Government Documents
At the third annual meeting of the American Antiquarian
Society on October 24, 1814, Isaiah Thomas advised members that
"every measure that can be adopted to make the Society appear
respectable as a national institution must be desirable." To
achieve such stature, he suggested that members petition the
federal government "to send the laws of the national government to
be deposited and preserved in our library." Such action was taken,
and this is reflected in the daily accounts of the debates and
proceedings of the thirteenth Congress. On December 1, 1814,
Congress approved "Resolution 7: For furnishing the American
Antiquarian Society with a copy of the journals of Congress; and of
the documents published under their order." This special act of
Congress had the effect of making the Society the first depository
library in the United States for federal documents (other than the
Library of Congress).
Isaiah Thomas requested the legislatures of the several states
to make provisions for deposit of their publications at AAS.
Records from cities and towns were also solicited. Thomas' ambition
has been fulfilled; today the Society holds one of the nation's
finest collections of early American government documents.
The American State Papers and the nineteenth-century U.S.
Serial Set form the basic collection of federal documents. The
American State Papers contain reprints of the documents of the
first fourteen Congresses (1789-1817), arranged by subject class in
thirty-eight volumes; these are generally considered to be a part
of the Serial Set. The Sheep-Bound (so called because of its early
bindings) or Serial Set consists of congressional journals,
reports, and related internal publications; executive branch
material, including presidential messages and administrative
reports of departments and agencies; and miscellaneous documents
from independent bodies or commissions that were printed by order
of Congress. The Society's set is virtually complete through 1876
and reasonably complete to the end of the nineteenth century, and
in some instances, the set extends into the twentieth century.
There is a massive body of congressional material, as well as
annual reports and series publications from the Department of the
Interior and its many bureaus, the Smithsonian Institution, and the
Department of State, to name but a few. Miscellaneous sets issued
by acts of Congress for independent bodies include American
Archives (Washington, D.C., 1837-51), a documentary history of the
American Revolution edited by Peter Force; The War of the
Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and
Confederate Armies (Washington, D.C., 1880-1902), and M.C. Perry's
richly illustrated Narrative of the Expedition of an American
Squadron to the China Seas and Japan, Performed in the Years 1852,
1853, and 1854 (Washington, D.C., 1856).
As in most libraries, the serial set is arranged according to
the Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc) classification system.
This classification system is used as a method of identification in
SuDoc bibliographies and lists, as well as lists issued by various
government departments and agencies. Several partial indexes
provide access to documents in the set. The most important of
these for the Society's holdings is the Checklist of United States
Public Documents 1789-1909 (Washington, D.C. 1911), which is fully
annotated. Other major indexes to the nineteenth century serial
set include B.P. Poore's A Descriptive Catalogue of the Government
Publications of the United States, September 5, 1774-March 4, 1881
(Washington, D.C. 1885), A.W. Greely's Public Documents of the
First Fourteen Congresses 1789-1817 (Washington, D.C. 1900), and
J.G. Ames's Comprehensive Index to the Publication of the United
States Government 1881-1893 (Washington, D.C. 1905). The 1977
publication of the CIS U.S. Serial Set Index provides excellent
subject access to material in the set. The Society has part 1
(1789-1857) and part 2 (1857-1879) of the important finding aid,
published by the Congressional Information Service, Inc.
AAS also holds an impressive collection of separately issued
early federal documents. These include congressional journals,
committee reports, presidential messages, treaties, laws,
proclamations, and other official decrees. Those issued through
1830 are fully catalogued and are accessed through the Imprints
Catalogue or online under corporate main entry (United States), and
added entries and subject headings. Federal documents issued after
1830 have been catalogued selectively. Documents in the Broadsides
collection printed through 1830 are fully catalogued and may be
accessed online. Additionally, federal publications are found in
the Frost Collection, the Reserve Collection, and U.S. Records
Collection, 1777-1876, in the manuscripts department.
