Today’s post comes from Matthew Green, an archivist at the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library in College Park, Maryland. The Library’s records are closed to researchers until January 2026 but today we are previewing some of the records in the Library’s collection. Established in 2021, the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library currently administers records from ..read more

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 ..read more

For Black History Month we’re taking a closer look at mathematician, statistician, astronomer, surveyor, and farmer Benjamin Banneker.  Benjamin Banneker was born on November 9, 1731, in Baltimore County, Maryland. He lived on his family’s 100-acre farm near present-day Ellicott City his entire life. While many mythologies have developed surrounding Banneker and his accomplishments since his ..read more

To commemorate Black History Month, a special featured document display on Freedmen’s Bureau Marriage Records will be in the East Rotunda Gallery of the National Archives Building in Washington, DC, from February 4–March 3, 2025. As the Civil War neared its end, Congress established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands inside the War ..read more

On February 17, 2025, we’ll be celebrating “Washington’s Birthday,” which is the official title of the federally recognized holiday. Visit the National Archives website to learn more about our records related to George Washington—and other U.S. Presidents. This post was originally published in 2015. George Washington led the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, presided ..read more

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 ..read more

Today’s post comes from Andrew Salyer, an archives technician at the National Archives at Philadelphia. The holdings of the National Archives tell stories. And not just stories about the United States, but also about the greater world stage. Case files created during the period of the Chinese Exclusion Act testify to this global scale. The ..read more

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. Bloomquist was standing guard in the Rotunda even before the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were placed on exhibit following their ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more