Week of July 25th 2011: The National Archives

On my second day in DC, Mike insisted that I check out the National Archives. This is where many of the country's founding documents are stored. What would a trip to D.C. be without a visit to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights?

Even though I started my day relatively early, there was still a line to get into the National Archives. It moved quickly enough and the day wasn't too hot and soon I was inside. The security was understandably intense and it felt almost like going through an airport.

The first thing I did was watch a video describing the history and importance of the National Archives. It showed stories of several people who went to research their family's histories and were able to discover that that they had important ancestors. I found this really interesting since I have a pretty famous last name but I don't know if I'm related to the person that made my name important. I definitely want to see if I can do some research on it next time I'm in D.C. (Actually, while doing some refresher work on their website, I learned that they have satellite offices around the country so I might be able to achieve this more locally...)

After that, I wanted to go see the famous documents. I knew that would have a line as well and it would only be getting longer. Of course there was some wait, but they made it better by putting little informational signs around the line. Eventually, I was in the room with all of the documents. It was really cool to see them. They were much larger than I expected and of course relatively faded. The Archives did a good job of putting signs and posters around that pointed out what time had done to them and give some interesting background stories. I always love when there is extra background information. The Smithsonian was good about this as well.

The National Archives are provide the "National Archives Experience" which serves as more of a museum to the public. The experience gives visitors a glimpse into historical documents and their importance throughout the years. This may sound boring but think about patents or letters and how these have shaped history? A document can be so much more than a piece of paper and this exhibit lets you discover this.

I had a lot of fun in the National Archives. It was a further reminder of how important even the details in our history could be. It was also a good reflection on the importance of letters in history. Letter writing used to be so common and the Archives apparently have a large collection of significant letters. On my lists of books to read are John Steinbeck and Einstein's letters... but letter writing has long since fallen by the wayside and replaced by emails. I wonder what kind of effect this will have on our history. Maybe the future of the archives will be in emails, tweets, blog posts and Facebook statuses. It would be interesting to see what history does with everything we've put out into the world now that letter writing is less common.