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03/24/2026

In March of 1776, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John, who was in Philadelphia, attending the Continental Congress. She asked that when creating new laws, her husband would “...Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors.”

While Abigail hoped to hear that independence would be declared, she knew that a new government would not most likely bring much in the way of change for women.

Women of the time had no legal identity apart from their husbands. While Abigail’s own marriage was a happy one, she urged her husband to think carefully about the needs of women in forming the new government.

The NHPRC supports Founders Online, which currently hosts 1,287 letters written by Abigail Adams, as well as 1,602 of the letters written to her.

Read her full letter at Founders Online: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-01-02-0241

03/19/2026

Eleanor Roosevelt was a prolific traveller, covering 40,000 miles in her first year as First Lady! She would go on to visit all the states (then 48), and during her life she travelled to every continent except Antarctica.

She was also a prolific writer who covered a wide range of topics, both during her time as First Lady and afterward. She began writing her nationally syndicated newspaper column “My Day” in December 1935, and her last column was published just a few weeks before her death in 1962.

For two decades, the NHPRC supported the George Washington University’s Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project (ERPP). This project makes many of her writings available as both online and print editions.

You can explore her columns “My Day” and “If You Ask” Me on the website. In addition, papers from Roosevelt's post-White House political life are being published in a five-volume print edition.

Learn more: https://erpapers.columbian.gwu.edu/

Image: Eleanor Roosevelt in Bombay, India, on March 4, 1952. National Archives Identifier 195386 https://catalog.archives.gov/id/195386

03/17/2026

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, we’re highlighting the John Ireland Papers. These papers are located at the Minnesota Historical Society – but their story begins in the country of Ireland in 1838, with the birth of John Ireland.

Ireland arrived in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1852. Just a year later, he went to France to study to be a priest and was ordained in 1861.

Ireland returned to St. Paul, where he encouraged Irish immigrants to come to Minnesota and take up farming. During the Civil War, Ireland served as chaplain of the Fifth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

Ireland created or helped to create many religious and educational institutions in Minnesota, and he was a leader of the movement to establish the Catholic University of America, which opened in Washington, DC, in 1887. He would go on to become the first archbishop of St. Paul in 1888.

He died in St. Paul in 1918. His correspondence, sermons, speeches, and other papers are part of the holdings of the Minnesota Historical Society.

In 1979, the NHPRC awarded a grant to MHS for microfilm for preservation and publication of the papers of John Ireland, a microfilm edition of his papers. You can access the document here:https://storage.googleapis.com/mnhs-finding-aids-public/library/findaids/m0454.pdf

Learn more about John Ireland: https://www.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/person/ireland-john-1838-1918

Image: John Ireland, 1862. Photo by A. Larson. Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society

03/13/2026

Watch out for black cats, don’t walk under a ladder–and listen carefully for the beating of a tell-tale heart!

John Henry Ingram (1842–1916) was an English biographer and editor with a special interest in Edgar Allan Poe. Ingram hoped to rehabilitate Poe’s character and literary reputation by demolishing an uncomplimentary biography by Rufus W. Griswold.

His collection—magazine and newspaper articles, photographs, letters, documents (1817–1916), and an unpublished biography on Edgar Allan Poe—can be found at the Alderman Library of the University of Virginia. Poe attended UVA briefly as an undergraduate in 1826.

Also among these papers was the “Stella” daguerreotype, one of only eight known photographic plates of Edgar Allan Poe. In 1973, it was discovered the portrait had been stolen. The daguerreotype has never been recovered–a piece of very bad luck!

In the 1960s, the NPRC endorsed a project to make these records accessible through microfilm, along with a 31-page guide to the holdings.

You can read more about the Ingram, his life, and the collection here: https://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=uva-sc/viu00220.xml

Image: Daguerreotype known as the “Stella” portrait of Edgar Allen Poe, 1849. Courtesy of the University of Virginia Library.

03/12/2026

If you are in the Kansas City area, don't miss the exhibition! You can see founding-era documents from the US National Archives in downtown Kansas City through March 22, 2026.

The National WWI Museum and Memorial is just the first stop on the Freedom Plane tour. See the full itinerary here: https://freedomplane.org/

03/11/2026

Thanks to a grant from the NHPRC, the 172-box collection documenting the life of Dr. Tommie Brown was fully processed and opened shortly before Dr. Brown died, age 91, on January 20, 2026.

“It’s emotional to think about the finality of finishing something this large,” said Carolyn Runyon, director of Special Collections at UTC. “But the most important thing is that Dr. Brown’s papers are now part of the public dialogue. People can come here, open these boxes and learn directly from her life’s work. That’s the legacy she wanted.”

Researchers can now access Dr. Brown’s research, legislative records, correspondence, legal documents, photographs and personal papers.

Read the full article: https://blog.utc.edu/news/2026/02/utc-special-collections-completes-grant-funded-project-to-preserve-dr-tommie-browns-papers/

Image: Black-and-white photograph of (from left to right) an unidentified individual, Margaret Sloan-Hunter, Gloria Steinem, and Tommie F. Brown. Photo courtesy of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Special Collections.

03/02/2026

Go behind the scenes with Jessie Kratz, museum curator at the US National Archives, to learn about some of the original documents that will be travelling across the country as part of the Freedom Plane National Tour. The first stop is Kansas City, Missouri, where you can see the traveling exhibition at the National WWI Museum and Memorial, starting March 6.

Learn more at https://freedomplane.org/

National Archives Foundation National WWI Museum and Memorial

02/12/2026

In October of 1780, just two months before they were married, Alexander Hamilton wrote a love letter to Elizabeth Schuyler.

He concludes with a call for her to write more often, noting “Love is a sort of insanity and every thing I write savors strongly of it; that you return it is the best proof of your madness also.”

He also critiques his own letter writing: “...the truth is I am too much in love to be either reasonable or witty; I feel in the extreme…”

You can read the letter yourself and decide if he was too much in love to be reasonable or witty! The full transcription is available on Founders Online at
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-02-02-0902

Image: Animated writing over a pink envelope that reads “Love is a sort of insanity and every thing I write savors strongly of it; that you return it is the best proof of your madness also.” Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler

02/04/2026

Congress has restored funding of appropriated activities, and the National Archives has begun to restore normal operations. We are working to open to the public as soon as possible. Please check our website for updates.

02/02/2026

We’re sorry, but we will not be able to post updates to our social media channels during the government shutdown. All National Archives events– virtual or in person– are canceled until further notice. We will be unable to reply to messages or emails until the government reopens.

01/23/2026

In January of 1772, George Washington wrote about several days of accumulating snow! This weather event is now known as the "Washington and Jefferson Snow Storm" since both Washington and Thomas Jefferson recorded it in their diaries.

The storm left 3 feet of snow in central and northern Virginia and the Washington area--the largest snow for that area! It's not the record holder, however, since official weather records began after the Civil War.

You can read Washington's account of the snowstorm (starting January 27) on Founders Online: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/01-03-02-0002-0002

For more historic storms, scroll to the bottom of this page: https://www.weather.gov/lwx/winter_DC-Winters

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