Archives

“ At the epoch of the Renaissance the documents of ancient and modern history were scattered in innumerable private libraries and in innumerable depositories of archives, almost all of them inaccessible, not to mention those which lay hidden beneath the soil, their very existence as yet unsuspected. ”

“ Indeed were it possible to collect in archives exhaustive accounts of everything that has ever happened, so that the curious man might always be informed on any point of fact that interested him, historical imagination might grow free again in its movements. ”

“ The writing of history must be based upon original research and authentic record, but it can no more be directly constructed by the piecing together of bits of original research than by the mere reprinting together of state documents. Individual research furnishes us, as it were, with the private documents and intimate records without which the public archives are incomplete and unintelligible. But by themselves these are wholly out of perspective. It is the consolation of those who produce them to make them so. ”

“ These, with the legislature itself, are the departments of government in which our archives originate.
Archives we have defined as the records, the business papers, of the province having a permanent value. All archives need not be of historical value in the narrow sense. Public documents may have a business or record value apart from history, yet it would be hard to say that any given document might not be found useful in some way in connection with history. The main value of a document is as an evidence of truth. ”

“ Not only does information become more pervasive through multiple distribution systems, but—thanks to us—it becomes more persistent. That is to say, over the past century and a half, historians and archivists have done an excellent job in demonstrating the value of historical records of all sorts. We have created the age of the archives—the ways and means to save more stuff and for longer periods of time. ”

“ Rolls, records, and documents of all kinds exist in public and private archives, which are not included in these State Papers, but which are equally necessary for the formation of a sound and reliable opinion on the whole story. Besides this vast mass of material, the entire literature of the period demands careful examination, as it must clearly throw great light on the tone and temper of men’s minds, and reveal the origin and growth of popular views and opinions. ”

“ In this article, however, we are only concerned with documentary records, or archives. In its accurate sense a record is a document regularly drawn up for a legal or administrative purpose and preserved in proper custody to perpetuate the memory of the transaction described in it; for the most part it forms a link in a complicated process, and unless the connexion between it and the other documents making up the process has been preserved, a portion of its meaning will have perished. ”

“ Since entries are based on responses to a questionnaire, descriptions, especially of holdings and collections, inevitably vary in thoroughness and specificity. Concludes with three appendixes: organizations whose archives are deposited elsewhere; organizations without archives; and organizations on whose archives the editors could supply no information. Two indexes: repository names, organizations, and collections ”

“ Contemporary writers make themselves the judges of what is important to record; documents preserved in public or private archives relate only to such events as need or command the written record or instrument, or to those which have interested some of the actors and their families. ”

“ Rousset, Gallet de Kulture, Margry, de Beauchesne, Lacroix, Ravaisson, Sage, Aude, and Read. The treasures of our Archives are not only rendered accessible by the goodwill of their Keepers, but are also made easy of consultation by the order which these gentlemen have introduced among the profusion of documents by means of classifications as clear as they are ingenious. ”

“ As in civil history we consult deeds, seek for coins, or decipher antique inscriptions in order to determine the epochs of human revolutions and fix the date of moral events; so, in natural history, we must search the archives of the world, recover old monuments from the bowels of the earth, collect their fragmentary remains, and gather into one body of evidence all the signs of physical change which may enable us to look back upon the different ages of nature. ”

“ Original research amongst the legal and other documents preserved in the Public Record Office, and similar depositories of ancient archives is a pursuit which our friends politely assume ‘must be very interesting,’ chiefly because they cannot believe that any one would undertake so dull an occupation if it were not interesting. ”

“ But now, what with the sometimes increased, sometimes diminished number of assessors, what with the many interruptions, what with the removal of the court from one place to another, these arrears, these records necessarily increased [Pg 458] to an infinite extent. Now, in the distress of war, a part of the archives was sent for safety from Spire to Aschaffenburg, a part to Worms, the third fell into the hands of the French, who thought they had gained the state-archives, but would afterwards have been glad to get rid of such a chaos of paper, if any one would but have furnished the carriages. ”

“ Public archives have been made accessible, a generous freedom of use accorded by private owners of papers; and pride of ancestry has contributed its share to the ever increasing quantity of product. If only certain possessors of material could appreciate how far they are like the ostrich, and what damage their aloofness is working on their pet admirations! ”

“ The editors of the “Memoirs of Everybody” affirmed, in 1835, that the original of this document still existed in the archives of the Minister of Foreign Affairs; and this statement has never been contradicted. It is natural that this document, supposing it to be authentic, should be in the archives of that department rather than of any other, as it would, in all probability, have been sent by the writer to some foreign place for safety, and would be brought back thence by some agent of the French government. ”

“ The instruments of Heuristic are being continually perfected, before our eyes, in two ways. Every year witnesses an increase in the number of descriptive catalogues of archives, libraries, and museums, prepared by the functionaries attached to these institutions. ”

“ All over the country, archives are reuniting citizens with their rights and helping historians research and tell the American story. Through the work of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, we’ve helped fund documentary histories of Americans from Benjamin Franklin to Martin Luther King, from the records of the Florida everglades to the civic history of Los Angeles. ”

