It hashbeen called “the natlon’sT’memory.” It pre1 serves and makes available for research historically valuable records of the federal goverment. Three billion ‘ documents, beginning with papers of the Continental Congress. are entrusted to i its carej = . 3 – x — Such lsitbe National Archlves – a half-century old I thls month – headquartered in an imposing neo-classical style building on Constitutlonal Avenue in Washington. D.C. I When President Herbert Hoover laid the cornerstone of the bombyproof structure in 1933. he declared that “this temple of our history will be one of the most durable. an expression of Arnerica’s character.” I The need for a safe, permanent home for national records had been long over’due. Consider, as one exam- ‘ ple, preservation of the original documents of America’s “charters of freedom” – the Declaration of Independence, Ilhe Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. They now hold a place of honor in the Archives’ ceremonial Rotunda, protected in a specially-designed glass case that is lowered each night into a vault of steel and reinforced concrete. . The faded Declaration of Independence is barely legible to the visitors who file past it and the other charters each day. . .. – Yet its state of preservation ls quite amazlng when you consider that the document was rolled up after the 1776 signing,. stored in a grlstmill during the War of 1812, and later put through a damaging “wet sheet transfer pmcess” to make copies. according to the Smithsonian Institution. -, Further, the priceless original was displayed in a sunfilled hallway for a number of years. . lThe Declaration of Independence and theI Constitution were transferred from the Library of, Congress to Archlves in December 1952. The Bill of Rights was brought from the Department of State in 193B.) The Smithsonian Institution News Service recounts some of the hazards to historlcal documents in preArchives eras. Between 1774 and 1800, the federal records moved with Congress 11 times, When the British invaded Washington, ‘D,C., in the War of 1812 they burned the Capitol and many other govemment buildings. One can only speculate on the loss of historical records. Herman Vlola of Smithsonaan, who has written a book on the Archives, tells how thousands of valuable papers were damaged as water seeped through storage walls how signatures of such notables of John C. Calhoun and Henry Clay had been cut from documents and how stamg collectors and autograp seekers had helped themselves to valuable records. ‘ Even some of George Washington’s letters had rbeen “cut lnto pieces to I spread them furiher.” ‘I’oday’s Archives system tries to ensure that such abuses will not recur, . Besides the Washington headquarters building, the National Archives and Records Service (NARS) operates 11 regional records centers and seven presidential libraries (from Huover’s to Ford’s). “In general tcrms, the raw stuff of the nation’s military, political, sclentIfic and soclal history is kept at the Archlves,” says Smithsonlan. For genealogists, the Archives is a treasure. In this modern age, the federal government generates about 20 million pages of records annually. (Even durlng World War II the figure was only about 4 million.) However, it ls estimated that less than 1 percent of the paper mountain is deposited permanently. Nineteen senior Archives staff members – skilled at separating the grains of history from the chaff – have the important task of deciding what to keep. Searching for the needle in the Archives stacks obviously can be a frustrating paper chase. But that’s another story, Suffice it here to say that we Americans can be thankful for the Archives – in Hoover’s words “this temple of our history.”