David S. Ferriero's Blog, page 11

Apollo 11: One Giant Leap for Mankind

On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy challenged the nation to land a man on the Moon before the end of the decade, striking a responsive chord with the American people. The Apollo program was created to meet this goal, and on July 20, 1969, astronauts of the Apollo 11 Mission became the first humans to land and set foot on the Moon. 

[image error] Apollo 11 Mission image – Astronaut Edwin Aldrin walks near the Lunar Module. National Archives Identifier 16685140

The Moon landing was a stunning achievement that commanded world attention, and thanks to newly discovered film holdings at the National Archives and a digitization partnership with filmmakers, an enriched perspective of the Apollo 11 mission is shown in the recently released documentary, Apollo 11.

The documentary features previously unseen large format film footage and more than 11,000 hours of uncatalogued audio recordings from the National Archives, allowing viewers to experience the perspectives of the astronauts, the Mission Control team, and the millions of spectators on the ground. The film showcases the days and hours in 1969 when American astronauts took “a giant leap for mankind” into the future.

National Archives staff in the Motion Picture, Sound, and Video Branch and the Motion Picture Preservation Lab, as well as staff in various other offices across the agency, were critical in enabling the access and digitization of these holdings. 

As part of our recent Archivist’s Achievement Awards ceremony, Todd Douglas Miller, director of the Apollo 11 documentary film, offered his thanks to National Archives staff for making this film possible:

My kudos extend to Dan Rooney, Chief of the Motion Picture, Sound, and Video Branch, and our teams at the National Archives for locating, identifying, and sharing this astounding footage. Their contributions to the Apollo 11 documentary underscore the importance of our mission. By preserving and making accessible these film reels, they have given the world an unprecedented and breathtaking glimpse of this historic milestone.

Learn more about the newly uncovered Apollo 11 holdings at the National Archives and how the partnership project enabled the digitization, preservation, and access of the records in this video:

Making Access Happen in the Digital Era

This is a story about valuing the hard work that has come before us and thinking innovatively about how we can share that hard work in new ways, using new and emerging digital platforms.  Back in 2006, we launched a short feature on our website, which we called Today’s Document. We featured a particular document from the Archives, to provide a bit of history in a bite-sized chunk. These were documents that had been scanned by staff for education, exhibits, or researchers. The feature was popular with the staff and the public. We continue to run it on our intranet at the National Archives. 

In 2011, we started thinking about the usefulness of mobile apps and developed content based on our web feature for a Today’s Document Mobile App for iOS and Android.  We learned a great deal from creating those apps and we began looking at other platforms that might attract users to our content.

We launched Today’s Document on Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook later that same year.

We were thrilled that by 2013, Today’s Document was reaching over 100,000 followers on Tumblr.

Tumblr turned out to be the perfect platform for Today’s Document named to Time‘s top 30 Tumblrs for 2013.  We had Tumblr visiting the National Archives for a Federal Tumblr meetup in 2014. Today’s Document was featured in DigitalGov’s “Tumblr for Feds” Webinar and NARA’s Today’s Document staff attended the “Tumblr Goes to the White House” Q&A session at the White House in 2014.

While this was happening, our staff noticed that the documents that we turned into GIFs received the most attention. Our staff taught themselves the basics of GIF-making and away we went. Today’s Document was featured in DigitalGov’s “Essentials of Animated GIFs for Public Services” Webinar in 2015, the same year we went over 200,000 followers on Tumblr.

In 2016, Today’s Document was featured at DPLAfest’s “Advanced GIF Making Techniques” Webinar.

Here is Darren Cole, one of the driving staff behind Today’s Document, describing our work at that time:

Later in 2016,  we looked at yet another new platform, GIPHY, and we launched the National Archives GIPHY channel, using GIFs we had created for Today’s Document. 

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Our GIPHY channel was featured in a DigitalGov blog post, as well as multiple news sources, including the New York Times, Washingtonian magazine, the Huffington Post, Popular Science, Endgadget, and more through 2016.

