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130-490: Against Equality is an anti-capitalist collective of radical queer and trans writers, thinkers, and artists. AE maintains an online archive of written work and cultural references. AE has also self-published three anthologies that highlight work from the three sections of their online archive. These three anthologies were combined into a single book and was published by AK Press in April 2014. AE published its first book in

260-713: A bachelor's degree —increasingly repositories list advanced degrees (e.g. MA, MLS/MLIS, Ph.D.) and certifications as a position requirement or preference. In the UK, the National Archives (formerly known as the Public Record Office) is the government archive for England and Wales . The physical records stored by the National Archives amount to 185 km (115 miles) of shelving, a number that increases every year. The English Heritage Archive

390-577: A lower house based on population; and the Senate , an upper house based on equal representation for each state. Federalism provides substantial autonomy to the 50 states, while the country's political culture promotes liberty , equality , individualism , personal autonomy , and limited government . One of the world's most developed countries , the United States has had the largest nominal GDP since about 1890 and accounted for over 15% of

520-580: A " Special Relationship " with the United Kingdom and strong ties with Canada , Australia , New Zealand , the Philippines , Japan , South Korea , Israel , and several European Union countries ( France , Italy , Germany , Spain , and Poland ). The U.S. works closely with its NATO allies on military and national security issues, and with countries in the Americas through

650-683: A basis for nations to build their own standards. In the United States, ISAD (G) is implemented through Describing Archives: A Content Standard , popularly known as "DACS". In Canada, ISAD (G) is implemented through the Council of Archives as the Rules for Archival Description , also known as "RAD". ISO is currently working on standards. The cultural property stored in archives is threatened by natural disasters, wars, or other emergencies in many countries. International partners for archives are UNESCO and Blue Shield International , in accordance with

780-615: A body such as the American Library Association ). Subject-area specialization becomes more common in higher-ranking positions. Archives located in for-profit institutions are usually those owned by a private business. Examples of prominent business archives in the United States include Coca-Cola (which also owns the separate museum World of Coca-Cola ), Procter and Gamble , Motorola Heritage Services and Archives, and Levi Strauss & Co. These corporate archives maintain historic documents and items related to

910-542: A coordinated, continent-wide military effort. Finally, deteriorating relations between the British military establishment and the colonists, relations that were already less than positive, set the stage for further distrust and dislike of British troops. Following their victory in the French and Indian War, Britain began to assert greater control over local colonial affairs, resulting in colonial political resistance ; one of

1040-534: A decentralized government that operated until 1789. After the British surrender at the siege of Yorktown in 1781 American sovereignty was internationally recognized by the Treaty of Paris (1783), through which the U.S. gained territory stretching west to the Mississippi River, north to present-day Canada, and south to Spanish Florida . The Northwest Ordinance (1787) established the precedent by which

1170-407: A few prominent industrialists , largely by their formation of trusts and monopolies to prevent competition. Tycoons led the nation's expansion in the railroad , petroleum , and steel industries. The United States emerged as a pioneer of the automotive industry . These changes were accompanied by significant increases in economic inequality , slum conditions , and social unrest , creating

1300-638: A founding member of the World Bank , Organization of American States , NATO , and the United Nations , as well as a permanent member of the UN Security Council . The first documented use of the phrase "United States of America" is a letter from January 2, 1776. Stephen Moylan , a Continental Army aide to General George Washington , wrote to Joseph Reed , Washington's aide-de-camp , seeking to go "with full and ample powers from

1430-555: A government archive, and frequent users include reporters , genealogists , writers, historians , students, and people seeking information on the history of their home or region. Many government archives are open to the public, and no appointment is required to visit. In the United States, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) maintains central archival facilities in the District of Columbia and College Park, Maryland , with regional facilities distributed throughout

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1560-755: A number of European organizations, including the European Commission, choose to deposit their archives with the European University Institute in Florence. A prominent church archive is the Vatican Apostolic Archive . Archdioceses , dioceses , and parishes also have archives in the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches. Very important are monastery archives because of their antiquity, like

1690-598: A period of heightened, overt racism following Reconstruction, a time often called the nadir of American race relations . A series of Supreme Court decisions, including Plessy v. Ferguson , emptied the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of their force, allowing Jim Crow laws in the South to remain unchecked, sundown towns in the Midwest, and segregation in communities across the country , which would be reinforced by

1820-826: A product of regular legal, commercial, administrative, or social activities. They have been metaphorically defined as "the secretions of an organism", and are distinguished from documents that have been consciously written or created to communicate a particular message to posterity. In general, archives consist of records that have been selected for permanent or long-term preservation on the grounds of their enduring cultural, historical, or evidentiary value. Archival records are normally unpublished and almost always unique, unlike books or magazines, of which many identical copies may exist. This means that archives are quite distinct from libraries with regard to their functions and organization, although archival collections can often be found within library buildings. A person who works in archives

1950-488: A prominent leader in the early 1960s. The Great Society plan of President Lyndon Johnson 's administration resulted in groundbreaking and broad-reaching laws, policies and a constitutional amendment to counteract some of the worst effects of lingering institutional racism . The counterculture movement in the U.S. brought significant social changes, including the liberalization of attitudes toward recreational drug use and sexuality . It also encouraged open defiance of

2080-526: A sense of manifest destiny . The Missouri Compromise attempted to balance the desire of northern states to prevent the expansion of slavery into new territories with that of southern states to extend it, admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. It further prohibited slavery in all other lands of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36°30′ parallel . As Americans expanded further into land inhabited by Native Americans,

