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History and Archives Division
The History and Archives Division (The Arizona State Archives), a division of the Arizona Secretary of State, is the archives for Arizona State Government. The State Archives is mandated by law to collect, preserve and make available to the public and all branches of government, permanent public records, historical manuscripts, photographs and other materials that contribute to the understanding of Arizona history. Records at the State Archives are available to the public in accordance with the Arizona Public Records Act and agency rules. All records are open for use except those specifically restricted by law. The Division offers reference assistance on-site, by telephone, mail or email.
The State Archives, located at the Polly Rosenbaum Archives and History building 1901 West Madison, Phoenix, AZ, is open Monday thru Friday.
Research at the Arizona State Archives
Projects
Archival Collections
Arizona Collection
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The Arizona Collection features many materials generally not available elsewhere. The book collection covers a wide range of subjects related to Arizona and the Southwest. Areas of strength include: Older Arizona history titles, Archaeology, Indians of Arizona, City & county budgets & audits, County materials (e.g. traffic safety studies), City directories, Arizona high school & college yearbooks, Bancroft’s Works (vols. 1-39), World Almanac (1894-present), Periodical collection (including many older editions from the Arizona Historical Review to Wrangler) and Biographical and subject vertical files including a separate collection relating to Arizona state legislators.
You may find most, but not all, of our books by searching our online library catalog. Additionally, you we have a list of our periodical titles and our holdings. |
Map Collections
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The Arizona State Archives contains approximately 32,000 maps of Arizona, dating from the 1860s to current. They include territorial maps dating from the 1860s, county and city maps dating from the 1890s, historic topographic maps and Sanborn Fire Insurance maps and Maricopa County plat maps up to 1959. Other collection strengths include: maps showing irrigation and urban development of the Salt River Valley, state highways, and railroad right-of-ways. The collection also houses maps distributed through the Federal Depository Library Program.
Many of our maps are cataloged. You may search for them using our online library catalog.
If you have any questions please contact our maps librarian. |
Photograph Collection
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The photograph collection
at the Arizona State Archives consists of 125,000 images. The photographs in the Arizona State Archives are located in state, county and local goverment records as well as in discrete photograph collections. Our digital
imaging program has resulted in the digitization of over 35,000 of those
images. Please visit our photograph search page. Please
visit our photograph webpage or visit the Arizona Memory Project |
Newspaper Collections
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The Arizona State Archives is home to the one of the largest collection of Arizona newspapers. A vast collection of over 500 titles on microfilm, the newspapers come from all over the state as well as a small collection of out of state newspapers from California, New Mexico, Colorado and Oklahoma.
Our oldest newspaper dates back to 1859 with some of our microfilm as current as last month of this year. We have an impressive amount of microfilm readers as well as reader printers available for public use and offer a quiet, relaxed environment ideal for research.
We also house an extensive collection of hardcopy newspapers including titles such as the Tombstone Epitaph and the Journal Miner of Prescott.
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