Today’s Document now has  over 50,000 Twitter followers and 36,000 Facebook followers.  We have been featured on Tumblr’s “Radar” over 28 times and currently have over 250,000 followers on the Tumblr platform.  The amazing number comes from our National Archives channel on GIPHY, which has reached over 1.2 billion views. 

Thanks to the innovative thinking of staff, we have provided access to our records to people around the world who may never come to archives.gov or the National Archives.   The staff combined their knowledge of new and emerging digital platforms with the rich content of the Archives. This has resulted in making access happen  in places and in numbers we have never seen before.  What will we think of next?

Join us for July 4th at the National Archives!

This year, the National Archives celebrates the 243rd anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence with special events in Washington, DC, and at Presidential Libraries nationwide.

On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence, declaring the United States independent from Great Britain. On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was approved. On August 2, 1776, delegates began to sign the engrossed Declaration of Independence penned by Timothy Matlack. For a detailed history of the founding document, be sure to read “The Declaration of Independence: A History” on Archives.gov.

As the trustee of our nation’s founding documents—the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights—the National Archives and Records Administration is a natural place to celebrate this national holiday.

[image error] July 4th celebrations on the steps of the National Archives in Washington, DC

Kick off your July 4th celebrations now with the #archivesjuly4 social media campaign. Wherever you are on July 4th, share your celebrations on social media using the hashtag #ArchivesJuly4. See more on National Archives News, which features many ways you can celebrate Independence Day with us in Washington, DC, and at our Presidential Libraries. All of the Presidential Libraries will be open to the public on July 4th.

For those of you in Washington, DC this July 4, stop by Constitution Avenue at 10 a.m. for a Declaration of Independence Reading Ceremony, then head inside for family activities from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. If you can’t come in person to Washington, DC, join our celebration through YouTube, and on the US National Archives Facebook page. 

[image error] Visitors view the Declaration of Independence in the Rotunda of the National Archives Building in Washington, DC

We can often take our founding documents for granted. I encourage all of us to take time during our Independence Day celebrations to read these documents and to pause and remember the difficult choices our nation’s Founders made and the meaning of these documents today.

Engrossed Declaration of Independence
Constitution of the United States
Bill of Rights
Film of the transfer of the Charters of Freedom from the Library of Congress to NARA
Public Resolution directing the distribution of certain copies of the Declaration of Independence
Papers of the Continental Congress

I wish you all a safe and happy Independence Day!

19th Annual Archivist’s Achievement Awards

Last week I hosted our annual Archivist’s Achievement Awards Ceremony, an event I look forward to each year. This ceremony is important to me and gives me the opportunity to highlight the achievements of our staff across the National Archives. But more importantly, it gives me the chance to say thank you. Incredible work happens at this agency every single day, and I am so proud of your accomplishments each and every day.

This past year, we’ve released more than 34,000 documents from the John F. Kennedy Assassination Collection, remediated 23,000 records for mold, helped veterans by eliminating a nearly 300,000 records backlog, reviewed 860,000 pages of records and digitized in-house 51,000 pages related to Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s work, and supported one another during the partial Government shutdown. And these are just a few examples! You can learn more about these incredible accomplishments in the awards program.

During the ceremony, we once again gave our customers a chance to sing the praises of our employees. Almost every day I receive comments praising the work of NARA staff. We were able to incorporate some of these statements into the awards program to hear directly from the people who benefit from the great work that we do:

The Archivist’s Achievement Awards recognizes our colleagues who dedicate their time and talents to make the National Archives a great place to work. We recognize colleagues who went above and beyond expectations and succeeded in ways not intended. Thank you for your service.

Rightfully Hers exhibit now open

The National Archives launched our newest exhibit, Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote, last week at the Lawrence O’Brien Gallery of the museum in Washington, DC.