2210-614: A sense of American identity as well. Men who otherwise never left their own colony now traveled across the continent to fight alongside men from decidedly different backgrounds but who were no less "American". British officers trained American officers for battle, most notably George Washington ; these officers would lend their skills and expertise to the colonists' cause during the American Revolutionary War to come. In addition, colonial legislatures and officials found it necessary to cooperate intensively in pursuit of

2340-632: A status solidified after its involvement in World War I . After Japan 's attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the U.S. entered World War II . Its aftermath left the U.S. and the Soviet Union as the world's two superpowers and led to the Cold War , during which both countries struggled for ideological dominance and international influence . Following the Soviet Union's collapse and

2470-550: A tendency to prioritize tangible items over ephemeral experiences, actions, effects, and even bodies. This type of potentially biased prioritization may be seen as a form of privileging particular types of knowledge or interpreting certain experiences as more valid than others, limiting the content available to archive users, leading to barriers in accessing information, and potentially alienating under-represented and/or marginalized populations and their epistemologies and ontologies . As Omnia El Shakry shows, dealing with destruction

2600-582: A three-in-one anthology titled Against Equality: Queer Revolution, Not Mere Inclusion in March 2014 that combines the collective's previous three anthologies and includes a new introduction from the collective. Members of the Against Equality collective have also traveled extensively to speak at bookstores, community spaces, colleges, and universities across the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Archive An archive

2730-401: A year). Juvenile correctional facilities are operated by local or state governments and serve as longer-term placements for any minor adjudicated as delinquent and ordered by a judge to be confined. As of January 2023, the United States has the sixth-highest per capita incarceration rate in the world—531 people per 100,000 inhabitants—and the largest prison and jail population in

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2860-634: Is a challenge central to decolonial historiography. When faced with a lack of archival documents, historians resort to different sources and methods. For example, due to the lack of a Palestinian state archive, many historians of Nakba had to rely on sources in the Israeli state's archives. As a result of this perceived under-representation, some activists are making efforts to decolonize contemporary archival institutions that may employ hegemonic and white supremacist practices by implementing subversive alternatives such as anarchiving or counter-archiving with

2990-477: Is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organization's lifetime, and are kept to show the history and function of that person or organization. Professional archivists and historians generally understand archives to be records that have been naturally and necessarily generated as

3120-504: Is being created. Archives in colleges, universities, and other educational facilities are typically housed within a library, and duties may be carried out by an archivist . Academic archives exist to preserve institutional history and serve the academic community. An academic archive may contain materials such as the institution's administrative records, personal and professional papers of former professors and presidents, memorabilia related to school organizations and activities, and items

3250-591: Is believed to be the first widespread culture in the Americas. Over time, indigenous North American cultures grew increasingly sophisticated, and some, such as the Mississippian culture , developed agriculture , architecture , and complex societies . In the post-archaic period , the Mississippian cultures were located in the midwestern , eastern , and southern regions, and the Algonquian in

3380-531: Is called an archivist . The study and practice of organizing, preserving, and providing access to information and materials in archives is called archival science . The physical place of storage can be referred to as an archive (more usual in the United Kingdom ), an archives (more usual in the United States ), or a repository. The computing use of the term "archive" should not be confused with

3510-551: Is kept on reels of specially developed film in a steel vault buried deep beneath the permafrost , with the data storage medium expected to last for 500 to 1000 years. The International Council on Archives (ICA) has developed a number of standards on archival description, including the General International Standard Archival Description ISAD(G). ISAD (G) is meant to be used in conjunction with national standards or as

3640-498: Is known as the presidential system , in contrast to the parliamentary system , where the executive is part of the legislative body. Many countries around the world imitated this aspect of the 1789 Constitution of the United States , especially in the Americas. The Constitution is silent on political parties. However, they developed independently in the 18th century with the Federalist and Anti-Federalist parties. Since then,

3770-438: Is now the United States experienced conflicts with Native Americans, they also engaged in trade, exchanging European tools for food and animal pelts. Relations ranged from close cooperation to warfare and massacres. The colonial authorities often pursued policies that forced Native Americans to adopt European lifestyles, including conversion to Christianity. Along the eastern seaboard, settlers trafficked African slaves through

3900-552: Is the federal agency charged with addressing most environmental-related issues . The idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since 1964, with the Wilderness Act . The Endangered Species Act of 1973 provides a way to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service implements and enforces the Act. In 2024, the U.S. ranked 34th among 180 countries in

4030-702: Is the public archive of English Heritage . The National Records of Scotland , located in Edinburgh , serves that country; while the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland in Belfast is the government archive for Northern Ireland. A network of county record offices and other local authority-run archives exists throughout England, Wales, and Scotland and holds many important collections, including local government, landed estates, church, and business records. Many archives have contributed catalogs to

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4160-603: The Allies of World War I , helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers . In 1920, a constitutional amendment granted nationwide women's suffrage . During the 1920s and '30s, radio for mass communication and the invention of early television transformed communications nationwide. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 triggered the Great Depression , which President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded to with

4290-671: The Association of European Film Archives and Cinematheques is an affiliation of 49 European national and regional film archives founded in 1991. For a comprehensive look at the history of film preservation and the institutions and organizations that developed various practices, see Penelope Houston 's Keepers of the Frame. Non-profit archives include those in historical societies , not-for-profit businesses such as hospitals, and repositories within foundations . Such repositories are typically set up with private funds from donors to preserve

