Historical Records Survey

The mission of the Historical Records Survey was to organize historical materials, especially unpublished government documents and records. Before the WPA's creation in 1935, there was no organized system for keeping public records. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) and the Civil Works Administration (CWA) began to remedy this as early as 1931 by employing clerks to sort, file, and copy local records, and in 1933 Alabama and Pennsylvania became the first states to organize record keeping, a venture that employed 135 women. A federal government committee soon drafted a plan for the cataloguing and archiving of American records, and in 1935, the Historical Records Survey was born.

Originally part of the Federal Writers' Project, it was organized in 1935 by Luther H. Evans and consisted of regional, state, and district subdivisions. Often projects were conducted with direction from the National Archives and Records Administration and state archive agencies. In addition, the HRS often worked with volunteer groups, like the Daughters of the American Revolution and others having an interest in local history and genealogy.

Staffed largely by out-of-work historians, teachers, clerical workers, and others skilled in the humanities, the Historical Records Survey completed many projects, including indexes of vital statistics, bibliographies, cemetery and newspaper indexes, the American Imprints Inventory, the Atlas of Congressional Roll Calls Project, a historical index of American musicians, surveys of portraits in public buildings, maritime records, a history of grazing, and Mormon diary transcripts. Newspapers reported on their discoveries, including a letter describing Benedict Arnold's treachery during the American Revolution and an unpublished poem believed to be penned by John Greenleaf Whittier. Many of the published findings were collected by Indiana University libraries.

The Historical Records Survey became a unit of the Research and Records Program in 1939, and after the WPA was discontinued in 1943, the work done by the Survey was passed on to state agencies, where it was often microfilmed and indexed and available for public use. However, because the program existed only a short while, a lot of the work was not published and remains unorganized in state and local record repositories.

Genealogy and the Historical Records Survey

Genealogists have found HRS census indexes and other records invaluable in researching their family histories. The USGenWeb Project, which is a major repository of genealogical information, is staffed by volunteers from every state who continue to visit their local agencies and obtain and update records initially created by the HRS and make them available to everyone via the Internet.

Soundex Coding

One large project undertaken by the Historical Records Survey was the encoding of U.S. Census records using Soundex, originally developed by Robert Russell and Margaret Odell in the early 20th century. Soundex is a system of indexing based on phonetics rather than the alphabet that enables users to locate surnames that may have been recorded under various spellings, thereby increasing the chances of uncovering all possible versions of a family name during a search.

Historical Records Survey workers used a variation of the original algorithm called American Soundex to encode census records from 1890 through 1920. The soundex code for a name consists of a letter followed by three numbers; the letter is the first letter of the surname, and the numbers encode the remaining consonants. The National Archives provides a detailed explanation of the soundex algorithm used in census records.

Selected Bibliography

Bruntjen, S. (1978). Source documents for American bibliography: Three "McMurtrie manuals". Halifax, N.S.: Dalhousie University, University Libraries-School of Library Service. ALF: Z1216 .B78

Child, S. B., Holmes, D. P., & Paquin, C. E. (1943). Check list of Historical Records Survey publications. Bibliography of research projects reports, 7th. Washington, D.C.: Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration, Division of Service Projects. ALF: FW 4.23:7

Hefner, L. L. (1980). The WPA Historical Records Survey: A guide to the unpublished inventories, indexes, and transcripts. Chicago: Society of American Archivists. ALF: Z1236 .H437

Illinois Historical Records Survey, & Rifkind, H. R. (1940). The Historical records survey and the political scientist. Lilly: CD3020 .H672

Noggle, B. (1981). Working with history: The Historical Records Survey in Louisiana and the nation, 1936-1942. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Wells: F369 .N63