Most Americans consider the ability to vote fundamental to the enjoyment of full citizenship. American women, however, were long denied that right. In 1920, American democracy dramatically expanded when the newly ratified 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibited the states from denying the vote on the basis of sex. This landmark voting rights victory was made possible by decades of suffragists’ persistent political engagement, and yet it is just one critical milestone in women’s battle for the vote.

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote looks beyond suffrage parades and protests to the often overlooked story behind this landmark moment in American history. This fuller retelling of the struggle for women’s voting rights illustrates the dynamic involvement of American women across the spectrum of race, ethnicity and class to reveal what it really takes to win the vote for one half of the people.   

[image error]A view of the Rightfully Hers exhibit gallery. Photo by National Archives photographer Jeff Reed.

This exhibit highlights hard-won victories that stemmed from the woman suffrage movement. But it also reminds modern-day citizens of their responsibilities and encourages all to be ‘election ready’ and exercise the right to vote. As home to some of the most important records from the woman suffrage story, including the 19th amendment, the National Archives is uniquely positioned to create a powerful educational experience that relates the fuller story of the struggle to make the vote a reality for all women.

Several years in the planning stages, Rightfully Hers includes more than 90 original records including documents, photographs, artifacts, and audio and video recordings that connect to important historic milestones in the women’s struggle to gain the vote. Exhibit curator Corrine Porter dedicated the past two years creating an exhibit that includes the artifacts and documents we believed would best tell this story.

[image error] Curator Corinne Porter gives a tour of the Rightfully Hers exhibit. Photo by National Archives photographer Jeff Reed.

The National Archives will also host a range of public and education programs, including lectures, panel discussions, and other special events centered on the 19th Amendment and powerful women and their roles in our nation and its history. For a full list of future scheduled events, see the National Archives Calendar of Events.

The exhibit is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the Lawrence F. O’Brien Gallery at the National Archives Museum in Washington, DC, through January 3, 2021. Admission is free.

For more information, visit https://museum.archives.gov/rightfully-hers-american-women-and-vote

NARA’s Past, Present, and Future Leadership in SNAC (Social Networks and Archival Context): Always Collaborating, Always Cooperating

As SNAC (Social Networks and Archival Context) looks toward the end of its Phase II development, NARA’s External Agency Liaisons to SNAC, Jerry Simmons and Dina Herbert, continue to lead and collaborate in the full spectrum of cooperative activities including outreach and communication, collaborative projects outside NARA, cooperative management with the SNAC Operations Team, technical developments for the ever-evolving SNAC editing interface, and administration of the SNACSchool training program, which is the Team’s predominant task.

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SNAC’s landing page mosaic, where users discover archival holdings world-wide via searches for the organizations, persons and families who created them.

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One of SNAC’s most popular authority records is that of Julia Child. From Child’s record, researchers have single-click access to archival collections in repositories around the world. Her record also contains links to other persons and organizations related to Child also described in SNAC.

SNAC Outreach and Communication

As we continue outreach in the archives, library and museum community, we are excited by stories from professional researchers who are using SNAC in their day-to-day work. In December 2018, we learned that a team of research specialists working specifically in repatriation at the National Museum of the American Indian were using SNAC as part of their “reference tool kit”, especially exploiting SNAC’s linking features for better overall understanding of artifact provenance. One such search discovered former custodians of the solid gold Echenique Disc. Evidence discovered in SNAC revealed a connection to dealers and collectors of Native American artifacts who were active in Germany during World War II.

One large aspect of our project continues to be external outreach, both near and far. During the past year and a half, the NARA SNAC Liaisons presented information sessions and system demonstrations as close as the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art where the Smithsonian’s Technical Group had a presentation by Liaison Dina Herbert. And another as far away as Oslo, Norway, where Liaison Jerry Simmons gave a presentation to Scandinavian librarians and archivists at the Libraries in the Sky Conference in April 2018. The Oslo presentation focused on tracking the archival record of famed Norwegian aviator and polar explorer Bernt Balchen, who has small collections at the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress and the National Archives, in addition to materials housed in European repositories.

