The National Archives has a program of presentations called Know Your Records through which archivists, volunteers, and others share their knowledge of our records with you, the public.  It is a great way for interested individuals to learn what we have and how to use what we have to their advantage. The Text Message, in [...]

Several months ago, as part of a processing project relating to Record Group 516: Records of the Federal Judicial Center, 1967 – 1994, I did a little research on a woman named Alice L. O’Donnell. In the Archives Research Catalog, also known as ARC, a researcher can, according to the Archives.Gov website,  search by a [...]

Today’s post is written by Amber Thiele, a processing archivst with civilian textual records in College Park.   Sometimes while processing textual records you find something that makes you think, “hmmm…this would get more use if it was in another part of the National Archives and Records Administration.”  Usually in the Textual Archives Services Division, [...]

To assist researchers interested in records of the Department of State and other foreign affairs agencies, the most heavily used records in the National Archives, the Textual Archives Services Division has launched a newly revamped set of pages on the Archives’ website for providing an introduction to foreign affairs records. The conduct of foreign affairs [...]

As Black History Month draws to a close, nothing illustrates the great progress of the civil rights movement more than a glimpse at a bleaker era. The work we do every day at the National Archives is for the express purpose of preserving historical context, even the disturbing parts, as exemplified in today’s post, written by [...]

Today’s post is by Alan Walker, a processing archivist at Archives II. As a kid I was captivated by the sinking of the RMS Titanic. The drama of such a man-made behemoth falling victim to an iceberg and the scope of the human tragedy conspired to trigger the imaginations of this impressionable youth. I read [...]

Today’s post is written by  Aaron Mannes, a citizen researcher from the University of Maryland’s Laboratory of Computational Cultural Dynamics. He is a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy who is writing a dissertation on the national security role of the vice president.  If you have a lot of time [...]

Last time I wrote here on the Text Message blog, I had written about the Old Georgetown Act Numbered Case Files (ARC 559486), found in Record Group 66, Records of the Commission of Fine Arts, and highlighted some photographs from the 1950s. The Case Files, show what the area of Georgetown, a neighborhood in Washington, [...]

Today’s post is written by Alan Walker, a processing archivist in Research Services. Earlier I described to you the Overseas Mission records of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and our project to transform them from the unfortunate and inaccessible state in which they arrived at Archives II. These records have proven a time-consuming challenge for [...]

Today’s post is written by Alan Walker, a processing archivist in Research Services.   Since 2010, the Record Group 286 Processing Team has been steadily transforming the 11,700 cubic feet of paper records of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) housed here at Archives II.  A lot of preparation goes into such a massive [...]