 My name is Dr. Breanne Robertson, and I am an Education Specialist here at the National Archives in Washington, DC. It is my pleasure to welcome you today to the National Archives Young Learners Program. October is National Archives Month. In celebration of Archives Month, we have a very special guest, the 11th Archivist of the United States, Dr. Colleen Shogan. As Archivist of the United States, Dr. Shogan is responsible for leading the National Archives in keeping the records of our country safe and accessible for all, for showing the public how they can become a citizen archivist and helping our mission to improve access to the records that document our American story. Welcome, Dr. Shogan. Thank you for joining us today. How are you? I'm terrific. Very excited to be here today. Well, thank you again for joining us. So, as you know, our Young Learners Program has children of all ages. So, why don't we talk a little bit about what you do for your job? How did you become Archivist of the United States, and when did you start your work? I became Archivist of the United States only about five months ago, so I started the job in May of this year, and you become Archivist of the United States when the President selects you and picks you for the job. We use a term called nominate, and then the Senate, which is one House of Congress, has to vote to confirm you. And so, as soon as the Senate voted to confirm me, then I started the job just a few days later. So, can you tell me a little bit what is an archive? How is it different than, say, a library or a museum? Archives, libraries and museums, they're all very similar to each other. You might be most familiar with a library because you might have a public library card where you can go and check out books, or you might visit the library that's in your school where you can also do research or look at books that you prepare you for your classes. And so, libraries collect books. Museums largely collect artifacts or objects that are relevant to history. You might have been to a museum in a city, for example, you might have been able to see an Egyptian mummy, or maybe you were able to see old clothes that someone wore. And archives are like museums and libraries because we also collect things at archives. At archives, we collect records, really, which document the things that people did in history. And here at the National Archives, this is exactly what it says. It's the archives of the United States. So, we collect the documents and records of United States history. So, for our interview with you today, I should point out that we are sitting in the Archivist Reception Room. So, can you tell me a little bit more about your job? Your office is just down the hall from here. So, why do we have a reception room in this building and how do you use it for your work? So, we have a lot of people that work at the National Archives. We have close to 3,000 people that work in various buildings across the United States for the National Archives. And the reception room is really just a space that I can use where we can hold meetings, we can hold important breakfasts with people that come to visit or lunches. And sometimes in the evenings, when we do special programs here at the archives where people are speaking, then we have a little gathering, a little pre-party here in the Archivist Room. So, can you tell me a little bit more about the building that we're in, the National Archives building? So, the building that we're in, sometimes it's called Archives 1, but it's right on the National Mall, which is right near all the Smithsonian museums and many of the monuments you might be familiar with, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial. This building was built in 1935, and that was when Franklin Roosevelt was president of the United States. And it's kind of interesting, this building is situated halfway between the White House and the Capitol because that was symbolic, that was done for a reason to show that the National Archives would collect all of the records of government, would be accessible to the president, would also be accessible to Congress. There's a lot of interesting things about this building. One of the interesting things was the first building in Washington, D.C., to have air conditioning. And that's really important because here in Washington, D.C., we have very, very hot summers. And so it was important to have this building air conditioned. Not only for the people, but also for the records that we house here. Yeah, so speaking of records, let's talk about the other very important room that's in this building, the Rotunda. What is the significance of that space, and why should every family who comes to Washington, D.C., visit it? It's really a very special place within this building. It's probably the most important place within this building. It's where we house the three founding documents of the United States. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights. And these are documents from the very beginning of the United States as a democracy. The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, and that's viewed as the document that creates the United States because it declares the United States independence from Great Britain. And then the Constitution of the United States outlines our government and outlines our three branches of government, which of course the legislative branch, the executive branch, and the judiciary. And our Bill of Rights outlines some of the rights that we have here in the United States, like our freedom of speech, our right to petition the government, our freedom of assembly, our religion, and those are our first ten amendments to the Constitution. So those three documents together are really our three most important documents in American history, and that's the reason why to come to the National Archives to come and visit those documents and see them for yourself. Okay, so those three documents are really important. But how many documents does the National Archives have in its collection at large? Well, it's in the billions. It's hard to really think about it, but we have 13.5 billion pages of records here at the National Archives, 13.5 billion. We have over 33 billion electronic records or digital records here at the National Archives and over 700,000 objects, things that aren't just pieces of paper or photographs but actual objects. Okay, so I know that you of course are going to feel strongly about this, but tell me why is the National Archives important? Why do we need it to have a National Archives? Well, we need to have a National Archives so that we can understand American history. Not just for the people that live today who are listening to this today, but also for people yet to come, generations to come. And it's our way to preserve history and the way to engage with American history firsthand. So what is the best way then for students, do you think, to engage with our history? What's a good way for them to access our records? It's great if you can come here to visit us at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., but we realize that not everybody can come here and visit us. We also have presidential libraries all across the United States. So even if you're not close to Washington, D.C., you might live near a presidential library. You can engage with the National Archives at one of those museums, which is a lot of fun and learn about the history of a particular president. But even if you can't do that, you can go online to our website, and we have a lot of our records, millions and millions, hundreds of millions of our records online that have been digitized, and you can engage with them and examine them online. You can even look at a lot of the images of our records really close up. You can enlarge them so you can see a lot of the detail, the writing, some of the photographs and images if you want to look at them closer on your computer or on your tablet or even on your mom or dad's phone. So I'm glad you brought up the presidential libraries because the National Archives is across the nation. We have many facilities across our country. So you've been here a few months. Have you had a chance to visit any so far? Yes. So we have 42 locations all across the United States, including the building that we're sitting in today. And as I said, I've been in the job about five months, and I've