4420-553: The Atlantic slave trade . The original Thirteen Colonies that would later found the United States were administered as possessions of Great Britain , and had local governments with elections open to most white male property owners . The colonial population grew rapidly, eclipsing Native American populations; by the 1770s, the natural increase of the population was such that only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas. The colonies' distance from Britain allowed for

4550-549: The Environmental Performance Index . The country joined the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2016 and has many other environmental commitments. The United States is a federal republic of 50 states and a separate federal capital district, Washington, D.C. It also asserts sovereignty over five unincorporated territories and several uninhabited island possessions . The U.S. is

4680-500: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have national jurisdiction and specialized duties, such as protecting civil rights , national security and enforcing U.S. federal courts ' rulings and federal laws. State courts conduct most civil and criminal trials, and federal courts handle designated crimes and appeals of state court decisions . There is no unified "criminal justice system" in

4810-620: The French Revolution . The French National Archives , which possess perhaps the largest archival collection in the world (with records going as far back as 625 A.D.), was created in 1790 during the Revolution from various government, religious, and private archives seized by the revolutionaries. In 1883, French archivist Gabriel Richou published the first Western text on archival theory, entitled Traité théorique et pratique des archives publiques ( Treaty of Theory and Practice of

4940-720: The Great Lakes , Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico . British colonization of the East Coast began with the Virginia Colony (1607) and Plymouth Colony (1620). The Mayflower Compact and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established precedents for representative self-governance and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies. While European settlers in what

5070-719: The Great Lakes region and along the Eastern Seaboard , while the Hohokam culture and Ancestral Puebloans inhabited the southwest . Native population estimates of what is now the United States before the arrival of European immigrants range from around 500,000 to nearly 10 million. Christopher Columbus began exploring the Caribbean for Spain in 1492, leading to Spanish-speaking settlements and missions from Puerto Rico and Florida to New Mexico and California . France established its own settlements along

5200-596: The Midwest . At the same time, about one million French Canadians migrated from Quebec to New England . During the Great Migration , millions of African Americans left the rural South for urban areas in the North. Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867. The Compromise of 1877 effectively ended Reconstruction and white supremacists took local control of Southern politics . African Americans endured

5330-625: The National Overseas Archives (ANOM, 36.5 kilometres (22.7 mi) of physical records), the National Archives of the World of Labour  [ fr ] (ANMT, 49.8 kilometres (30.9 mi) of physical records), and all local public archives (departmental archives, or archives départementales , located in the préfectures of each of the 100 départements of France plus the City of Paris, more than 400 municipal archives in

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5460-688: The National Park Service and other agencies. About 28% of the country's land is publicly owned and federally managed, primarily in the Western States . Most of this land is protected , though some is leased for commercial use, and less than one percent is used for military purposes. Environmental issues in the United States include debates on non-renewable resources and nuclear energy , air and water pollution , biodiversity , logging and deforestation , and climate change . The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

5590-544: The New Deal , a series of sweeping programs and public works projects combined with financial reforms and regulations . All were intended to protect against future economic depressions. Initially neutral during World War II , the U.S. began supplying war materiel to the Allies of World War II in March 1941 and entered the war in December after the Empire of Japan 's attack on Pearl Harbor . The U.S. developed

5720-778: The Organization of American States and the United States–Mexico–Canada Free Trade Agreement . In South America, Colombia is traditionally considered to be the closest ally of the United States. The U.S. exercises full international defense authority and responsibility for Micronesia , the Marshall Islands , and Palau through the Compact of Free Association . It has increasingly conducted strategic cooperation with India , but its ties with China have steadily deteriorated. Since 2014,

5850-648: The Pentium microprocessor in accordance with Moore's law , rechargeable lithium-ion batteries , the first gene therapy trial, and cloning either emerged in the U.S. or were improved upon there. The Human Genome Project was formally launched in 1990, while Nasdaq became the first stock market in the United States to trade online in 1998. In the Gulf War of 1991, an American-led international coalition of states expelled an Iraqi invasion force that had occupied neighboring Kuwait . The September 11 attacks on

5980-591: The Spanish–American War . (The Philippines was granted full independence from the U.S. on July 4, 1946, following World War II. Puerto Rico and Guam have remained U.S. territories.) American Samoa was acquired by the United States in 1900 after the Second Samoan Civil War . The U.S. Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917. The United States entered World War I alongside

6110-623: The United States ( U.S. ) or America , is a country primarily located in North America . It is a federal union of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the states of Alaska to the northwest and the archipelagic Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean . The United States also asserts sovereignty over five major island territories and various uninhabited islands . The country has

6240-648: The cotton gin made the institution increasingly profitable for Southern elites . This sectional conflict regarding slavery culminated in the American Civil War (1861–1865). Eleven slave states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America , while the other states remained in the Union . War broke out in April 1861 after the Confederates bombarded Fort Sumter . After

6370-523: The end of the Cold War in 1991, the U.S. emerged as the world's sole superpower , wielding significant geopolitical influence globally . The U.S. national government is a presidential constitutional federal republic and liberal democracy with three separate branches : legislative , executive , and judicial . It has a bicameral national legislature composed of the House of Representatives ,