As a member of the depository library program, the Society
still selects some current documents from the List of Classes of
United States Government Publications Available for Selection by
Depository Libraries. While the number of classes selected for
deposit is small, the categories represent
the collecting interests of the Society in areas of history,
bibliography, and subjects in which it is already strong. Although
the selected classes cover a variety of government bodies, the
primary sources for these documents are the Department of the
Interior, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institution.
Since 1977, a shelflist of current depository items has been
maintained according to Superintendent of Document classification
numbers. Occasionally, current publications are catalogued and
integrated with the appropriate subject collection.
The Society has a representative selection of state and
municipal documents issued through 1876 from all regions of the
nation, and these provide an excellent body of material for historical
and early legal research. Publications from the New
England states, including legislative journals, session laws and
statutes, are nearly complete through 1820 in their original editions.
The Society holds many of the early laws and journals of
New York State, as well as regions of the South and West, such as
early acts and legislative journals of Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois,
and Indiana. State publications also include legislative
manuals, annual reports on agriculture, commerce, and
transportation, and various series publications such as that on the
natural
history of states.
The collection of municipal documents is especially strong for
New England, although partial holdings do exist from all regions
through 1876. There are municipal reports ranging from San
Francisco to Portland, Maine, and from St. Louis to New Orleans.
The Society has a fine collection of city and town ordinances and
codes for New England and the central states; original or early
editions of the charters of major cities; and a wide variety of
annual reports relating to local matters such as education, public
health, property assessments, crime, and recreation. Many
municipal documents contain lovely illustrations. For example, New
York City's Annual Report of the Board of Commissioners of the
Central Park has important information on the design, description,
and expenditures for the park, as well as superb plates of maps,
engravings, lithographs, and early photographs of Central Park and
its environs. The Society has a complete set of these fourteen
reports, which were issued from 1857 to 1871.
State and municipal documents issued through 1830 are
cataloged. Some state documents for the years 1831-1840 are also
cataloged. The online and card catalogs provide access to the
collection under appropriate jurisdiction (e.g., Connecticut;
Concord, Massachusetts; etc.), as well as access by added entries
and subject headings. These documents are integrated on the
shelves throughout the library in the same manner as the federal
documents. State and municipal publications issued after 1830 are
uncatalogued, except on a very selective basis.
There are no specific bibliographies to ease access to state
and municipal documents. State publications held by the Society
are partially annotated in The Catalogue of the Library of the Law
School of Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass., 1909). The
uncatalogued sets of state and municipal documents generally have
locally produced indexes to a particular series that are helpful in
locating specific items. For example, the volume of Boston City
Documents for 1875 includes a useful general subject index for
their publications issued from 1834 to 1874. When attempting to
locate any government documents, whether cataloged or uncataloged
on the national, state, or local levels, users should be certain to
consult with the staff of the readers' services department.
The Society continues to add to its preeminent collection of
early American documents. Although separately issued works are
scarce in today's market, AAS has recently acquired important
government publications. For example, in 1974 a generous gift from
Northeast Savings, formerly the First Federal Savings and Loan
Association of Worcester, Mass., enabled the Society to purchase
170 separately printed laws issued by the first four Congresses of
the United States. This rare collection of `slip laws' included
drafts of bills, texts of treaties, and proposed constitutional
amendments. Known as the First Federal Collection, this uncommon
group of working papers includes the first American copyright law,
the first printing of the `Bill of Rights,' the first federal law
regulating trade with the Indians, the first labor legislation, and
the first law establishing a uniform rule for naturalization of
citizens.
In effect, the Society serves as a depository for eighteenth-
and nineteenth-century government documents in a twenty-first-century
environment, much as Isaiah Thomas envisioned in 1814.
- Joanne Chaison, Research Librarian
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In addition to publishing bills, statutes, laws, journals, and other
official documents, the federal government issues scores of publications
different in nature, such as accounts of commissioned explorations and
expeditions. The lavishly illustrated Narrative of the Expedition of
an
American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan is one
example. Published
by order of the United States Congress in 1856, Commodore Matthew
C. Perry's three volume Narrative includes stunning lithographs,
such as
the examples seen here.
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For current information on the cataloging status of this and
other AAS collections, choose "Collection Access" below.
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