Other conference presentations included SNAC/NARA representation at WikiCon America in October 2018, Bridging the Spectrum Symposium at Catholic University of America in February 2019, and a customized demonstration at the Folger Shakespeare Library as recent at mid-March.

NARA Leadership via SNAC Cooperation and Collaboration

As is the mission of NARA’s SNAC Liaisons, there are a number of special projects, both internal and external, on the Team’s calendar throughout the year.

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One very visible aspects of NARA’s leadership in SNAC is our ongoing support of SNAC partner gatherings. The National Archives Office of Innovation has hosted a number of gatherings for SNAC cooperative partners at the Innovation Hub at Archives I, even in the earliest phases of investigation and development, as far back as 2010. The most recent gathering was in August 2018, during the Society of American Archivists conference week in Washington, D.C. Our next all-partners’ gathering is scheduled for September 2019.

Within NARA, SNAC Liaison Dina has collaborated with Innovation staff member Dominic Byrd-McDevitt to integrate SNAC records of women featured in the May 2019 exhibit at the National Archives Rightfully Hers on a new interactive website project. Not only will we feature NARA records for the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, we’ll also feature the connections made possible by SNAC for such women as Susan B. Anthony, Mary Church Terrell, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Sally Ride.

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Mary Church Terrell’s SNAC record points to/links to the description of her portrait in the holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration.

Similarly, Dina is supporting the WikiEdu Scholar Program in its efforts to enhance wiki articles about the 19th Amendment. A collaboration between WikiEdu and the National Archives, focused on Rightfully Hers, these online Wiki courses are using SNAC resources to help develop pages in Wikipedia about the unsung women of the fight for equality and the vote. Also under Dina’s watch is our NARA/SNAC Twitter feed @SNACcooperative. Make sure to follow for all the latest information about SNAC and to learn helpful tips on using it.

If you attended the Society of American Archivists’ conference last year in Washington, D.C., you probably saw NARA’s SNAC Team at the SNAC information table and learned about the search engine and other projects. If you attend the SAA meeting in Austin, Texas, this coming August,  make sure to look for the SNAC information station in the SAA registration area. You can talk with SNAC partners about our many projects, and see a quick demonstration of the SNAC search engine.

NARA Leadership in SNACSchool

NARA SNAC Liaisons Team continues its mission to train new SNAC editors via the SNACSchool, a program that’s now in its third year. The team has logged training events as far away as Portland, Oregon, and close to home in Washington, D.C. Each training event hosts a new class of partner/editors from institutions like Yale and Harvard Universities, East Carolina University, and UNC-Chapel Hill. Those editors who cannot attend events held during the annual Society of American Archivists meetings can take advantage of one of the purely remote, web-based training events.

But the NARA Team doesn’t work alone! In a show of strong professional collaborative spirit, SNAC partners from the George Washington University, New York Public Library, University of Miami Libraries, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Wilson Library, and the Getty Research Institute, (a group known as the SNACSchool Team), work side-by-side (virtually) to develop training materials and present SNACSchool events. This group was particularly supportive in the development of SNACSchool’s new “micro modules” curriculum. As the name suggests, micro modules are brief, focused training events intended to deliver quick updates SNAC editors on new interface features, and to inform the cooperative of new editing policies.

Examples of SNACSchool training materials:

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As of December 2018, there are 106 graduates of the SNACSchool. We have at least three training events planned before the end of the current grant cycle (October 2019), one of which is slated for the Society of American Archivists week this August in Austin, Texas.

New developments in cooperative membership

As the current phase moves into the final months, SNAC leaders work to expand the membership base. Nearly fifty institutions have expressed interest in being members, among them the National Archives in Luxembourg and the National Archives in Spain. There are also discussions underway with Archives Portal Europe (APE) about SNAC/APE collaboration.

