NHPRC NEWS

At the first meeting of the National Historical

Publications Commission in January 1935, the members discussed a resolution adopted by the council of the American Historical Association a month earlier urging a program to publish documentary material relating to the history of the Constitution. In February 1936, J. Franklin Jameson, who greatly influenced American historical scholarship and who was a member of the newly established commission, moved that a project respecting the adoption of the Constitution be recommended.

These recommendations of Jameson and others have finally been brought to fruition. In a ceremony on May 17 at the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and other court members received copies of the Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, volumes 1 and 2. The presentation was attended by James B. Rhoads, archivist of the United States and chairman of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC); James Morton Smith, director of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, which is publishing the volumes; Merrill Jensen, editor of the series; and members of the commission and their guests.

The commission began gathering documents for the ratification series in 1951. Dr. Robert E. Cushman was appointed editor of the project, in 1958; he directed it until his death in 1969. Two related editorial undertakings were eslished by the commission in 1965 and 1966: The Documentary History of the First Federal Elections, edited by Jensen at the University of Wisconsin, and The Documentary History of the First Federal Congress, edited by Linda Grant De Pauw at George Washington University. In 1970, Jensen, Vilas Research Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, accepted the editorship of the ratification series, and the project was moved from the National Archives to Wisconsin.

The project represents a thoroughgoing effort to collect documents from manuscript repositories, libraries, and private collectors all over the world. Comprised of material from contemporary newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, published and unpublished correspondence and state archives, the collection will be of inestimable importance in illuminating the forces and issues surrounding state struggles over ratification.

Volume 1, a collection of significant documents and records from 1776-1787, introduces the series; volume 2 contains the record of the ratification process in Pennsylvania.

A quarterly meeting of the NHPRC was held concurrently with the ceremony on May 17. In addition to recommending grants for many ongoing letterpress and microfilm projects, the commission adopted resolutions to support two new letterpress projects relating to Black history: Freedmen and Southern Society: A Documentary Record and the Papers of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association, 1910-1940.

During the May 17 meeting, the commission also approved eleven state historical records advisory board nominations. States in which historical records coordinators have been appointed and advisory boards nominated and approved now number thirty-five. A board has also been approved for Puerto Rico. The large number of appointments in so short a time appears to reflect great interest in and need for these records grants. Many coordinators and boards have been meeting to establish procedures, set priorities, and encourage and review grant proposals.

For several years, scholars have known of the potential riches for black studies in the large collection of records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands held by the

National Archives. The Freedmen's Bureau, with its peculiar role and resultant contact with blacks in the South, left a documentary record unsurpassed in revealing black culture of the nineteenth century. The University of Maryland will sponsor a project to examine the Freedmen's Bureau records, along with records of contemporary allied federal agencies and will produce a selective, three-volume work that will document black life during the years between the beginning of the Civil War and the advent of radical Reconstruction. The editor of the project will be Ira Berlin, author of Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South and a respected specialist in AfroAmerican history.

Mr. Robert A. Hill of Northwestern University has been engaged since 1970 in a search for surviving records and papers that reflect the life of Marcus Garvey and the back-to-Africa movement. Mr. Hill has gathered copies of documents from the British Colonial Office archives, archives of former West Indies colonies, the National Archives, the FBI, and other institutions around the world. From this diverse material, Hill will prepare a cohesive documentary account of the man and the movement he inspired.

The fifth institute for the editing of historical documents, sponsored annually by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and a cooperating university, was held at the University of South Carolina for two weeks beginning June 14. Nineteen students, most of them history majors engaged in documentary editing projects or who expect to do historical editing, participated in the program. The lectures were given by directors or staff members of major editorial projects in the United States supported by funds from the NHPRC, and covered such topics as document transcription, searching, organization and control of materials, annotation, preparation of manuscripts, and proofreading and indexing. Lectures are being supplemented by intern projects and informal discussion groups.

In the past, the editing institute has been the source of training for young editors in a growing number of editing projects in the United States, now numbering more than fifty. The institutes complement another commission ac

tivity, the annual editing fellowships, which this year were awarded to three young scholars from almost one hundred applicants. The object of the fellowships is to provide a year of experience on an editorial project for those seeking career training.

Both the editing institute and the fellowships in editing were begun with the interest accrued from a grant by the Ford Foundation in 1964. With the exhaustion of the funds this year, it has been necessary to put the institute on a pay-as-you-go basis by levying tuition for the first time, and to suspend the fellowship program until funding can be arranged.

During its May 17 meeting at the United States Supreme Court, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission recommended grants for ten additional historical records projects in nine states, including a grant to Western Washington State College for the first stage of a project to survey public utility district records in the Northwest. There are now thirteen projects supported under the commission's new program. The nine remaining grants were given to projects reviewed and recommended by state historical records advisory boards. The new projects, which are listed below, reflect the variety of activities eligible for support under the expanded program. Projects range from preservation microfilming of the 1925 Iowa Census and the Washington Territory Volunteer Records, 1854-58, which will permit continued use and prevent further deterioration of these two important research sources, to the survey and preparation of inventories of county records in Texas and the survey and accessioning of public and private welfare records in Minnesota. State and local governments and nonprofit institutions are eligible to apply for grants for activities. relating to preservation and use of historical records.

