Prologue: Pieces of History

In honor of the 225th anniversary of the Constitution, we challenged citizens on Twitter to take the Preamble of the Constitution and distill its meaning into a twitter-sized bite. The Archivist of the United States chose the winner on the Constitution Day. Congratulations to Jean Huets, who will receive a pocket-sized Constitution from the Foundation [...]

Five people worked together as the Committee of Style to polish and refine the 52-word Preamble, a paragraph that provided the reasons and purposes behind the creation of the Constitution. In fact, one of the greatest phrases of the Constitution comes from the Preamble: “We the People.” Could any other wording express the emotions and [...]

Our business may be the past, but here at the Archives, we use today’s social media tools to bring history to you. Join us for Social Media Week DC with some exciting events. All events will take place in the William G. McGowan Theater in Archives I in Washington, DC. Thursday, February 16 Want to [...]

It’s finally time to announce the randonly chosen winner of our Potatriots contest! But first, a big thank you to the visitors who participated in our Potatriots activity–and a big thank-you to our staff and interns who put out those potatos, pipe cleaners, and historic backgrounds every day. We had lots of fun posting our Potatriots online [...]

Long before the push to make high-speed Internet available across America, Samuel Morse was tap-tap-tapping information across America. By 1838, his telegraph machine was using a dot-and-dash system to send messages of up to 10 words a minute. He even convinced Congress to come to up with $30,000 to help him wire America. Morse was [...]