The National Archives And Records Administration

The National Archives is the holding area of the most valuable records and remarkable documents of the U.S. government. In the Exhibition Hall, of the archives building, are the U.S. Constitution, the original Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and other historical documents dating from 1774 to 1790 on permanent display. It also hold other records such as treaties, laws, presidential proclamations and executive orders, military reports, records of Native American affairs, census schedules, historically significant maps and charts, sound recordings, motion pictures, and still pictures; the most dignitary are the valuable collection of American civil war photographs by Mathew Brady. The National Archives reflects and recorded more than two hundred years of American development. Its thirty-four facilities hold about 2.9 million cubic feet of original text materials; that would be more than eight million pieces of paper from the Federal Government, which are the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Also, the National Archives' multimedia accumulation includes more than ninety-three thousand motion picture films, more than five million maps, charts, and architectural drawings; more than two-hundred and seven thousand sound and video recordings; eighteen million aerial photographs and approximately thirty-five million still pictures and posters; and electronic records containing about four billion logical data records.

The records in the National Archives document the government's policies and define how these policies are carried out. The records also offer insights into the experiences of individual Americans. In addition, they show the nation's enlargement westward, the land settlement, and the crisis period of industrial America. The challenges of agrarian commerce, the history of American ingenuity, the fight for democracy, and the battle for equality are also represented by these records. Furthermore, they help to ensure the liability of the government to the American people; and enables citizens to protect their individual rights and liberties. The ordinary citizen, the infamous, the famous, soldiers and diplomats, and politicians and presidents all have a place here.

The National Archives and Records Administration is also a nationwide system. It enacts the standard for the acceptable documentation of government agencies and activities. Before being destroyed or transferred to the National Archives of the United States, archivists must work with agencies to determine the length of time their records should be retained. Archivists also must maintain schedules of records currently in agencies' custody. Partially active records still in agency custody become part of the computer-controlled record center holdings stored at the regional records services facilities throughout the U.S. These facilities offer reduced storage costs for agency records that would have otherwise overcrowded government offices. If you have ever had a social security number, a passport, served in the military, or filled an income tax form then your records may have been stored in a regional records services facility. Every year, these facilities respond to about two million requests for records and information from the public and more than thirteen million from agencies.

Moreover, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) maintain the artifacts, personal papers, audiovisual collections and gifts, and Presidential records from former Presidents from Herbert Hoover to Bill Clinton at thirteen Presidential libraries, museums, and projects. In addition to being exceptional historical research facilities, the museums and libraries are designed to give the general public a better awareness of the life and times of individual Presidents and the institution of the Presidency. It also tries to display the American biased system as a whole.

Before the formation of the National Archives in 1934, millions of documents were lost due to fires and meager storage conditions. Now exceptional care is taken to protect essential records. For the most part, they are stored in specially designed acid-free boxes in fireproof, locked stack areas where temperature, humidity, and light levels are vigilantly monitored. For example, conservators may work hours to clean a document, rebind a leather-bound volume, or mend a tear.

The National Archives was first occupied in 1935. So by the twentieth century, the need for a central holding area was vital. The Public Buildings Act was passed by Congress in1926 which appropriated funds for plans for the acquirement of the site. This site was the location of the Marsh Market constructed in 1801 and known as Center Market following the Civil War, which was originally planned as a square with fountains by L`Enfnat. The seventh building that was to be constructed in the Federal Triangle was the Archives building. It is a monumental structure that was designed in the twentieth century as a Neo-Classical manner by John Russell Pope. John Russell Pope was also the architect for the Jefferson Memorial, the Constitution Hall, and the National Gallery of Art.

The National Building in Washington D.C. resides in a position in the Federal Triangle as a focal point on the 8th Street Axis between the National Portrait Gallery (Old Patent Office) to the north and the Hirsh horn Museum to the south. Large pumps were actually built beneath the structure to safeguard the foundations from flooding by the Old Tiber Creek, whose bed runs under the building. *NARA was created in 1934 and was part of the General Services Administration. On April 1, 1985, the National Archives and Records Act of 1984 became effective. This year, NARA declares twenty years as an independent agency of the federal executive branch that conserves the nation's history and classifies us as people by supervising the management of all Federal records.

During the past two decades, NARA has proven itself to be essential and priceless resource within the Federal Government. It has lengthened its role as the nation's record keeper and advanced its public synopsis as democracy's beacon. Every year, the National Archived becomes to holding area of more Government records to maintain and manage. Also,