been to close to 20 sites all across the United States, and I've gone to visit four of our presidential libraries. The presidential libraries of Lyndon Johnson, of Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Barack Obama. So I have nine more to go, and I'm really excited to start traveling again so I can visit those other presidential libraries. So you've shared some great information with us today. If you don't mind, I have a few questions from students that they've submitted to us. Sure. So this first question comes from Queens, New York. What is the coolest record in the National Archives? Okay, the coolest record in the National Archives. Well, it'd be hard not to say the Declaration of Independence because it is really our foundational document in the United States and it really sets out all the principles that our government is based on. So I would say that's probably our coolest record. All right, so another student has asked, how can I become the archivist of the United States? Well, to become the archivist of the United States, you can do exactly what I did, which is to study hard in school and learn as much as you can about American history because that's really important when you serve in my role, when you're in charge of all these different types of records from all over American history, all the way from 1776 to 2023. You have to know something about American history and so that's something to pay attention to and learn about. All right, so this question comes from a school in Texas. After watching the movie National Treasure, we want to know, is there anything written on the back of the Declaration of Independence? Well, I love the movie National Treasure and every time it's on television, I make sure that I watch it. So I love those characters in that movie. I have had the chance to look at the back of the Declaration of Independence and unfortunately there's not a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence, but there is some writing. It says, Original Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1776. So there was some writing on the back of it, probably to verify that that was the date that the Declaration was issued. So with that date in mind, it's 2023 now and in a few years the Declaration is actually going to be turning 250 years old, 2026. What plans does the National Archives have to celebrate that? Well, we're going to have a lot of fun because that's going to be our birthday. We're going to celebrate it like our birthday, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration and of course the 250th birthday of the United States. We're going to have the National Archives open as much as possible that summer, in some cases maybe 24 hours so you can come and view the Declaration at midnight or very early in the morning which will be very exciting and we're going to have a lot of programs for kids. We want to have a competition, something maybe a poetry competition where we can have kids all across the country get very involved, learn more about the Declaration of Independence in particular, about the history of the United States and get really creative in expressing themselves about it. That sounds great, can't wait. All right, this question comes from a student in St. Louis. What is the best part of your job? The best part of my job, I'd say there's two things that I really enjoy about my job in particular. One is being able to view all kinds of different records from all across the United States and from all different time periods in American history and seeing new things every day and learning new things every day. So I really enjoy that and the second thing that I enjoy is working with everybody who is employed here at the National Archives because I'm not the only person who works here at the National Archives. We have, as I said before, close to 3,000 other people all across the United States that work at the National Archives and every time I go out and visit a new location I get to meet new and interesting people every day. So that's a very exciting part of my job. Well, so another person, actually this maybe segue is to that exact thing, maybe you've already answered it, but another student did ask what is the best part of your job? What is the best part of my job? Of the work. Of the work, of the work. Well, I get to meet new and interesting people all the time. I think, you know, for me, for someone who's curious about American history, I really think the best part of my job is being able to see American history actually in action. So it's one thing to read about American history if you take, you know, if you're in a history or social studies class, it's one thing to read about the things that happen, it's another thing to actually see what happened, see it in our records, in our letters, in the things that presidents have written over time, that have changed American history, like the Emancipation Proclamation being able to see that, not just see it online, but see it actually in person, that really makes history come alive. So what advice do you have for young women who are interested in history and may want to pursue it? I think it's very important to, once again, you always have to study hard and pay attention in school, but when you're in school and you're learning in all your classes, you know, I mentioned social studies and history, and when you get a little bit older, classes in American government and civics, but it's really important when you're in those classes to ask questions. Ask questions of your teacher when you don't understand something, participate in class, raise your hand and make your voice known, and then when some of your classmates say things that you might not understand or maybe that you don't always agree with, it's also important to question them as well in a polite way, but it's important to make your voice heard. And the more engaged you are, I think when you're in school, when you're in class, the better it will be for you and the more you'll get out of it. Great suggestions. So do you have a favorite document here yet? Well, I think my favorite document, I answered what I think the most important document probably is, which is the Declaration of Independence. One of my favorite documents is an amendment to the Constitution. These are times in which we've changed the Constitution, added new provisions to the Constitution, and in 1920, we added an amendment to the Constitution, which made it guaranteed women the right to vote. It's hard to believe, but before 1920, not all women in the United States had the right to vote in elections for President of the United States or for a member of Congress. And then the 19th Amendment changed that and guaranteed that in all elections women had the right to vote. And I think that was a really important change in American history. Yeah, hard to believe that was only just about 100 years ago. That's right. Okay, I have one final question. This is a question we ask of all of our young women programs. What advice do you, as 11th Archivist of the United States, have for our youth today? Well, I think there's a lot of things that you can do in your free time, especially these days. There's a lot of things that were available that weren't available when I was younger. You can spend time looking on the Internet. You can watch really fun, you know, videos on YouTube. There's a lot of fun programs you can watch on things like Netflix. So there's all kinds of options for things, for entertainment and to spend your time. But one of my suggestions is you can do all of those things and have fun. But another thing that you should think about doing is reading. It's really important to read. And it doesn't even matter so much what you read. Some people like to read, you know, stories that are fiction. Some people like to read history. Some people like to read books about mythology. Some people like to read comic books. It doesn't really even matter what you read, but it's important to get in the habit of reading. And if you do that, you will be very, very successful later on in life. Wonderful. It's good advice. Well, thank you for sharing your time with us today. It's been a pleasure speaking with you. Well, thank you. Yeah, thanks. And we hope that you can join us next month for the Young Learners program to learn about the Tuskegee Airmen with educator and reenactor John W. McCaskill.