The original Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln is in the holdings of the National Archives. To protect the document from light damage It is publicly displayed only a few days each year under extremely low light. In th...

5,505 views

A look inside the digitization labs at the National Archives, where a dedicated team of technicians uses state-of-the-art technology to preserve the Archives' remarkable holdings. Once digitized, the records are available to the public online. M...

1,941 views

"To the Brink: JFK and the Cuban Missile Crisis" was created by the National Archives and its John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum and made possible in part by the Foundation for the National Archives, the John F. Kennedy Library Founda...

5,111 views

The so-called "Fifth Page" of the US Constitution -- also known as the Transmittal Page -- has never been publicly displayed. On the 225th anniversary of the ratification of the US Constitution the Fifth Page was displayed at the National Archive...

622 views

Titanic documents in the National Archives reveal dramatic details of the ship's sinking. In this Inside the Vaults video short, Archives employees and volunteers discuss their favorite documents, including depositions of surviving passengers, blu...

5,169 views

On April 16, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the D.C. Emancipation Act, freeing enslaved persons in Washington, DC. Their owners were compensated by the U.S. Treasury Department. In this Inside the Vaults video short, Documentary A...

2,150 views

On August 28, 1963, photographer Rowland Scherman, working for the United States Information Agency (USIA), took a photograph which has become an iconic image of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. This Inside the Vaults video short foll...

9,141 views

Madam C.J. Walker, one of the great American entrepreneurs of the early 20th century, was born to former slaves and grew up in destitution. In this Inside the Vaults video short, her great-great granddaughter, A'Lelia Bundles, tells Madam Walker's...

9,050 views

On December 7, 1941, United States citizens were stunned by the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. This Inside the Vaults video short from the National Archives highlights the deck logs that chronicle the events of the attack from the point of view ...

3,640 views

This Inside the Vaults video short details fascinating but little-known items in the holdings of the National Archives, including the Polar Collection, the patent for the Eskimo Pie, and State Department cables concerning the abominable snowman. ...

3,530 views

This Inside the Vaults video short examines one of U.S. diplomat John Paton Davies' papers, showing primitive, childlike sketches whose meanings were unclear. It was later discovered that he drew them to try to communicate with indigenous Burmese ...

1,913 views

President Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address, known for its warnings about the growing power of the "military-industrial complex," was nearly two years in the making. This Inside the Vaults video short follows newly discovered papers revealin...

21,253 views

This Inside the Vaults video short features original documents illustrating the evolution of President John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address, including handwritten notes, drafts and JFK's reading copy of the speech. The JFK Presidential Library and ...

6,487 views

This Inside the Vaults video short highlights a letter written by President George Washington to his friend, Gov. Henry Lee of Virginia, on July 3, 1792. In the letter, Washington turns down the request of the artist William Williams, who wished t...

2,979 views

Three days after the Watergate break-in on June 17, 1972, President Richard Nixon and his chief of staff H.R. "Bob" Haldeman met in the Executive Office Building to discuss the incident. This Inside the Vaults video short examines the famous 18 ½ ...

8,026 views

Magna Carta, during conservation treatment at the National Archives, revealed previously illegible writing through ultra-violet photography. This Inside the Vaults video short follows the National Archives' senior conservators Terry Boone and Morg...

6,029 views

In this Inside the Vaults video short, see Magna Carta housed in a new state-of-the-art encasement, machined at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for the National Archives. The encasement, which sits on a unique cart design...

5,390 views

The Conservation Lab at the National Archives is one of the world's premier document preservation laboratories. In this Inside the Vaults video short, paper conservator Annie Wilker repairs an 18th-century illustrated family document, called a fra...

4,864 views

This Inside the Vaults video short tells the story of formerly missing letters between President Abraham Lincoln and Union surgeons that appeared in the auction catalogue of a rare documents dealer and were returned to the National Archives in 201...

2,784 views

This Inside the Vaults video short details the altering of an original Lincoln document by independent researcher Thomas Lowry. Lowry admitted that he smuggled a pen into the research room in the National Archives building in Washington, D.C., and...

16,241 views

During the 1860s and 70s Walt Whitman, one of America's greatest poets and writers, worked as a government clerk in Washington, D.C., spending much of that time in the Department of Justice. This Inside the Vaults video short features Kenneth Pric...

3,498 views

This video introduces Peter Schulman and his work as the first Legislative Archives Research Fellow at the National Archives. Shulman focuses specifically on his research concerning Congressional issues and steam ships.

139 views

The National Archives holds 1.28 million case files of pension applications from family members of deceased Civil War Union soldiers. This Inside the Vaults video short follows a team of more than sixty volunteers, led by National Archives staff, ...

6,171 views

Immigration records at the National Archives tell the story of people entering America's gates — and in some cases being turned away. In this Inside the Vaults video short, senior curator Bruce Bustard and exhibit designer Ray Ruskin present their...

1,294 views

This is Inside the Vaults video short looks at some of the items on display at the "What's Cooking, Uncle Sam?" exhibit on display at the National Archives in 2011. The documents show the government's involvement in the American diet, as well as t...

2,982 views

In this Inside the Vaults video short, Archivist of the United States David Ferriero interviews Robert Roper, author of "Now the Drum of War," a history of the Whitman family during the Civil War. Roper writes about Walt Whitman and his relationsh...

246 views

This Inside the Vaults video short follows the history of Winslow Homer's Civil War-era painting "Near Andersonville." Archivist of the United States David Ferriero speaks with Peter Wood, emeritus professor of history at Duke University, about Wo...

848 views

This Inside the Vaults video short looks at the work of The First Federal Congress Project, an effort by scholars at The George Washington University to collect every scrap of paper associated with the First Congress of the United States. The F...

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In this Inside the Vaults video short, Chief of Reference at the National Archives Trevor Plante literally takes viewers inside the Archives vaults to see some of his favorite rarely-displayed documents. They include: • The original text of the "V...

10,006 views

This Inside the Vaults video short features Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero as he discusses public contributions to the National Archives. He encourages independent researchers to be "citizen archivists," becoming involved in the ...

3,080 views

The original Nuremberg Laws — signed by Hitler in 1935 — were accessioned to the National Archives from the Huntington Library on August 25, 2010. This Inside the Vaults video short tells the story of the infamous document's journey to the Nationa...

8,688 views

In this Inside the Vaults video short, Prologue staff writer Rob Crotty describes the journey of eight Army airmen as they set out in 1924 to be the first humans to ever circle the globe by air. On their flight over Arctic mountain passes and vast...

1,424 views

This Inside the Vaults video short looks at some of the most important and interesting documents in The Tully Archive, a collection of original FDR-related papers and memorabilia that had been in the possession of the President's last personal sec...

3,413 views

The original Declaration of Independence is on display in the Rotunda of the National Archives. In this Inside the Vaults video short, supervisory conservator Catherine Nicholson discusses the conservation treatment and re-encasement of the docume...

22,419 views

This Inside the Vaults video short illustrates the primary purpose of the National Military Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, MO — to preserve the nation's military personnel files in perpetuity and to make them available to veterans and othe...

7,248 views

Every four years the Federal Register — part of the National Archives and Records Administration — administers the Electoral College. The Federal Register informs the governments of the fifty states and the District of Columbia what is required t...

4,533 views

This Inside the Vaults video short tells the story of the African-American congregation of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church of Atlanta, who petitioned the U.S. Congress for compensation after the Civil War. The church was burned to the groun...

2,068 views

The original Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln is in the holdings of the National Archives. To protect the document from light damage It is publicly displayed only a few days each year under extremely low light. In th...

5,505 views