Grants recommended by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission at its May 17 meeting:

1) $12,960 to the University of Minnesota's Social Welfare History Archives for a cooperative statewide project to survey and accession records of public and private welfare agencies in Minnesota.

2) $12,637 to the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, to arrange and describe the records of the North Bennett Street Industrial School, relating to education of immigrants during the early twentieth century.

3) $3,864 to the University of Hawaii at Manoa to microfilm, for preservation and research, the records of the Hutchinson Mill Plantation Company. These records are scheduled to be destroyed soon.

4) $35,000 to Western Washington State College to inventory the records of public utility districts in Washington and Oregon. This is the first phase of a project to catalog records of public power agencies in Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho and to improve retention and disposal of these records.

5) $23,204 to Duke University to arrange and describe the papers of five U. S. senators and congressmen from North Carolina. These collections have long been inadequately processed due to lack of staff.

6) $20,240 to North Texas State University to survey and prepare inventories of Texas county records.

7) $7,300 to the Division of Historical Museums and Archives, Iowa State Historical Department to prepare preservation microfilm of the 1925 Iowa state census.

8) $4,250 to the archives unit, Michigan History Division to process and transfer to regional depositories historical county and

municipal records identified by a statewide records survey.

9) $14,253 to Rhode Island College to arrange, describe, and preserve the Nathaniel Bacon Papers, a collection relating primarily to nineteenth century business and industry in Rhode Island.

10) $2,002 to the Washington state library to microfilm for preservation and research use the Washington Territory volunteer records, 1854-58, a collection of Indian war records that is deteriorating rapidly from heavy use.

Deadlines for three forthcoming commission meetings have been established. For the December 1976 meeting, send proposals to the commission and to the state coordinator by September 15; rating sheets are due at the commission by November 1. For the February 1977 meeting, send proposals to the commission and to the state coordinator by November 15; rating sheets are due at the commission by January 1. For the May 1977 meeting, send proposals to the commission and to the state coordinator by February 15; rating sheets are due at the commission by April 1.

A pamphlet describing procedures for applying for grants, and information about coordinators and advisory boards is available by writing to: Records Program, National Historical Publications and Records Commission, National Archives Building, Washington, DC 20408.

The administrator of general services is authorized by law to accept for accessioning as part of the National Archives of the United States the records of a federal agency or the Congress that the archivist of the United States judges to have sufficient historical or other value to warrant their continued preservation by the U. S government. In addition, certain personal papers and privately produced audiovisual materials that relate to federal activities may also be accepted. Normally, only records at least twenty years old are considered for transfer; the chief exceptions are essential documentary sources of federal actions and the records of terminated agencies.

Excluded from the recent accessions described below are those that merely fill minor gaps or extend the date span of records already in the custody of the National Archives and Records Service. As noted, some of the accessions have been made by the archives branches of the federal archives and records centers and by the presidential libraries.

CIVIL ARCHIVES DIVISION

INDUSTRIAL AND SOCIAL BRANCH

The branch has acquired the correspondence files of former Secretary of Labor Peter J. Brennan, 1973-75, 93 cubic feet.

Records of the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped, 1947-71, 22 cubic feet, have been accessioned. They consist of minutes, reports, correspondence, budgetary materials, newsletters, and press releases.

The branch has received 2 cubic feet of records of the Eglin Air Force Base Refugee Camp. The principal records, dated 1975, are logs of Vietnamese refugee cases assigned to voluntary agencies for further handling. Other records consist of camp newspapers and correspondence regarding the camp's operation.

LEGISLATIVE, JUDICIAL, AND FISCAL BRANCH

Ten series of Bureau of the Budget records, 153 cubic feet, were accessioned. From the bureau's Estimates and Administrative Management, Resources and Civil Works, LaborWelfare, and Commerce and Finance Divisions, they document the budgetary administration of emergency and war agencies, 1939-49, and of the Departments of Agriculture, Health, Education, and Welfare, Justice, the Interior, the Treasury, and certain independent agencies, 1953-61.

MILITARY ARCHIVES DIVISION

The division recently accessioned 19 cubic feet of records of the Fleet Marine Force, 2d Brigade, 1933-42. Included are reports on war plans and training maneuvers and reports on geography, economic, social, military, and political conditions of countries in the Westem Hemisphere. Plans for defeating these countries in case of war are sometimes included.

Correspondence, primarily 1935-42, 25 cubic feet, of the Ship Movements Division of the Navy Department and medical journals, 236 cubic feet, of ships and shore stations, 18851910, were also accessioned.

Other Navy Department records recently accessioned are 4 cubic feet of records of the Preliminary Design Branch, 1929-45, including captured Japanese ship plans and case files of suits brought against the navy for infringement of ship design patents; and security-classified correspondence of the Commander Scouting Force, 1928-40, 4 cubic feet, pertaining primarily to fleet training exercises, war plans, and material inspection.

CARTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVES DIVISION

Recently received from the United States Geological Survey were 3,700 microfilm copies of topographic survey field and office compu