NOW OPEN! A new Featured Document Display in honor of Black History Month! 🏛️

The Freedmen’s Bureau Marriage Records showcase how the Freedmen’s Bureau helped newly freed people legalize their marriages after the Civil War. Enslaved couples had no legal protection for their unions, often facing separation by sale. After emancipation, the Bureau worked to legitimize these marriages, issuing tens of thousands of certificates.

On December 15, 1952, staff at the Library of Congress carefully packed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution into wooden crates.

@librarycongress @USNatArchives #Constitution Theodore J. Green, Senator from Rhode Island and Chairman of the Joint Committee on the Library, handed over the documents to Brigadier General Stoyte Ross of the @usairforce.

Today we are highlighting #MayDayPrep to encourage everyone who takes care of records to prepare for emergencies. 🧵

You can find out more at culturalheritage.org/resources/emer…

#PreservationMonth At @USNatArchives, we practice how to rescue records from emergencies.

The most common type of emergency is from water. A broken pipe, a surprise leak, or bad weather can bring water into your collection spaces.

Do you know what to do with wet records?
#MayDayPrep 2/12

How much do you know about #InaugurationHistory? Test your knowledge with our 8 questions--answers will be posted at 3 pm ET!

📸 Cowboy Montie Montana, with permission from the Secret Service, lassoed president Dwight D. Eisenhower at 1953 inaugural parade, via @IkeLibrary In 1789, George Washington took the oath of office and became our first President in this city:

In 1846, 44 years after Alexander died, Eliza petitioned Congress for assistance in funding the publication of his writings—papers from the Revolution to formation and adoption of the Constitution to the administration of George Washington. go.usa.gov/xfgSh #HamiltonFilm The report, which also reprints Eliza’s petition, recognizes her love for Alexander: #HamiltonFilm

Nearly 6,000 Confederate Slave Payroll records have been digitized for the first time by National Archives staff in a multiyear project that just concluded in January 2020. The entire collection can now be viewed online.

go.usa.gov/xdGGr #CivilWar The Confederate Quartermaster Department created the payrolls for slave labor on Confederate military defenses. After the end of the #CivilWar, the Federal War Records Office arranged, indexed, and numbered the documents.

We made a mistake.

As the National Archives of the United States, we are and have always been completely committed to preserving our archival holdings, without alteration. In an elevator lobby promotional display for our current exhibit on the 19th Amendment, we obscured some words on protest signs in a photo of the 2017 Women’s March.

On June 6, 1944, American, British, and Canadian forces stormed the 50-mile stretch of coastline in northwest France in the largest seaborne invasion in history. go.usa.gov/xme2s #DDay75 Over 150,000 troops, 7,000 ships, and over 13,000 aircraft were involved. Twenty-four thousand soldiers descended by air, the rest by sea. #DDay75