6500-537: The fall of communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union , which marked the end of the Cold War and left the United States as the world's sole superpower . The 1990s saw the longest recorded economic expansion in American history , a dramatic decline in U.S. crime rates , and advances in technology . Throughout this decade, technological innovations such as the World Wide Web , the evolution of

6630-400: The global economy in 2023. It possesses by far the largest amount of wealth of any country and has the highest disposable household income per capita among OECD countries. The U.S. ranks among the world's highest in economic competitiveness , productivity , innovation , human rights , and higher education . Its hard power and cultural influence have a global reach. The U.S. is

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6760-813: The 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord , igniting the American Revolutionary War . At the Second Continental Congress , the colonies appointed George Washington commander-in-chief of the Continental Army , and created a committee that named Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence . Two days after passing the Lee Resolution to create an independent nation the Declaration

6890-466: The 2010s, political polarization in the country increased between liberal and conservative factions. This polarization was capitalized upon in the January 2021 Capitol attack , when a mob of insurrectionists entered the U.S. Capitol and sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in an attempted self-coup d'état . The United States is the world's third-largest country by total area behind Russia and Canada. The 48 contiguous states and

7020-426: The American West have an alpine climate . The climate is arid in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California , and oceanic in coastal Oregon , Washington , and southern Alaska . Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar . Hawaii , the southern tip of Florida and U.S. territories in the Caribbean and Pacific are tropical . States bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of

7150-433: The California State Prison System describe what happened to them. The archive's mission is to gather stories from women who want to express themselves and want their stories heard. This collection includes transcripts and an audio recording of the women telling their stories. The archives of an individual may include letters, papers, photographs, computer files, scrapbooks, financial records, or diaries created or collected by

7280-420: The Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The term "United States" and the initialism "U.S.", used as nouns or as adjectives in English, are common short names for the country. The initialism "USA", a noun, is also common. "United States" and "U.S." are the established terms throughout the U.S. federal government , with prescribed rules. In English, the term "America" rarely refers to topics unrelated to

7410-404: The District of Columbia occupy a combined area of 3,119,885 square miles (8,080,470 km ). The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way to inland forests and rolling hills in the Piedmont plateau region. The Appalachian Mountains and the Adirondack massif separate the East Coast from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest . The Mississippi River System ,

7540-458: The Elder concluded that major military resources needed to be devoted to North America to win the war against France. For the first time, the continent became one of the main theaters of what could be termed a " world war ". The British colonies' position as an integral part of the British Empire became more apparent during the war, with British military and civilian officials becoming a more significant presence in American life. The war increased

7670-494: The Greek word is ἀρχή ( arkhē ), meaning among other things "magistracy, office, government", and derived from the verb ἄρχω ( arkhō ), meaning "to begin, rule, govern" (also the root of English words such as "anarchy" and "monarchy"). The word archive was first attested in English in the early 17th century, and the word archivist in the mid-18th century, although in these periods both terms were usually used only in reference to foreign institutions and personnel. Not until

7800-406: The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property from 1954 and its 2nd Protocol from 1999. From a national and international perspective, there are many collaborations between archives and local Blue Shield organizations to ensure the sustainable existence of cultural property storage facilities. In addition to working with United Nations peacekeeping in the event of war, the protection of

7930-465: The January 1863 Emancipation Proclamation , many freed slaves joined the Union army . The war began to turn in the Union's favor following the 1863 Siege of Vicksburg and Battle of Gettysburg , and the Confederacy surrendered in 1865 after the Union's victory in the Battle of Appomattox Court House . The Reconstruction era followed the war. After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln , Reconstruction Amendments were passed to protect

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8060-401: The Public Archives ), in which he systematized the archival theory of the respect des fonds , first published by Natalis de Wailly in 1841. Historians, genealogists , lawyers, demographers , filmmakers, and others conduct research at archives. The research process at each archive is unique and depends upon the institution that houses the archive. While there are many kinds of archives,

8190-476: The Rocky Mountains, the Yellowstone Caldera , is the continent's largest volcanic feature. In 2021, the United States had 8% of global permanent meadows and pastures and 10% of cropland. With its large size and geographic variety, the United States includes most climate types. East of the 100th meridian , the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south. The western Great Plains are semi-arid . Many mountainous areas of

8320-451: The U.S. has become a key ally of Ukraine ; it has also provided the country with significant military equipment and other support in response to Russia's 2022 invasion . The president is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces and appoints its leaders, the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff . The Department of Defense , which is headquartered at the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., administers five of

8450-661: The U.S. territories." Despite disparate systems of confinement, four main institutions dominate: federal prisons , state prisons , local jails, and juvenile correctional facilities . Federal prisons are run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and hold people who have been convicted of federal crimes, including pretrial detainees. State prisons, run by the official department of correction of each state, hold sentenced people serving prison time (usually longer than one year) for felony offenses. Local jails are county or municipal facilities that incarcerate defendants prior to trial; they also hold those serving short sentences (typically under

8580-469: The United Methodist Archives and History Center of the United Methodist Church, and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Film archives collect, restore, investigate and conserve audiovisual content like films, documentaries, tv programs and newsreel footage. Often, a country has its own film archive to preserve its national audiovisual heritage. The International Federation of Film Archives comprises more than 150 institutions in over 77 countries and

8710-416: The United States and the peaceful transfer of power , respectively. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 from France nearly doubled the territory of the United States. Lingering issues with Britain remained , leading to the War of 1812 , which was fought to a draw. Spain ceded Florida and its Gulf Coast territory in 1819. In the late 18th century, American settlers began to expand westward , many with

