Based on the National Historic Landmark nomination for the National Archives.
J. Franklin Jameson. National Archives, NAID 12169072.
The United States owes its National Archives largely to the lobbying of one man: the historian and editor J. Franklin Jameson, already known for his work preserving important historical documents.
An accomplished historian
After earning his PhD at Johns Hopkins University in 1882, Jameson taught history at Johns Hopkins, Brown University and the University of Chicago. He was managing editor of the American Historical Review from 1895 to 1928, and then chief of the Manuscripts Division at the Library of Congress until 1937. He wrote The History of Historical Writing in America (1891) and The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement (1926), and edited the 19-volume Original Narratives of Early American History (1906–1917).
In 1905 he moved to Washington, D.C., to direct the Bureau of Historical Research at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, an independent research organization funded by the industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. There he surveyed European universities and archives, information he later used to argue for an American national archive.
Jameson's goal was to professionalize history by making primary documents available to scholars. After meeting him in 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered every executive department to open its archives and records to him, and Jameson estimated how much space an archive would need right away. In 1908 he joined the American Historical Association's committee lobbying the president and Congress for a national archives building.
Winning presidents and the public
In 1911 Jameson launched a broad public campaign. By June, Senator Miles Poindexter of Washington and Representative John Morris Sheppard of Texas had introduced bills for an archives building in Washington, and President William Howard Taft had come out in favor. Presidential support was central to his strategy, and he won it from every president through Herbert Hoover.
A notice for one of Jameson's Carnegie Institution programs promoting a national archive. Evening Star, Washington, D.C., May 26, 1914. Library of Congress.
He spoke to historical societies across the country and placed articles in The Nation and McClure's Magazine, arguing that the nation's historical documents were in poor condition, largely inaccessible and in danger of destruction. He also won over the American Legion, a veterans' organization determined to preserve military records, whose large membership made it an important voting bloc in persuading Congress to fund a building.
Realizing a national archive
The Appropriations Bill of 1913 included $5,000 to design a National Archives building, leading to the first designs in 1916. By 1921 Jameson's supporters included the Conference of Historical Societies, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the American Library Association and the Washington, D.C., Board of Trade, along with Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover.
The press provided the final push. In January 1924 the Hearst newspapers published a series of articles on the poor condition of federal records, and for months the Washington Herald ran several columns a day in favor of an archives building. The coverage and Jameson's lobbying won a place for an archives building in the Public Buildings Act of 1926, which finally provided the money to design it. The National Archives building opened in 1937 and remains the main repository of federal records.
Sources
- National Park Service, "J. Franklin Jameson and the Effort to Create a National Archive," from the National Historic Landmark nomination for the National Archives. https://www.nps.gov/articles/j-franklin-jameson-and-the-effort-to-create-a-national-archive.htm
- Victor Gondos, J. Franklin Jameson and the Birth of the National Archives, 1900–1926 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981).
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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