todaysdocument:

Happy #Archives80!

The National Archives turns the big 8-0 on June 19. You may have thought the Archives was older considering our country is almost 250 years old, but it wasn’t until 1934 that President Franklin Roosevelt signed the National Archives Act (48 Stat. 1122) creating the National Archives as an independent agency. What, you might ask, was happening to the records before the establishment of the Archives?

Our records go back farther than 1934. Fortunately, agencies were keeping records, but in myriad places and under varied storage conditions. In 1935 the first records started arriving at the Archives and haven’t stopped. In fact, we have so many records that there are now 40 facilities across the nation to house all of them!

“Photograph of State Department Records Being Received at Archives, 1936” (Local Identifier: 64-NA-69 / National Archives Identifier: 3493230)

From the series: “Historic Photograph File of National Archives Events and Personnel, 1935 – 1975″

via Media Matters » Happy Birthday National Archives!

(A delivery from statedept! Could it be a birthday present for usnatarchives? Or vital government records?)

(via todaysdocument)