8840-541: The United States entered the Cold War, where geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union led the two countries to dominate world affairs . The U.S. utilized the policy of containment to limit the USSR's sphere of influence, and prevailed in the Space Race , which culminated with the first crewed Moon landing in 1969. Domestically, the U.S. experienced economic growth , urbanization , and population growth following World War II . The civil rights movement emerged, with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming

8970-495: The United States has operated as a de facto two-party system , though the parties in that system have been different at different times. The two main national parties are presently the Democratic and the Republican . The former is perceived as relatively liberal in its political platform while the latter is perceived as relatively conservative . In the American federal system , sovereign powers are shared between two levels of elected government: national and state. People in

9100-402: The United States in 2001 by the pan-Islamist militant organization al-Qaeda led to the war on terror , and subsequent military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq . The cultural impact of the attacks was profound and long-lasting. The U.S. housing bubble culminated in 2007 with the Great Recession , the largest economic contraction since the Great Depression. Coming to a head in

9230-415: The United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the Revolutionary War effort. The first known public usage is an anonymous essay published in the Williamsburg newspaper, The Virginia Gazette , on April 6, 1776. By June 1776, the "United States of America" appeared in the Articles of Confederation and the Declaration of Independence . The Second Continental Congress adopted

9360-593: The United States, despite the usage of "the Americas " as the totality of North and South America. "The States" is an established colloquial shortening of the name, used particularly from abroad; "stateside" is the corresponding adjective or adverb. The first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia across the Bering land bridge about 12,000 years ago; the Clovis culture , which appeared around 11,000 BC,

9490-624: The United States, except Iran , North Korea , and Bhutan . Though Taiwan does not have formal diplomatic relations with the U.S., it maintains close unofficial relations. The United States regularly supplies Taiwan with military equipment to deter potential Chinese aggression. Its geopolitical attention also turned to the Indo-Pacific when the United States joined the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with Australia, India, and Japan. The United States has

9620-540: The United States. Some city or local governments may have repositories, but their organization and accessibility vary widely. Similar to the library profession, certification requirements and education also varies widely, from state to state. Professional associations themselves encourage the need to professionalize. NARA offers the Certificate of Federal Records Management Training Program for professional development. The majority of state and local archives staff hold

9750-509: The United States. The American prison system is largely heterogenous, with thousands of relatively independent systems operating across federal, state, local, and tribal levels. In 2023, "these systems [held] almost 2 million people in 1,566 state prisons, 98 federal prisons, 3,116 local jails, 1,323 juvenile correctional facilities, 181 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian country jails, as well as in military prisons , civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in

9880-712: The University of Victoria , which contain a multitude of collections of donations from both individuals and organizations from all over the world. Many of these donations have yet to be cataloged but are currently in the process of being digitally preserved and made available to the public online. The Arctic World Archive is a commercially-run facility for data preservation located in the Svalbard archipelago, Norway, that contains data of historical and cultural interest from several countries as well as all of American multinational company GitHub 's open source code . The data

10010-725: The academic library wishes to remain in a closed-stack setting, such as rare books or thesis copies. Access to the collections in these archives is usually by prior appointment only; some have posted hours for making inquiries. Users of academic archives can be undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and staff, scholarly researchers, and the general public. Many academic archives work closely with alumni relations departments or other campus institutions to help raise funds for their library or school. Qualifications for employment may vary. Entry-level positions usually require an undergraduate diploma, but typically archivists hold graduate degrees in history or library science (preferably certified by

10140-462: The ancient Chinese, the ancient Greeks, and the ancient Romans (who called them Tabularia ). However, those archives have been lost since documents written on materials like papyrus and paper deteriorated relatively quickly, unlike their clay tablet counterparts. Archives of churches, kingdoms, and cities from the Middle Ages survive and have often kept their official status uninterruptedly to

10270-842: The archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs ( Diplomatic Archives  [ fr ] , ca. 120 kilometres (75 mi) of physical records) are managed separately by their respective ministries and do not fall under the jurisdiction of the Archives of France Administration. In India , the National Archives (NAI) are located in New Delhi. In Taiwan , the National Archives Administration are located in Taipei . Most intergovernmental organizations keep their own historical archives. However,

10400-441: The archives requires the creation of "no-strike lists", the linking of civil and military structures, and the training of local personnel. Archives that primarily contain physical artifacts and printed documents are increasingly shifting to digitizing items that did not originate digitally , which are then usually stored away. This allows for greater accessibility when using search tools and databases, as well as an increase in

10530-429: The availability of digitized materials from outside the physical parameters of an archive, but there may be an element of loss or disconnect when there are gaps in what items are made available digitally. Both physical and digital archives also generally have specific limitations regarding the types of content that are deemed able to be preserved, categorized, and archived. Conventional institutionalized archive spaces have

10660-457: The contiguous United States are in the State of California, about 84 miles (135 km) apart. At an elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190.5 m), Alaska's Denali is the highest peak in the country and continent. Active volcanoes are common throughout Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian Islands , and Hawaii consists of volcanic islands. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in

10790-556: The country's GDP. The U.S. has 42% of the world's nuclear weapons —the second-largest share after Russia. The United States has the third-largest combined armed forces in the world, behind the Chinese People's Liberation Army and Indian Armed Forces . The military operates about 800 bases and facilities abroad, and maintains deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries. State defense forces (SDFs) are military units that operate under