“ The Annual Report of the American Historical Association is devoted to papers by historians of national fame, to reports of the Public Archives Commission, and to the publication of historical bibliographical enterprises. ”

“ The institution of Bahá’í Archives is indeed a most valuable storehouse of information regarding all the aspects of the Faith, administrative as well as doctrinal. Future generations of believers will be surely in a better position than we are to truly and adequately appreciate the many advantages and facilities which the institution of the Archives offers to individual believers and also to the community at large. ”

“ The entrusting of the city archives to him just before the time that the chronicle, which contains a large number of official documents, closes, makes this as near a certainty as can be gathered from merely indirect internal evidence. ”

“ The National Archives is another such human service in our governmental set-up. It was personal appreciation for Brumidi on the part of a group of employees of the National Archives that led to the finding of so many public documents vital to this study. ”

“ State organs, groups, enterprises, public institutions, other organizations, and citizens may, according to the need for economic development, building of national defense, education, scientific research, and other work, access to restricted archives of archival repositories and archives in the custody of organs, groups, enterprises, public institutions, and other organizations pursuant to relevant regulations of the state. ”

“ A peculiar feature in the labors of modern historians is the research expended upon what the elder annalists regarded as purely incidental and extraneous. The collation of archives, official correspondence, and state-papers is now but the rough basis of research; memoirs are equally consulted,—localities minutely examined,—the art and literature of a given era analyzed,—the geography, climate, and ethnology of the scene made to illustrate the life and polity,—social phases, educational facts estimated as not less valuable than statistics of armies and judicial enactments. ”

“ Because a new conception of the study of history has come into being in recent years, and we now have the product of research in endless archives replacing the fervent eloquence of the nineteenth century historians, Professor Bassett’s book will be welcome as an appreciative study of a worthy fragment of our national growth, a history of history. ”

“ With this view he doubtless caused a roll to be made recording their names; though only a transcript of one part has been yet discovered among the archives. We may hope that not many years will elapse before numbers of those most interesting documents which now lie buried in heaps of confusion will be brought to light. ”

“ If the past teaches us anything, it is that challenges persist. A century ago, J. Franklin Jameson and the American Historical Association were crying out for the establishment of a National Archives, for we were losing our national memory. ”

“ Diplomatic history and the more secret springs of political history can only be fully disclosed when the archives relating to them have been explored and when the confidential correspondence of the chief actors in them has been published. The biographical element in history is always the most uncertain. ”

“ An annotated bibliography of separately published finding aids (through c. 1990) to collections of unpublished materials (including archives and collections of maps, photographs, oral histories, and films) held in repositories in the United States. Unfortunately, coverage excludes journal articles, exhibition catalogs, accession reports, discussions of individual documents, dissertations, dictionary catalogs (except those incorporating unpublished materials) , and “indexes to large collections or bodies of records.” ”

“ Therefore archives and library are to be opened to pious and learned students “for the service of religion and science in order that the historical untruths of the enemies of the church which have found entrance even into the schoolbooks should be displaced by the composition of good writings.” ”

“ The most interesting archives emanating from the public-works department are the records of the early colonization roads—arteries of settlement and trade routes and the title deeds, plans and specifications, contracts, maps, and documents relating to Crown property, buildings, and institutions, a finely conditioned collection. ”

“ The meaning of the various kinds of documents which are likely to be found among the title-deeds of an estate, or among the archives of a parish or a corporation, are described without needless technicalities, in a practical way, which will appeal to those who begin to work among such material without previous knowledge. ”

“ Certainly if you look at the national network of archives—the records at the federal, state, local and academic levels—you would count well into the billions. Electronic records are only going to blow the top off. ”

“ In giving an impulse to the interior labours of the Dépôt, the sole object of General A----y is to make this establishment lose its paralyzing destination of archives, in which, from time to time, literati might come to collect information concerning some periods of national or foreign history. He is of opinion that these materials ought to be drawn from oblivion, and brought into action by those very persons who, having the experience of war, are better enabled than any others to arrange its elements. ”

“ As archives are meant to be explored, and are not meant to be printed, we approach the final stage in the conditions of historical learning.
The long conspiracy against the knowledge of truth has been practically abandoned, and competing scholars all over the civilised world are taking advantage of the change. ”

“ It is for this reason that in the recensions of philologists we always hear the same song in praise of the learned man who has made a 'sober' use of documents, of blame for him who has followed a different method and included what is vain and superfluous in his volumes of annals, of selections from archives, or of collections of documents. All learned men and philologists, in fact, select, and all are advised to select. And what is the logical criterion of this selection? ”

“ Comp. Robert B. Matchette. 3 vols. Washington: Natl. Archives and Records Administration, 1995.
A descriptive guide to governmental and other records under the jurisdiction of the National Archives. This excludes material held in presidential libraries. Organized by record group (i.e., government agency) , the brief entry for each group or class of records typically includes a descriptive title, inclusive dates, quantity, location, notes (on content, type or purpose of documents, completeness, or organization) , and finding aids. ”