Washington’s ‘hall of history’ gets a rare makeover
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Visitors in the rotunda at the Capitol in Washington.
PHOTO: TIERNEY L. CROSS/NYTIMES
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Jennifer Schuessler
WASHINGTON – For the first time in nearly 75 years, the United States National Archives will have a new look. The nation’s “hall of history” has permanently expanded the collection within its grand rotunda in Washington.
The original documents ending slavery and granting women the right to vote have joined the Declaration of Independence – a historic reshuffle timed to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday in July.
After logistical delays and leadership changes during the Donald Trump administration, the Emancipation Proclamation and the 19th Amendment were quietly installed on March 27 in new marble cases a few steps away from the Declaration, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The installation arrived with no public fanfare – a deliberate soft launch, according to National Archives Foundation chief executive Patrick Madden. The quiet opening allows the foundation, which raised roughly US$3 million (S$3.8 million) for the project, to evaluate conservation needs and manage the flow of the one million annual visitors to the rotunda.
Mr Madden said in an interview that traffic is moving smoothly and reactions have been positive.
“This space is inspirational, and designed to be,” he said of the rotunda, whose domed interior features allegorical murals of the US’ founding fathers.
“We all know that history isn’t static, and adding these iconic documents adds to the story about how our nation continues to progress.”
The additions were spearheaded in 2023 by Ms Colleen Shogan, then the archivist of the US. Together, she said in a statement at the time, the new documents would help tell “a more complete story of our nation’s ongoing pursuit of a more perfect union”.
The Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, in the middle of the Civil War, said that enslaved people in Confederate states “henceforward shall be free”.
The 19th Amendment, adopted in 1920, said that states could not limit voting based on sex, laying a constitutional foundation for women’s equal voting rights.
Visitors looking at the original copy of the 19th Amendment at the National Archives in Washington. The Amendment secured women's rights to vote.
PHOTO: TIERNEY L. CROSS/NYTIMES
Adding something new to the rotunda is no small task. The Declaration and Constitution arrived under military escort in 1952, following a long negotiation with the Library of Congress, their former custodian.
The marble-clad cases for the Emancipation Proclamation and the 19th Amendment, which weigh more than 2,260kg each, were hauled in with help from a crane.
The brass frames were cast from the same moulds used for the cases of the Declaration, Constitution and Bill of Rights. Inside, the documents are nested in an airtight case with humidity controls, inside a second case that regulates temperature.
In the past, the documents have been brought out for shorter periods, including an annual display of the Emancipation Proclamation for Juneteenth, a federal holiday on June 19 that commemorates the ending of slavery.
“That is probably the one document where I’ve seen people have an emotional reaction to seeing the actual document,” Mr Madden said.
A visitor views the original copy of the 19th Amendment at the National Archives in Washington on March 30.
PHOTO: TIERNEY L. CROSS/NYTIMES
In a recent farewell e-mail to archives employees, Mr James Byron, who was appointed by President Trump to run the archives on a day-to-day basis, hailed “enormous progress towards a more efficient, effective, and mission-focused National Archives”.
He also praised initiatives like the release of hundreds of thousands of documents relating to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
Mr Byron made no reference to the addition of the Emancipation Proclamation or the 19th Amendment to the rotunda. But he did highlight another project for the 250th anniversary: The Freedom Plane, a special Boeing 737 that is taking nine priceless documents from the Founding Era to institutions across the country.
The Freedom Plane exhibition, currently at the Atlanta History Center, has drawn long lines. Historians say that the response shows a widespread hunger for history, which does not begin and end with the events of 1776. That was the year the US transitioned from being 13 British colonies to a self-declared independent nation.
Harvard professor Annette Gordon-Reed, current president of the Organization of American Historians, said the new additions to the rotunda emphasise the living nature of the Declaration.
“The Declaration has been a vehicle for extending full citizenship rights to Americans who did not possess them in 1776,” she said. NYTIMES
