates, the microfilmed records include three other types of documents: descriptive lists, certificates of death, and pay vouchers.  The descriptive lists, handwritten in both narrative paragraphs and in chart form, provided the same information as the discharge, including an inventory of clothing an military accoutrements issued to the soldier.  Some provide extra details not found elsewhere, such as descriptions of physical injuries or character of service.  For those soldiers who died during their term of service,  the regiment often issued a formal certificate of death in place of a discharge, which noted the specific circumstances surrounding the soldier’s demise.  The pay vouchers, of course, documented the amount of pay due upon discharge, as well as reimbursements for rations and other subsistence paid out-of-pocket (including forage for horses and clothing for personal servants hired by officers).

Although they document only a small portion of the men who served in the Regular Army during the War of 1812, the certificates of discharge and related records are a valuable resource that should not be overlooked.   For a more detailed discussion of these records, there is a Prologue article available on the National Archives web site.  Take a moment to check them out!

Today’s post comes from James Garvin, General Engineer at the National Archives

The replacement of the tier 20 upper roof at the National Archives Building (Archives I) began in mid-July. This project is scheduled for completion in mid-October 2012.
 
Each day, part of the old roof will be removed and the exposed area prepared for the installation of the new roof. Some noise will be generated when removing the old roof so to minimize disruption to employees and visitors construction activities will be scheduled in the early morning hours and will end by 9 a.m. each day.
 
The installation of the new roof may generate odors typical of roofing applications—the smell of hot tar. The contractor will make every effort to mitigate these smells from entering the building.  Throughout the project, a large crane will be required for material lifts. We will work to minimize impact on building operation and use while the crane is in place.
 
We apologize in advance for any inconvenience, and thank you for your patience during this critical building repair. We do not anticipate any impact to public or employee entrances during the project.

I’m happy to announce that the National Archives is partnering with Wikimedia D.C. on Wikimania 2012, which is being held in Washington D.C this year, July 12-14. We are thrilled to be able to work together with Wikimedia D.C. on its conference in order to promote our common values: citizen engagement, collaboration, innovation, and the sharing of free knowledge. We join the Department of State’s Office of eDiplomacy, the Library of Congress, and the Broadcasting Board of Governors as fellow Wikimania partners. In addition, David Ferriero will be giving the conference’s closing plenary speech.

We have been collaborating with Wikimedia D.C. and the Wikimedia community for over a year. Last year, the National Archives hosted Wikipedia’s 10^th anniversary celebration for the D.C. area and brought me on as Wikipedian in Residence. Since then, we have cooperated on a number of projects and hosted several on-site events around the country—including the multi-day GLAMcamp D.C. conference this February and a meetup just this month hosted by the National Archives at Kansas City. We value the contributions Wikipedians have made as citizen archivists. We look forward to collaborating with Wikimedia into the future, and are making plans for the upcoming Wikipedia Loves Libraries campaign.

In March of last year—when Wikimedia D.C. was bidding for Wikimania—David Ferriero wrote in support of the bid, pledging NARA’s help in facilitating the conference. As partner, the National Archives will be offering tours and discounts for Wikimania attendees. With Wikimedia D.C. awarding us more than a dozen complimentary registrations for NARA staff, we will have a major presence at the conference. National Archives staff will be active participants in Wikimania’s program as speakers as well, including David Ferriero’s plenary speech. Pamela Wright, our Chief Digital Access Strategist, is also serving on a panel with other cultural institution professionals about working with Wikipedia, and I will have a session of my own addressing our work with crowdsourcing transcriptions on Wikisource.

In the National Archives’ latest Open Government Plan (recently announced on the AOTUS blog), David Ferriero wrote that “Our work with Wikipedia is changing the way we think about our work.” Wikipedia, and the movement towards open access and collaboration that it represents, has the potential to take us to new heights and in new directions in fulfilling our mission of providing the maximum access to the nation’s records. We know that Wikimania will be an amazing opportunity to engage with a large and diverse international group of volunteers, activists, fellow lovers of knowledge, (most importantly!) citizen archivists.

At the National Archives, we have been Wikipedians, and even Wikisourcerors, for more than a year, and are proud now to be able to call ourselves Wikmaniacs as well. Are you as excited as we are? You can learn more about Wikimania at their web site, and even find out how to volunteer.

June 18, 2012–the anniversary of the U.S. declaration of war against Great Britain–marked the official start of the bicentennial of the War of 1812.  To help celebrate that anniversary and bring attention to one of America’s lesser known conflicts, let’s take a look at some of the records of that war, starting with an essential and perennial favorite: the War of 1812 pension application files.

Everyone generally knows by now that pension files offer some of the most fruitful information available for genealogy, and the 1812 files are no exception.  Applications files by veterans of the war often contain details about their military service, sometimes even minute tidbits that don’t show up in their compiled service records.  Something I discovered in the pension for my own 1812 ancestor, Daniel Heilman, who served in the 71st Regiment of Pennsylvania Militia, was that he claimed to have been “drafted” into the service–I suspect he probably meant “enlisted” since there was no formal military draft in the U.S. until the Civil War–and that he marched down to Marcus Hook below Philadelphia in the fall of 1814 to help repel a suspected landing of British troops.  None of that is mentioned in his service record, but Daniel’s pension has it in his own words!

The applications for widows and dependents often prove to be even more valuable, because they had to prove their relationship to the deceased veteran.  In those cases, personal family documents, such as marriage certificates, baptismal records, and even pages taken from family Bibles were sent in as evidence and became part of the official record.  The applicants had no idea they would never get those precious family records back, and so the pension files often provide the only available source to locate such missing records.

The 1812 pension files are formally part of Record Group 15, Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, in the series “War of 1812 Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files” (RG 15, Entry 22; ARC 564415), and include over 180,000 case files relating to claims based on service between 1812 and 1815.  Until recently, the only way to research these records was to visit the National Archives in person or request a copy of the file through the mail.  A massive digitization project is now underway, sponsored jointly by the National Archives, the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS), and Ancestry.com, to put color scans of these files on Fold3.com.  About 3% of the files (over 250,000 documents) have been scanned so far, and you can follow the progress and view the posted images on Fold3.  Digitization offers an invaluable way to improve access to important historical resources, so please check back often on the 1812 pensions, browse the files, and learn the wonderful stories they hold about America’s “Second War of Independence”!