Society for American Archivists' article "Highlights from the National Archives’ Nationwide Holdings"

Since becoming Archivist of the United States, I have visited the majority of the 42 National Archives facilities around the nation, meeting with staff and delving into the breadth and depth of our holdings. During my visits, one thing I heard over and over is that staff are proud of the amazing things we hold and want a way to bring more attention to them.

To help put a spotlight on some of the staff favorites from across the agency, we have created a new web page, Highlights From Our Holdings at the National Archives. There are pages for each of our field archives as well as pages featuring our textual and special media holdings in College Park, MD, and Washington, DC. 

Each page features about a dozen documents, including records relating to well-known individuals and events, as well as lesser-known but equally important stories from American history.

For instance, the National Archives at St. Louis, which holds federal archival records that document veterans’ military service and federal civil servants whose employment ended before 1952, includes the Official Personnel Folder of Mary McLeod Bethune on its page. 

President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Bethune to be Director of the National Youth Administration’s Office of Negro Affairs, making her the first African American woman to lead a federal agency. Her personnel file includes information documenting the span of her federal civil service. 

A personal favorite of mine is the U.S. Attorney’s case file for the 1971 skyjacking case involving the infamous “D.B. Cooper.” The file is kept at the National Archives at Seattle, which holds federal records from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska.

On November 24, 1971, a man calling himself Dan Cooper, a.k.a. D.B. Cooper, bought a one-way ticket on a flight bound for Seattle. While en route, he hijacked the plane demanding $200,000 in exchange for the safe return of all the passengers. After receiving the money, he parachuted out somewhere between Seattle and Reno, NV, never to be seen again. Seattle’s investigative case file contains photographs, the initial sketch of the suspect, and detailed experiments the U.S. Air Force and the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted to determine how Cooper was able to pull off the theft.

Another poignant record is the photo of the first 29 U.S. Marine Corps Navajo Code Talkers, taken at their swearing in at Fort Wingate, NM, on May 4, 1942. It is one of the records held at the National Archives at Riverside, which preserves federal records from Arizona, southern California, and Clark County (Las Vegas), Nevada.

During World War II, the U.S. military needed a way to ensure the enemy couldn’t understand its radio communications. American Indians had their own languages and dialects that few outside their tribes understood, making these languages ideal living encryption mechanisms. Over the course of the war, the Army and the Marine Corps recruited hundreds of Native Americans to become Code Talkers, and their messages were never broken by the Germans or Japanese.

These highlight pages also showcase different formats of records we hold, including architectural drawings. The National Archives at Boston, which holds federal records from Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont, includes the elevation plan of the Boston Custom House Tower on its page.

Constructed in the early 1840s, the Boston Custom House was used to collect import duties and provide offices for inspectors, playing  a vital role in the maritime history of the nation. The Custom House Tower, constructed in 1915, was the tallest building in Boston until the Prudential Tower was completed in 1964.

These web pages help surface the special nature of the National Archives’ nationwide holdings, but they are just a small sampling of the billions of records we preserve, protect, and share with the nation. I hope these pages inspire all Americans to explore deeper into the holdings of the National Archives, either online, or in person at one of our many locations.  

You can view all Highlights from Our Holdings at the National Archives by visiting https://www.archives.gov/research/highlights.