10920-469: The country's territory would expand with the admission of new states , rather than the expansion of existing states. The U.S. Constitution was drafted at the 1787 Constitutional Convention to overcome the limitations of the Articles. It went into effect in 1789, creating a federal republic governed by three separate branches that together ensured a system of checks and balances . George Washington

11050-713: The development of self-governance, and the First Great Awakening , a series of Christian revivals , fueled colonial interest in religious liberty . For a century, the American colonists had been providing their own troops and materiel in conflicts with indigenous peoples allied with Britain's colonial rivals , especially France, and the Americans had begun to develop a sense of self-defense and self-reliance separate from Britain. The French and Indian War (1754–1763) took on new significance for all North American colonists after Parliament under William Pitt

11180-414: The dispossession of native inhabitants . As more states were admitted , a North–South division over slavery led to the secession of the Confederate States of America , which fought states remaining in the Union in the 1861–1865 American Civil War . With the victory and preservation of the United States, slavery was abolished nationally . By 1900, the country had established itself as a great power ,

11310-555: The education required for a position at a non-profit archive varies with the demands of the collection's user base. Web archiving is the process of collecting portions of the World Wide Web and ensuring the collection is preserved in an archive, such as an archive site , for future researchers, historians, and the public. Due to the massive size of the Web, web archivists typically employ web crawlers for automated collection. Similarly, software code and documentation can be archived on

11440-580: The environment for labor unions to begin to flourish . This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive Era , which was characterized by significant reforms. Pro-American elements in Hawaii overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy ; the islands were annexed in 1898. That same year, Puerto Rico , the Philippines , and Guam were ceded to the U.S. by Spain after the latter's defeat in

11570-584: The fall of 2010. Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage contains essays and op-ed pieces by prominent queer thinkers, including Kate Bornstein , Eric A. Stanley, Dean Spade , Craig Willse, Kenyon Farrow , Kate Raphael, Deeg, John D'Emilio , Ryan Conrad, Yasmin Nair, MJ Kaufman, Katie Miles, and Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore . Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage ranked sixth on AK Press Distribution's Top 10 of 2010 list. A.E published

11700-541: The federal government often applied policies of Indian removal or assimilation . The Trail of Tears (1830–1850) was a U.S. government policy that forcibly removed and displaced most Native Americans living east of the Mississippi River to lands far to the west. These and earlier organized displacements prompted a long series of American Indian Wars west of the Mississippi. The Republic of Texas

11830-543: The first nuclear weapons and used them against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, ending the war. The United States was one of the " Four Policemen " who met to plan the post-war world , alongside the United Kingdom , Soviet Union , and China . The U.S. emerged relatively unscathed from the war, with even greater economic power and international political influence . After World War II,

11960-665: The first settlement of the Thirteen Colonies in Virginia in 1607. Clashes with the British Crown over taxation and political representation sparked the American Revolution , with the Second Continental Congress formally declaring independence on July 4, 1776. Following its victory in the 1775–1783 Revolutionary War , the country continued to expand westward across North America , resulting in

12090-470: The history and administration of their companies. Business archives serve the purpose of helping corporations maintain control over their brand by retaining memories of the company's past. Especially in business archives, records management is separate from the historical aspect of archives. Workers in these types of archives may have any combination of training and degrees, from either a history or library background. These archives are typically not open to

12220-482: The individual, regardless of medium or format. The archives of an organization (such as a corporation or government) tend to contain other types of records, such as administrative files, business records, memos, official correspondence, and meeting minutes. Some archives are made up of a compilation of both types of collections. An example of this type of combined compilation is the Transgender Archives at

12350-634: The inherent impermanence and gradual change of physical objects over time as a result of being handled. The concept of counter-archiving brings into question what tends to be considered archivable and what is therefore selected to be preserved within conventional contemporary archives. With the options available through counter-archiving, there is the potential to "challenge traditional conceptions of history" as they are perceived within contemporary archives, which creates space for narratives that are often not present in many archival materials. The unconventional nature of counter-archiving practices makes room for

12480-463: The integration of Army National Guard units and personnel into the U.S. Army and (since 1947) the U.S. Air Force. There are about 18,000 U.S. police agencies from local to national level in the United States. Law in the United States is mainly enforced by local police departments and sheriff departments in their municipal or county jurisdictions. The state police departments have authority in their respective state , and federal agencies such as

12610-546: The intention of making intersectional accessibility a priority for those who cannot or do not want to access contemporary archival institutions. An example of this is Morgan M. Page's description of disseminating transgender history directly to trans people through various social media and networking platforms like tumblr , Twitter , and Instagram , as well as via podcast . While the majority of archived materials are typically well conserved within their collections, anarchiving's attention to ephemerality also brings to light

12740-557: The larger towns and cities of France, and 12 newer regional archives) which possess 3,591 km (2,231 miles) of physical records and 225.25 terabytes of electronic archives (as of 2020 ). Put together, the total volume of archives under the supervision of the French Archives Administration is the largest in the world. The archives of the French Ministry of Armed Forces ( Defence Historical Service , ca. 450 kilometres (280 mi) of physical records) and

