View the H-Law Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in H-Law's December 2012 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] View the Next Message in H-Law's December 2012 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] Visit the H-Law home page.
Congressional Records Research at the National Archives Made Easier The National Archives’ Center for Legislative Archives is the repository for the official records of the U.S. Congress—a collection of valuable records dating from 1789 and totaling over one-half billion pages. To promote access to its holdings, the Center, in conjunction with the Senate and House archivists, has embarked upon an ambitious project to more fully describe the historically valuable records of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in its custody. Enhanced description of records from the 95th and 75th Congresses is now available to researchers in the National Archives’ Archives Research Catalog (ARC), the agency’s online catalog of record descriptions. Scholars and students of U.S. government and politics will be especially interested in the detailed description of records of the 95th Congress (1977-1978). This improved description of more than 10,000 feet (the equivalent of 25 million pages) of records gives researchers the keys to unlock the rich documentation of the 95th Congress, one that historians regard as pivotal in twentieth century political and policy history. In ARC, researchers will find descriptions of committee records of the 95th Congress that document such significant developments as the implementation of the new congressional budget process, the beginning of legislation de-regulating key sectors of the economy, the liberalization of bank lending to reach low-income communities, and the passage of important energy legislation and conservation measures. In the wake of the Watergate scandal, the 95th Congress also held high-profile hearings on such lively topics as public financing of campaigns, popular election of the president, and financial disclosure. This enhanced description of the records of the 95th Congress is the first step in making available more fully described House and Senate records for the 1970s and ultimately providing researchers in-depth descriptions of the currently minimally described post-World War II records of Congress. Detailed inventories of House and Senate records from the 75th Congress (1937-1938) have been made available online for the first time. Researchers can now find near folder-level descriptions for approximately 280 feet (the equivalent of 700,000 pages) of House and Senate records in ARC from the 75th Congress that was responsible for passage of such landmark legislation as the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, the Housing Act of 1937, the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, and the Fair Labor Standards Act. You can explore the more detailed description of House and Senate records from the 75th and 95th Congresses by searching the National Archives’ Archives Research Catalog: http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/. To limit your search to Congressional records, click on the search options link, then advanced search, and limit the location of archival materials to the Center for Legislative Archives. The Center’s Next Generation Finding Aid Project will ultimately make it much easier for researchers to identify records of possible value in advance of their research visits to the Center and to more effectively plan their research strategies, thus saving valuable time and resources. As detailed description for additional Congresses become available, the Center will make periodic announcements on this listserv and on various websites. For more information about the Next Generation Finding Aid Project or for research consultation, contact the Center for Legislative Archives at 202-357-5350 or at legislative@nara.gov<mailto:legislative@nara.gov>.
|