Today’s post was written by David Langbart, archivist in Research Services at the National Archives at College Park, MD.
Until the mid-twentieth century, civilian personnel files as we now understand them did not exist. Nevertheless, there were some earlier records of a personnel-type that existed. Among them are the records relating to applications for service in agencies of the U.S. government. This type of file, which can be found in the records of multiple agencies, can be quite illuminating.
One of the largest such bodies of records is found in RG 59: General Records of the Department of State. The records constitute Entry A1-760: APPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PUBLIC OFFICE (NAID 594878) , and cover the years from 1797 to 1901. The records are arranged in chronological periods that roughly follow one or more Presidential administrations: 1797-1801, 1801-09 1809-17, 1817-25, 1825-29, 1829-36, 1836-45, 1845-53, 1853-61, 1861-69, 1869-77, 1877-85, 1885-93, 1893-97, and 1897-1901. Within each time block the files are arranged alphabetically by name of applicant. The applications and recommendations received during Washington’s administration are in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.
Over a period of years, the National Archives microfilmed the files covering the period 1797 to 1877. That microfilm has been digitized and is now available at no charge through the National Archives Catalog.
The records consist of letters received by or forwarded to the Department of State from applicants for positions in the government and from persons recommending them. These requests for appointment relate to almost every type of Federal office and came from every section of the country. There are applications for such positions as marshals, judges, and territorial officers; for diplomatic and consular positions; and for appointments outside the jurisdiction of the Department of State, particularly to positions in the War Department, the Navy Department, the Department of the Treasury, and the Post Office Department.
Most of the letters are addressed to the President or the Secretary of State, but some were addressed to Members of Congress, other Cabinet officers, state and local officials, and private citizens prominent in public affairs who referred them to the Department of State. Recommendations were received from personal friends of the President, their political supporters, Members of Congress, military commanders, officials of the executive branch of the Government, and the public. The descriptive pamphlet accompanying each publication describes the unique attributes of the related subset of files. You may link to those by clicking on the “Pub. No.” in the table that follows.
| Administrations | Dates | Pub. No. |
| John Adams | 1797-1801 | M406 |
| Thomas Jefferson | 1801-1809 | M418 |
| James Madison | 1809-1817 | M438 |
| James Monroe | 1817-1825 | M439 |
| John Quincy Adams | 1825-1829 | M531 |
| Andrew Jackson | 1829-1837 | M639 |
| Martin Van Buren, William H. Harrison, John Tyler | 1837-1845 | M687 |
| James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore | 1845-1853 | M873 |
| Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan | 1853-1861 | M967 |
| Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson | 1861-1869 | M650 |
| Ulysses S. Grant | 1869-1877 | M968 |
All the digitized microfilm has been placed in the Catalog under one overarching entry (Applications and Recommendations for Public Office, 1797–1901). To locate the digitized microfilm from a specific publication in the Catalog, do an “Advanced Search” in RG 59 using the publication number in quotation marks. You will likely get hits on other records with the same or similar numbers, but it will be easy enough to identify the Catalog entries that lead to the digitized microfilm of interest.
The records from subsequent administrations are arranged in the following time blocks. As noted above, those records were not microfilmed and have not been digitized. For more information about these files, contact the reference branch at the National Archives at College Park.
●1877-1885: Administrations of Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, and Chester Arthur
●1885-1893: Administrations of Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison
●1893-1897: Administration of Grover Cleveland
●1897-1901: Administration of William McKinley
Also in the National Archives is a later series of records: RG 59 Entry A1-764: APPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR APPOINTMENT TO THE CONSULAR AND DIPLOMATIC SERVICES, 1901-24 (NAID 657835). The records consist of case files of applications for appointment to the U.S. consular and diplomatic services. Included is a variety of documentation including letters of application and recommendation, application forms, birth certificates, statements of personal history, notices of examination, newspaper clippings, photographs, and other pertinent papers. Unlike the records noted above, these files relate almost exclusively to persons associated with the Department of State.
Official Personnel Folders (OPFs). OPFs for the Department of State fall under RG 146 and are part of the holdings at the National Archives at St. Louis. These files contain documentation as early as 1882, with several Service Record Card (SRC) series accompanying the series. The records are varied, including but not limited to, Standard Form 50s, applications, reports submitted by employees, letters, and personnel actions for positions ranging from foreign service to home office clerks. There are 1,227 linear feet of file-level textual records. The National Archives at St. Louis maintains executive branch federal agency OPFs prior to 1952. The National Personnel Record Center-Civilian Personnel Records Annex responds to requests for OPFs past 1951. Civilian personnel files after 1973 are not designated for permanent preservation in the National Archives.
BACKGROUND/GENERAL INFORMATION
The National Archives had an extensive program under which important and heavily used records were reproduced on National Archives Microfilm Publications. Microfilming accomplished two things. First, the resulting publications were (and are, as digitized copies) offered for sale, thus making the records more widely available to researchers. Second, since the original records were withdrawn from circulation, the microfilming aided in the preservation of the records. National Archives Microfilm Publications cover a wide range of subjects including foreign relations; justice and law enforcement; land issues; military and intelligence matters; relations with Native Americans, Black Americans, and other people of color; communications; and immigration.
NARA’s Office of Research Services is carrying out a major effort to systematically digitize microfilm publications in the Microfilm Library. The goal is to create a Digital Microfilm Reading Room – accessible to anyone, anywhere, any time via the National Archives Catalog. Commercial organizations such as Ancestry, Fold3, and FamilySearch have digitized some National Archives Microfilm Publications, either by scanning purchased copies of microfilm publications or through partnership agreements.
IMAGE QUALITY
Image quality varies across all of the microfilm publications, depending on the quality of both the records themselves and the original filming. The vendor with which the Archives worked made some image corrections to render the best image available, but this did not always lead to improvements in the images. The vendor provided comprehensive audits of every digitized microfilm roll and identified major issues with images. Research Services will use that information to target future efforts to digitize the original records.
ROLL-OUT
While some microfilm publications had been digitized earlier, the major project began in October 2020.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES CATALOG AVAILABILITY
As the images are uploaded, the Microfilm Catalog is modified to indicate that a publication is available digitally in the National Archives Catalog and include a direct link. Each microfilm publication will be described as a file unit and attached to the appropriate series description in the Catalog.
CITING THE ONLINE RECORDS
Full and accurate citations are necessary to properly identify the documents and other materials used in preparing books, articles, legal briefs, and other document-based works. Citing online resources presents unique challenges. The following guidance applies to the online records.
In general, a citation to documents from a series of records should include the full series title and other archival details about the records (record group number, entry number, etc.). Subsequent notes to the same series can be in the form of short-hand references, but should still include the key information. A good citation to the records must include several elements:
- Originator (“From”). The person sending the document.
- Addressee (“To”). The person to whom the document was sent.
- Date of document.
- File. The person in whose files the document is found.
- Entry No./Series title. Entry A1-760: Letters of Application and Recommendation for the [fill in the details from the specific publication title].
- Record group number and title. RG 59: General Records of the Department of State.
- Repository. U.S. National Archives.
- URL. Documents should never be cited using only the URL. While not useful for identifying the records, the citation can include a note in brackets containing the date on which the records were retrieved online.
Edited to include information about other instances of personnel files throughout the National Archives.