Welcome to the Archives Center 

Important Announcement!

The Archives Center will be moving temporarily during the Spring of 2012 to a smaller space to accommodate a major renovation of the National Museum of American History building. We will continue to provide reference service during this period (2012–2014), although the limited space and move of our collections to off-site storage will impact capacity and response time.

On-site reference services will be available in our small temporary reading room on the first floor of the National Museum of American History. Seating will be very limited. Researchers must make appointments well in advance of planned visits. We also strongly urge all researchers to contact the Archives Center to discuss their research needs prior to scheduling an appointment and visiting so that we can ensure space and collections availability.

We will post new information about the move and our new facilities as it becomes available.

For further details, please contact the Archives Center’s reference desk at 202-633-3270 or at archivescenter@si.edu

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The Archives Center supports the mission of the National Museum of American History by preserving and providing access to documentary evidence.

The Archives Center's collections complement the Museum's artifacts and are used for scholarly research, exhibitions, publications, documentary productions, school programs, and other research and educational activities.

The Archives Center holds more than 1,200 collections which are stored in the American History building and at off-site storage locations. In addition to paper-based textual records, many Center collections contain photographs, motion picture films, videotapes, and sound recordings.

The topics of technology, advertising, and music offer one way to categorize the Archives Center's varied holdings, but the collections are rich in important historical themes and topics that cut across these lines.  For example, collections in each category are sources for understanding the roles and activities of women in the American past.  Many Archives Center collections document entrepreneurial activity in which invention and marketing are inextricably linked.  The creation of nationally recognized brands and corporate identities and commercial depictions of gender, ethnicity, and other cultural categories are well represented in the holdings.

With few exceptions, Archives Center collections are acquired by donation, often in conjunction with the acquisition of related artifacts and in collaboration with the Museum's curatorial staff.  Documentation projects -- including oral and video histories -- actively create new research collections.  The Museum's ability to acquire and care for artifacts and archival materials in all physical formats and to generate contemporary documentation gives it a unique capacity to record the complexity and richness of the American experience.

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