Legislative Branch

About the Center for Legislative Archives

The Center for Legislative Archives, a part of the National Archives and Records Administration, preserves and makes available to researchers the historical records of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Through its public outreach programs, the Center uses these historical records to promote a better understanding of Congress and the history of American representative government.

Our Research Room

Located in the National Archives Building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, the Center for Legislative Archives maintains a Research Room to provide on-site reference assistance to researchers ranging from Congressional scholars and historians to attorneys looking for legislative intent and genealogists searching for individual petitions and claims.

In the research room, the Center maintains published source material on Congress including the Journals of the House and Senate, the Congressional Record (and its predecessors the Globe and the Annals of Congress), Guide to the U.S. Serial Set, CIS Indexes, as well as other works on the history of Congress.

Our Staff

The Center is staffed by twenty employees including a director, seven professional archivists, three political science and education specialists, seven archives technicians, a historian, and an administrative assistant.

Richard Hunt is the Director of the Center for Legislative Archives

Contact Us


  The Center for
  Legislative Archives

  700 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
  Washington, DC 20408
  legislative.archives@nara.gov

  Phone: (202) 357-5350
  Fax: (202) 357-5911

  Directions


Featured Documents

speech papers

George Washington's First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789

More Featured Documents


Advisory Committee on the Records of Congress.
Legislative Branch >

The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
1-86-NARA-NARA or 1-866-272-6272

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