12870-657: The late 19th century did they begin to be used widely in domestic contexts. The adjective formed from archive is archival . The practice of keeping official documents is very old. Archaeologists have discovered archives of hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of clay tablets dating back to the third and second millennia BC in sites like Ebla , Mari , Amarna , Hattusas , Ugarit , and Pylos . These discoveries have been fundamental to learning about ancient alphabets, languages, literature, and politics. Oral literature, such as Palestinian hikaye , can also have archival functions for communities. Archives were well developed by

13000-405: The maintenance of ephemeral qualities contained within certain historically significant experiences, performances, and personally or culturally relevant stories that do not typically have a space in conventional archives. The practices of anarchiving and counter-archiving are both rooted in social justice work. United States The United States of America ( USA ), commonly known as

13130-482: The military draft (leading to the end of conscription in 1973) and wide opposition to U.S. intervention in Vietnam (with the U.S. totally withdrawing in 1975). A societal shift in the roles of women was significantly responsible for the large increase in female paid labor participation during the 1970s, and by 1985 the majority of American women aged 16 and older were employed. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw

13260-612: The most attractive to the population are the most vulnerable. The U.S. is one of 17 megadiverse countries containing large numbers of endemic species : about 17,000 species of vascular plants occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska, and over 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland. The United States is home to 428 mammal species, 784 birds, 311 reptiles, 295 amphibians , and around 91,000 insect species. There are 63 national parks , and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas , managed by

13390-484: The most basic principles of archival science may have an archive. In the 2004 census of archivists taken in the United States, 2.7% of archivists were employed in institutions that defied categorization. This was a separate figure from the 1.3% that identified themselves as self-employed. Another type of archive is the Public Secrets project. This is an interactive testimonial, in which women incarcerated in

13520-411: The most recent census of archivists in the United States identifies five major types: academic , business (for profit) , government , non-profit , and others . There are also four main areas of inquiry involved with archives: material technologies, organizing principles, geographic locations, and tangled embodiments of humans and non-humans. These areas help to further categorize what kind of archive

13650-662: The most violent, the California genocide of thousands of Native inhabitants, lasted into the early 1870s, just as additional western territories and states were created. During the colonial period, slavery had been legal in the American colonies , though the practice began to be significantly questioned during the American Revolution. States in the North enacted abolition laws , though support for slavery strengthened in Southern states , as inventions such as

13780-595: The national " Access to Archives " program and online searching across collections is possible. In France, the French Archives Administration ( Service interministériel des Archives de France ) in the Ministry of Culture supervises the National Archives ( Archives nationales ), which possess 373 km (232 miles) of physical records as of 2020 (the total length of occupied shelves put next to each other), with original records going as far back as A.D. 625, and 74.75 terabytes (74,750 GB ) of electronic archives, as well as

13910-668: The ones of Monte Cassino , Saint Gall , and Fulda . The records in these archives include manuscripts, papal records, local church records, photographs, oral histories, audiovisual materials, and architectural drawings. Most Protestant denominations have archives as well, including the Presbyterian Historical Society , the Moravian Church Archives, the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives,

14040-525: The papers and histories of specific people or places. These institutions may rely on grant funding from the government as well as private funds. Depending on the availability of funds, non-profit archives may be as small as the historical society in a rural town to as big as a state historical society that rivals a government archive. Users of this type of archive may vary as much as the institutions that hold it. Employees of non-profit archives may be professional archivists, paraprofessionals , or volunteers, as

14170-408: The policy of redlining later adopted by the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation . An explosion of technological advancement accompanied by the exploitation of cheap immigrant labor led to rapid economic expansion during the late 19th and early 20th centuries , allowing the United States to outpace the economies of England, France, and Germany combined. This fostered the amassing of power by

14300-481: The present. They are the basic tools for historical research on this period. England, after 1066, developed archives and archival access methods. The Swiss developed archival systems after 1450. The first predecessors of archival science in the West are Jacob von Rammingen's manuals of 1571. and Baldassarre Bonifacio 's De Archivis libris singularis of 1632. Modern archival thinking has some roots dating back to

14430-574: The primary colonial grievances was a denial of their rights as Englishmen , particularly the right to representation in the British government that taxed them . To demonstrate their dissatisfaction and resolve, the First Continental Congress met in 1774 and passed the Continental Association , a colonial boycott of British goods that proved effective. The British attempt to then disarm the colonists resulted in

14560-426: The public and are only used by workers of the owner company, though some allow approved visitors by appointment. Business archives are concerned with maintaining the integrity of their company and are therefore selective about how their materials may be used. Government archives include those maintained by local and state governments as well as those maintained by the national (or federal) government. Anyone may use

14690-651: The record-keeping meaning of the term. The English word archive / ˈ ɑːr k aɪ v / is derived from the French archives (plural), and in turn from Latin archīum or archīvum , the romanized form of the Greek ἀρχεῖον ( arkheion ). The Greek term originally referred to the home or dwelling of the Archon , a ruler or chief magistrate , in which important official state documents were filed and interpreted; from there its meaning broadened to encompass such concepts as " town hall " and " public records ". The root of

14820-570: The rights of African Americans . National infrastructure, including transcontinental telegraph and railroads , spurred growth in the American frontier . From 1865 through 1917 an unprecedented stream of immigrants arrived in the United States, including 24.4 million from Europe. Most came through the port of New York City , and New York City and other large cities on the East Coast became home to large Jewish , Irish , and Italian populations, while many Germans and Central Europeans moved to