SNAC technical developments and projects

With leadership from SNAC’s Technical Team and Working Group, refinements to the user editing interface are ongoing, with new version releases coming every few months. There is also work on a new SNAC API for use in automated extraction of data by outside parties, and work progresses on a new data ingest tool to facilitate batch uploads of new authority records, in EAC-CPF and other standard authority formats, into the database.

A new form technical collaboration comes in the form of monitoring the new SNAC Help Ticket program. Using the osTicket platform, NARA SNAC Liaisons respond to technical help tickets submitted by SNAC’s public users. These help tickets cover a variety of subjects, but mostly involve requests for assistance in locating archival collections described in SNAC records. The NARA Team does this work in close contact with SNAC’s Technical Team headquartered at the University of Virginia’s Alderman Library.

Last but certainly not least, SNAC recently launched a new API which allows for users to programmatically extract data from the database. This makes it useful for researchers who want to look at a large amount of data, and users who want to connect different systems or websites, or make similar edits over and over. You can learn more at SNAC API Documentation.

The NARA SNAC Team stays busy, but always looking for the next big chance to be leaders and collaborators in SNAC’s global mission to connect researchers, scholars and the like to archival holdings wherever they are stored. You can learn more at snaccooperative.org.

Declassification Diplomacy: The United States Declassification Project for Argentina

This morning I presented the final tranche of newly-declassified U.S. Government records to Argentine Minister of Justice and Human Rights, the Honorable Germán Carlos Garavano. The ceremony marks the successful completion of the U.S. Declassification Project for Argentina, the largest government-to-government declassification release in United States history.

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David S. Ferriero (left), delivers the final installment of records to Argentina’s Minister of Justice and Human Rights, the Honorable Germán Carlos Garavano (right). Photo courtesy of Intelligence.gov.

This represents the final stage of an historic effort by the U.S. Government to search, identify, review for public access, and provide records that shed light on human rights abuses in Argentina between 1975 and 1984. More than 43,000 pages of U.S. documents from 16 Executive Branch agencies were provided to the Government of Argentina.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has posted the collection as a whole, which can be found here: intel.gov/argentina

Records released by the National Archives’ National Declassification Center are available to the public here:  https://www.archives.gov/argentina/humanrights

My remarks from the ceremony:

Good morning Attorney General Garavano, Ambassador de Roa, and Director Quinteros.

I am honored to host you today.  I’d also like to thank John Dinkelman, John Demurs,  Corin Stone, Karen Meyers, and Carlos Osorio for attending today’s ceremony.

My first duty is to welcome you to the National Archives – “my house” – as I like to say.  The National Archives serves a crucial role as our Nation’s record-keeper. Our mission is to collect, protect, and preserve the permanently valuable records of all three branches of the United States Government.  We take this responsibility seriously. Public access to government records strengthens democracy by allowing citizens to hold their government accountable, understand their history, and participate more effectively in their government.

When President Franklin Roosevelt, who signed the legislation creating the National Archives, articulated his vision and our mission during the dedication of his Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York, he said:

“It seems to me that the dedication of a library is in itself an act of faith.  To bring together the records of the past and house them in buildings where they will be preserved for the use of men and women in the future, a Nation must believe in three things.  It must believe in the past. It must believe in the future. And it must, above all, believe in the capacity of its own people so to learn from the past that they can gain in judgment in creating their own future.”  Creating their own future—our mission.

Today, the collection has over 15 billion sheets of paper, 44 million photographs, miles and miles of video and film, and more than 5 billion electronic records—the fastest growing record form. These records start with the Oaths of Allegiance signed by George Washington and his troops at Valley Forge and go all the way up to the Tweets that are being created in the White House as I speak.

Millions of visitors and researchers visit us each year to learn about our Nation’s history.  The National Archives operates 44 facilities in 17 states, including 14 Presidential Libraries and Museums, two research facilities here in the Washington DC area, and 14 Regional Archives across the country.

