Photograph of Women Working at a Bell System Telephone Switchboard. National Archives Identifier 1633445. The first of our new strategic goals is to “Make Access Happen.” Increasingly, access means digital, online access. Our first goal has one objective, to make our records available to the public in digital form to ensure that anyone can … Continue reading Be Bold: Make Access Happen
Commencement Season is fast approaching and I am honored to have been selected to deliver the address at North Carolina State University in May. I don’t know about you, but I don’t remember who my commencement speaker was or what he or she had to say! During my years at MIT and Duke, Commencement was … Continue reading Creating The Best Commencement Speech Ever
From Photographs Taken Aboard the Ocean Survey Vessel (OSV) Bold, National Archives Identifier 5998403 Over the past eighteen months, the staff and I at the National Archives have been working diligently to develop our next Strategic Plan. Many meetings, long conversations, Town Halls, thoughtful emails, and loads of feedback from staff and stakeholders have gone … Continue reading Being Bold!
When I was a kid growing up in Beverly, MA, every morning I would walk by the site of the cotton mill visited by George Washington. That mill, the Beverly Cotton Manufactory, even predated Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, which was patented 220 years ago today! Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin Patent Drawing, 03/14/1794 From Records of the … Continue reading Patent of the Month: Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin
In the video below, Jennifer Pahlka, U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer, invites you to make a difference and serve your country by applying to become a Presidential Innovation Fellow. This is the third round of the Presidential Innovation Fellows. Projects from the first two rounds included: making government data more openly available, programs to assist … Continue reading Help Us Innovate!
Stills similar to the one represented in this drawing were used to make distilled liquors and were commonly used in America during the early 19th-century. And their "descendants" are still being found in the mountains of rural America! A preview of an exhibit planned for 2015 here at the National Archives: “Spirited Republic.” Eli Barnum … Continue reading Patent of the Month: Still Design, 1808
This 1918 valentine refers to the World War I effort to economize on food for the war effort—called "Hooverizing" in honor of the U.S. Food Administrator, Herbert Hoover. From the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library
Ken Price, the Hillegass University Professor of American Literature and co-editor of The Walt Whitman Archive at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, needs our help. Mining the records of the Office of the Attorney General here at the National Archives, Price has discovered 3000 documents in Whitman’s hand. His discovery is described in a 2011 Prologue … Continue reading Calling All Walt Whitman Fans
Yesterday we were privileged to host two special advance screenings of The Monuments Men, one especially for the staff of the National Archives. Thanks to the generosity of Sony Pictures, Columbia Pictures, and Robert Edsel, author of The Monuments Men upon which the film is based for making this possible. The film will open in … Continue reading The Monuments Men
The National Archives is proud to join other federal agencies in support of the “It Gets Better Project.” Our participation in this project represents an opportunity for federal agencies and employees to openly talk about issues, share messages and stories of hope, and provide resources for support. http://youtu.be/lKia_M9Nj0Y Thanks to all the NARA staff across the country who … Continue reading “It Gets Better” at the National Archives