14950-614: The rocky Great Basin and Chihuahua , Sonoran , and Mojave deserts. In the northwest corner of Arizona , carved by the Colorado River over millions of years, is the Grand Canyon , a steep-sided canyon and popular tourist destination known for its overwhelming visual size and intricate, colorful landscape. The Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast . The lowest and highest points in

15080-496: The second book, Against Equality: Don't Ask to Fight Their Wars , in the fall of 2011 and contains a collection of essays and illustrations critiquing the mainstream gay and lesbian politics and its uncritical approach to Don't ask, don't tell . Contributors include Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore , Kenyon Farrow, Cecilia Cissell Lucas, Yasmin Nair, Erica Meiners, Therese Quinn, Tamara K. Nopper, Larry Goldsmith, Jamal Rashad Jones, Bill Andriette , and illustrator Mr. Fish. AE published

15210-573: The six service branches, which are made up of the U.S. Army , Marine Corps , Navy , Air Force , and Space Force . The Coast Guard is administered by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and can be transferred to the Department of the Navy in wartime. The United States spent $ 916 billion on its military in 2023, which is by far the largest amount of any country , making up 37% of global military spending and accounting for 3.4% of

15340-545: The sole authority of a state government. SDFs are authorized by state and federal law but are under the command of the state's governor . They are distinct from the state's National Guard units in that they cannot become federalized entities. A state's National Guard personnel, however, may be federalized under the National Defense Act Amendments of 1933 , which created the Guard and provides for

15470-543: The states are also represented by local elected governments , which are administrative divisions of the states. States are subdivided into counties or county equivalents , and further divided into municipalities . The District of Columbia is a federal district containing the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C. . The federal district is an administrative division of the federal government. Federally recognized tribes govern 326 Indian reservations . The United States has an established structure of foreign relations, and it has

15600-510: The structure and responsibilities of the national federal government and its relationship with the individual states. The U.S. Constitution is the world's oldest national constitution still in effect (from March 4, 1789). Composed of three branches, all headquartered in Washington, D.C., the federal government is the national government of the United States. It is regulated by a strong system of checks and balances . The three-branch system

15730-513: The third and final book in its trilogy , Against Equality: Prisons Will Not Protect You , in the fall of 2012. This book focuses on hate crime law and the prison industrial complex . Contributors include Dean Spade , Jason Lydon, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project , Liliana Segura, Jack Aponte, Yasmin Nair, Imani Keith Henry, Sébastien Barraud, Erica Meiners, Liam Michaud, Josh Pavan, and Bridget Simpson. AK Press released

15860-547: The web, as with the example of CPAN . Some archives defy categorization. There are tribal archives within the Native American nations in North America, and there are archives that exist within the papers of private individuals. Many museums keep archives in order to prove the provenance of their pieces. Any institution or persons wishing to keep their significant papers in an organized fashion that employs

15990-582: The world's fourth-longest river system , runs predominantly north–south through the heart of the country. The flat and fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast. The Rocky Mountains , west of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, peaking at over 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado . Farther west are

16120-583: The world's second-largest diplomatic corps as of 2024 . It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council , and home to the United Nations headquarters . The United States is a member of the G7 , G20 , and OECD intergovernmental organizations. Almost all countries have embassies and many have consulates (official representatives) in the country. Likewise, nearly all countries host formal diplomatic missions with

16250-461: The world's third-largest land area , largest exclusive economic zone , and third-largest population , exceeding 334 million. Its three largest metropolitan areas are New York , Los Angeles , and Chicago , and its three most populous states are California , Texas , and Florida . Paleo-Indians migrated across the Bering land bridge more than 12,000 years ago, and formed various civilizations and societies . British colonization led to

16380-444: The world's oldest surviving federation, and its presidential system of national government has been adopted, in whole or in part, by many newly independent states worldwide following their decolonization . It is a liberal representative democracy "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law ". The Constitution of the United States serves as the country's supreme legal document , also establishing

16510-553: The world's tornadoes occur in the country , mainly in Tornado Alley . Overall, the United States receives more high-impact extreme weather incidents than any other country. Extreme weather became more frequent in the U.S. in the 21st century, with three times the number of reported heat waves as in the 1960s. In the American Southwest , droughts became more persistent and more severe. The regions considered as

16640-575: Was annexed in 1845, and the 1846 Oregon Treaty led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest . Victory in the Mexican–American War resulted in the 1848 Mexican Cession of California, Nevada, Utah, and much of present-day Colorado and the American Southwest . The California gold rush of 1848–1849 spurred a huge migration of white settlers to the Pacific coast, leading to even more confrontations with Native populations. One of

16770-759: Was adopted on July 4, 1776. The political values of the American Revolution included liberty , inalienable individual rights ; and the sovereignty of the people ; supporting republicanism and rejecting monarchy , aristocracy , and all hereditary political power; civic virtue ; and vilification of political corruption . The Founding Fathers of the United States , who included Washington, Jefferson, John Adams , Benjamin Franklin , Alexander Hamilton , John Jay , James Madison , Thomas Paine , and many others, were inspired by Greco-Roman , Renaissance , and Enlightenment philosophies and ideas. The Articles of Confederation were ratified in 1781 and established

16900-583: Was elected the country's first president under the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791 to allay skeptics' concerns about the power of the more centralized government. His resignation as commander-in-chief after the Revolutionary War and his later refusal to run for a third term as the country's first president established a precedent for the supremacy of civil authority in

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