I am honored to host this important event on behalf of the President, the United States Government, the 16 agencies that participated in this project, and the American people.  To set the stage and emphasize its importance, I used my prerogative as Archivist to showcase two treasures from our vault.

Outside of this room, there are two treaties on display. In 1822, the United States was the third nation to recognize Argentina’s Declaration of Independence from Spain.  While our two nations enjoyed good relations and started trading, it was not until July 10, 1853, that our two nations first formalized bilateral relations with a treaty to allow free navigation on the Parana and Uruguay Rivers. This treaty––focused solely on navigation rights––quickly led to agreement of a broader treaty.

This second treaty, the Treaty of Friendship, Navigation, and Commerce, was signed shortly thereafter on July 27, 1853, and expanded our relationship to include agreements to facilitate increased trade.

Please have a look at them after the ceremony.

I also invite all of you to visit “The Public Vaults” in our museum. The Treaty of Friendship, Navigation, and Commerce that the Argentine Confederation gave to the United States is now on display. This ornate version includes a skippet with the seal of the Argentine Confederation.

The U.S. Declassification Project for Argentina is both historic and significant. There have been other declassification projects in the past. But this one stands out for several reasons. First, the project spanned two Presidential administrations. President Barack Obama directed agencies to conduct this project after receiving a request from Argentine President Mauricio Macri. And after President Macri renewed his request early in this Administration, President Donald Trump directed that it continue.

The project is unparalleled for its scope and breadth. Sixteen Executive branch agencies participated, including Intelligence, Defense, and law enforcement agencies. Over 380 employees from these agencies spent almost 32,000 hours searching for and reviewing records on a word-for-word basis.  The results of those reviews are impressive and reflect the President’s interest. Over 43,000 pages were––or are about to be publicly released. The declassification rate on these pages is 97% and aligns with the President’s instruction to release as much information as possible.

Finally, the process for organizing and completing this project is unique. I attribute its success to the inclusion of all stakeholders. They include the Executive branch agencies working with officials from the Argentine Embassy in Washington DC, the United States Embassy in Buenos Aires, and the Argentine Government. There was also dialogue and communication with Argentine civil society organizations, including two videoconferences; historians working closely from within and outside Government; and cooperation with Carlos Osorio from the National Security Archive.

I thank the National Archives staff who participated in this project: staff from the National Declassification Center, the Center for Legislative Archives, the Presidential Materials Division, the Office of Innovation, the Information Security Oversight Office and archivists from the Ford, Carter, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush Presidential Libraries.

Our staff played a key role throughout this project. In August 2016, just two months after receiving the Presidential directive, the archivists in the Presidential Libraries quickly compiled and reviewed over 1,000 pages of Presidential documents. Secretary of State John Kerry delivered these documents to President Macri later that month on an official trip to Buenos Aires. In December 2016, as the Government of Argentina honored the life of former Assistant Secretary of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs Patt Derian, U.S. Ambassador to Argentina Noah Mamet delivered an additional 550 pages.

These pages remain significant as they include information from 25 President’s Daily Briefs from the Carter administration. “PDBs” as they are called, are among our nation’s most sensitive intelligence documents and are compiled expressly for the President.

Few others in Government get to read them.

The Carter Administration PDBs were not scheduled for review until the next decade.  These declassified PDBs allow for important context and aid historians in understanding President Carter’s actions and policies regarding human rights violations in Argentina.

In April 2017, President Trump provided over 3,000 pages of newly declassified documents to President Macri.  They included documents from the Carter Library identified by Department of State historians for inclusion in the South America volume of the Foreign Relations of the United States series, the official documentary and historical record of major United States foreign policy decisions and activities.

For this last tranche of records, the staff at National Declassification Center searched over 740 cubic feet of records and identified over 4,600 pages for inclusion. They included records created by the Air Force, Army, the Departments of Justice, Labor, and State, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Joint Staff, the US Information Agency, and US Agency for International Development.

