Forget Happy Hour, I'm Going to the National Archives After Work!

To the dismay of my fellow STIPDG Interns, I declined invitations to bar crawl after work this past Friday. I instead to chose to sip the sweet cocktail of Public History and Archives...shaken not stirred (corny I know). When the clock struck 5:30 I zoomed out of the DOT building headed towards Navy Yard Station to catch a Green line train to the National Archives and Records Administration. Outside the building I ran into B and J, two engineering interns who were making their way to Chinatown to "peep the scene". When I shared that I was heading to the National Archives to do research for a class assignment, B remarked "Oh that's right you're the excited librarian!" Right!

At orientation earlier in the week I unabashedly cheered each time an intern introduced themselves as a library science grad student during the "stand up and state your credentials" portion of our first session. The cheering caught on and the library science students now have a wiggle hand dance we do every time the word librarian is said. We might be a small group at 7 but we are PROUD!

Back to my field trip: After checking through security and signing in I requested a brief tour from Jeff, an Archives Technician in the Mircofilm and Research Room on the 1st floor. Jeff answered my questions about a typical work day in the archives, what materials were most popular among patrons, and the process of requesting archival materials. Jeff also cosigned Dr. Jones', professor of Public History and Archives at NCCU constant refrain that genealogists are keeping archives open.  While I was there three patrons asked Jeff about the best ways to search census, military and pension records, and immigration and naturalization records. I didn't request any materials of my own but did ask Jeff about African American church documents that might be held in the repository. Jeff related that there probably weren't too many records aside from land and municipality records given the U.S.'s separation of church and state. He did say that there are a good deal of documents chronicling the FBI's investigation and wire tapping of  Black Churches in the 50's, 60's and 70's. I will definitely check those out at my next visit. 

 Jeff pointed me towards other African American historical research areas where I might find religious references including two pamphlets, "Black Studies: A Select Catalog of National Archives Microfilm Publications" and "Black Family Research: Records of Post-Civil War Federal Agencies at the National Archives. I scooped up "Freedmen's Bureau Field Office Records" pamphlet too. My childhood love of the American Girl Addy Walker series books and dolls first introduced me to the history of the Freedman's Bureau (thanks Mom!). The next stop on the tour was a carrel-like wood file filled with color coated frequently researched group/topic handouts.Green is military, yellow-immigration, salmon-African American, white-census, pink-maritime and marine etc., cream-Latino, blue-register of U.S federal employees etc., purple-tribes (Native American), yellow-District of Columbia. I packed a rainbow of handouts into my book bag and met Jeff at the Registration area so that I could apply for my Researcher Identification Card (see picture on left). 

A Rainbow of Handouts
If you look closely you can see a research at the computer

Beefed Up Security

Post-It Notes Left Behind by Genealogists  

  After I was registered as an official research Jeff told me about the shuttle to Archives II in College Park, MD and encouraged me to return to the National archives during regular business hours when I would be able to speak with a certified archivist. I plan to return to the archives on one of the upcoming Fridays I have off so stay tuned for another installment of "Files Fridays".