The National Declassification Center staff was supported by declassification professionals from several agencies. I’d like to thank the staff from the Air Force, the Army, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the FBI, the Joint Staff, the Washington Headquarters Services at the Department of Defense, the Navy, the U.S. Southern Command, and the Departments of Justice and State for their work.  This collaboration illustrates how the National Declassification Center brings together people and processes within the Executive branch declassification community to advance declassification and public access to historical records.

There are distinguished retired Diplomats here today – like Tex Harris and Fred Rondon  who helped save lives while working at the Department of State.

Mario del Carril is here representing his wife, Isabel Mignone.  Her sister was arrested and disappeared in 1976. Her mother Angelica was one of the founders of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and her father, Emilio, championed human rights and accountability, including testifying in trials.  Azul Hidalgo Sola is also here. Her grandfather, Ambassador Hector Hildalgo Sola was kidnapped and disappeared in July 1977.

The records of Tex Harris and Fred Rondon are here at the National Archives.  The records about Monica Mignone and the work of her parents for justice are here just as records relating to the disappearance of Azul’s grandfather are here. They help tell the story of this period in Argentine history – and in our history.

On your way into this building this morning you passed by two statues. One statue included the words, “Study the Past.”  Using archival records, this project was designed to:

        Help families and victims find closure, peace and justice
        Ensure accountability and aid judicial processes
        Aid Argentine citizens understand its history

The other statue included the words “The Past is Prologue.”  The declassification of these records greatly aids the national history so we can learn from it.

The lessons from these records––and from survivors and those who seek truth and justice for the people of Argentina – are meaningful and offer hope for the future.

Thank you.

Special Document Display: Emancipation Proclamation

The National Archives marks the 156th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation with a special 3-day display of the original document.

The National Archives will display the Emancipation Proclamation in the museum’s East Rotunda Gallery from April 14 through 16, coinciding with the anniversary of Lincoln’s death on April 15. Concurrently, the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act of 1862 will be featured in the West Rotunda Gallery from April 12 through 16 in celebration of DC Emancipation Day on April 16.

On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”

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Emancipation Proclamation, 1/1/1863. View the full document in the National Archives Catalog

As a milestone in the long journey toward abolishing slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation has assumed a place among the great documents of human freedom. The story of the Emancipation Proclamation is one that would help to redefine freedom and eventually change the course of history. Both the Proclamation and the DC legislation represent a promise of hope, freedom, and justice that continues to inspire and resonate with the American people more than 150 years after its creation.

Both documents allowed for the freedom of slaves. President Abraham Lincoln signed the District of Columbia legislation on April 16, 1862, almost nine months before signing the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.

For conservation reasons, the original Emancipation Proclamation document of January 1, 1863, is displayed only a few days at a time under extremely low light to protect it from damage. This year, visitors can view the documents between 10 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. in the National Archives East and West Rotunda Galleries in Washington, DC. Admission is free and open to the public.

Additionally, the Emancipation Proclamation and the DC Compensated Emancipation Act will be on special display together between 6 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. on Tuesday, April 16, 2019, in conjunction with a related public program that evening.  

The National Archives will host the program, “DC Emancipation Day and the Emancipation Proclamation,” on Tuesday, April 16, 2019, at 7 p.m. in the William G. McGowan Theater at the Washington, DC, museum. A panel will discuss the history and political implications of both documents. Reservations are recommended but not required. Special performances by the Artists Group Chorale of Washington will take place during the display and at the start of the program.

This document display is made possible in part by the National Archives Foundation, through the generous support of The Boeing Company.

You can learn more about the significance of the Emancipation Proclamation, its history, and the measures the National Archives has taken to preserve it in our video .

For a more detailed history, including transcripts, of the document, see the Emancipation Proclamation page on Archives.gov. Visit our Catalog to view and download high-resolution images of the Emancipation Proclamation and the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act of 1862.

Modernizing the Proposed Records Schedule Commenting Process

The records management program at the National Archives has been working to
build an open and collaborative electronic records management community with
federal and industry stakeholders for many years. A key component of this
effort has been increasing access to both approved records schedules via the Records Control Schedule portal and making it easier for the public to review and comment on pending records
schedules. These records management efforts have consistently been a
cornerstone of NARA’s Open Government Plans.

Since 2017, we have been planning, developing, and engaging with stakeholders inside and outside of the National Archives on a new approach for public comment and
review. We have now changed the process by which the public can review and comment on proposed records schedules. Now, these schedules will be available on the Federal eRulemaking Portal, regulations.gov.

[image error] Proposed Records Schedules on regulations.gov

Prior to this change, individuals interested in making comments had to request copies of the proposed schedules based on a single sentence description in the Federal Register. This request, and all subsequent comments, had to be made by email or regular mail.

The new process, via regulations.gov, eliminates the need to request copies of proposed schedules. After posting on regulations.gov, the public will have immediate access to proposed schedules and supporting documentation for a review and comment period that has been extended from 30 to 45 days.

We are transitioning to regulations.gov as a way to improve our own internal business processes, and also to be responsive to clear, widespread interest from the public to use a web-based platform for a more modern, transparent, and efficient way to review and comment on records schedules. On May 30, staff from our Office of the Chief Records Officer will be holding a webinar to discuss these changes with the commenting public. Additional details about the webinar will be available on their blog, Records Express, in the coming days.

Happy Sunshine Week 2019!

Each year, Sunshine Week honors and promotes a dialogue about the importance of open government and access to information—values that are central to the mission of the National Archives and Records Administration.

I can’t think of a better place to be celebrating Sunshine Week than here at the National Archives, because we not only contribute, but serve as a leader in open government. This year’s celebration of information access began with an event on Monday, March 11, where I was fortunate to host a special one-on-one conversation with Beryl A. Howell, Chief Justice of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Our discussion on the role of the Freedom of Information Act, open government, transparency, and the legal landscape was sponsored by the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS).

[image error]Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell, U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, and Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero discuss open government and the legal landscape at Sunshine Week events on March 11, 2019, at the National Archives in Washington, DC. (National Archives photo by Martha Murphy)

Other highlights of the day included opening remarks by U.S. Senator John Cornyn of Texas, and closing remarks by U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont. Both lawmakers have had a role in the evolution of FOIA and shared their views on its role in an open and accessible government. We also hosted a discussion panel, moderated by Thomas M. Susman, Director of Governmental Affairs for the American Bar Association and Founding President of the D.C. Open Government Coalition, looking at “OGIS @ 10: Past/Present/Future.” A second panel, moderated by Jason Baron, Of Counsel, Information Governance and eDiscovery Group, Drinker Biddle & Reath, LLP, explored the topic “Looking into the Crystal Ball: How Will Electronic Recordkeeping in Government Agencies Change over the Next 10 Years?”

More information about this event and participants is available on our Sunshine Week website. My conversation with Judge Howell, as well as the other panels and discussions from the event are now available to watch on the National Archives YouTube channel.

Throughout Sunshine Week, the National Archives is also sponsoring a special citizen archivist mission focusing on transcription of two historically important civil rights cases held at the National Archives at Atlanta: Browder V. Gayle, which contains documents resulting from a Federal court suit that challenged segregation within Montgomery, Alabama’s public transportation system, and Williams V. Wallace, a lawsuit that was pivotal in inspiring Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Citizen Archivist Dashboard offers more information on how to engage in the transcription challenge.

You can find other events throughout the government celebrating Sunshine Week 2019 on the Sunshine Week’s Event Calendar. To learn more about OGIS’s work, visit their web page or follow the FOIA Ombudsman blog.