The National Archives at New York City
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NEW! Professional Development Workshops and Student Field Trips

  • New! The National Archives at New York City offers a variety of educational programs for teachers and students of all ages. Learn more

National History Day 2010, Innovation in History

  • New! The National Archives at New York City is offering programs to help students and teachers create National History Day projects. Our brochure also includes suggested topics from our holdings. Learn more

Contact Us

Christopher Zarr, Education Specialist

Educational Resources

The National Archives at New York City is a wonderful resource for teachers and students. Our 98,000 cubic feet of historical records can help teachers and students understand a variety of historical topics.

Resources for Educators

The National Archives supports educators throughout New York and New Jersey with FREE professional development workshops, educational materials, and research-based field trip experiences for your classroom. More on Education Programs at the National Archives at New York City.

FREE Professional Development Workshops

We currently offer a variety of workshops on topics that relate to the records of the National Archives. These workshop sessions are suitable for educators, student teachers, administrators, homeschooling parents.

  • Educational Resources of the National Archives
  • Primary Research at the National Archives (Half-Day or Full-Day)
  • Unlocking the Digital Vaults
  • Getting Ready for National History Day
  • Family History Research
  • Teaching with Documents Series:
    • Teaching with Documents: Archival Research and Document Analysis
    • Teaching with Documents: Using the U.S. Constitution
    • Teaching with Documents: Using Records Related to Civil Rights
    • Teaching with Documents: Using Court Records
    • Teaching with Documents: Using Immigration Records
    • Teaching with Documents: Using Maritime Records

These workshops are FREE and can be offered both on-site at our New York City facility and off-site at your school. We can also modify our workshops based on educational needs. Contact us to schedule a workshop for your educators' group with a focus on your topic of interest.

Unless noted, each workshop is 90 minutes and includes a tour of the entire facility including our archival stacks!

We also have partnership programs with:

  • Department of Education
  • Retired Teacher Organizations
  • Parent/Teacher Facilitators
  • Federal Agencies in New York City

FREE Educational Field Trips

The National Archives at New York City currently offers curriculum based field trips for students in grades K-12. These workshops include a hands-on research component, a tour of our archival facility, and an examination of original records in our holdings. These field trips can be adapted to fit your educational needs.

Workshops are scheduled upon request. Please contact us at newyork.archives@nara.gov well in advance to guarantee availability.
For more information about our current field trip options.

Our Documents and Curriculum Standards for New York and New Jersey

We have created CD-ROMs linking the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards and the New York Learning Standards to "Our Documents: 100 Milestone Documents", a collection of 100 essential documents from the National Archives holdings across the country. These CD-ROMs are free to anyone, but are designed especially for educators from New Jersey and New York. For more about Our Documents.

To receive your FREE copy of a Curriculum CD, please contact us at newyork.archives@nara.gov or toll free at 866-840-1752, and indicate which state you are interested in. Please provide your mailing address.

Research Topics of the National Archives at New York City

The records of the National Archives at New York City are available for anyone to research. With original records dating from the 1685 to the 1990s from over 100 Federal Agencies, countless stories of our national past can be found. In addition to our nearly 100,000 cubic feet of original records, our extensive microfilm collection and access to subscription online services enable teachers to bring historical eras to life.

For educators interested in researching a historical topic in some depth, contact us at newyork.archives@nara.gov.

In addition, if you have used records from the National Archives holdings in your classroom, and would like to share your lesson plan on our website, please contact us today.

For specific details about the range of topics and types of records available:

National History Day

National History Day is a nationwide competition for students in grades 6-12 to share their knowledge of a historical topic. Each state holds contests to determine which students will compete in the finals, held at the University of Maryland in College Park, MD. The National Archives at New York City provides "Getting Ready for National History Day" workshops to educate advisors and participants about researching archival records in person and online, the importance of primary source use, and finding materials from the holdings of the National Archives that match the current theme. We also help judge student contests throughout New York and New Jersey. Additionally, we award certificates for "Best Use of Primary Sources" to students in each contest.

See our brochure Getting Ready for National History Day - 2010, Using Resources From the National Archives - New York for information on the workshops and student research assistance we offer. The brochure also lists sample topics and records available for use at our facility related to the theme for National History Day 2010 -- Innovation in History: Impact and Change. Also, review the National Archives' Archival Research Catalog (ARC) listing of National History Day Topics in ARC for suggested areas of study from across the National Archives.

For more information on National History Day, see the National History Day website or contact National History Day's New Jersey State Coordinator or New York State Coordinator.

College and University Professors

We welcome visits from professors who want to learn more about our resources. Professors can bring their whole class along, too. National Archives staff can also visit your classroom.

Our college and university programs include:

  • Introduction to Archival Research and Document Analysis

    This workshop provides instruction on how to conduct research in an archive, as well as what sort of information is found in various Federal records and how to access that information, covering a variety of historical subjects. We offer this program upon request.

Additional Resources for Educators

If you want to request a topic that isn't listed, or to schedule a class visit, please contact our Education Specialist at newyork.archives@nara.gov or call us at (212) 401-1620, or toll-free at 1-866-840-1752. There are no admission or speaker fees.

Visit NARA's Digital Classroom for lesson plans on a variety of topics.



Resources For Students

A wealth of primary source material useful for many kinds of student research is found in the Federal documents located in the National Archives at New York City. Students can use these materials as the foundation for extensive research projects, as a resource for answering or illustrating specific questions, and for supplementing other sources.

Records of the National Archives at New York City

We have the records of regional offices of over 100 Federal agencies and the Federal courts located in New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands from 1685 to the 1990's. These records are especially useful for exploring regional aspects of historical events.

Typical types of federal records of the National Archives at New York City include:

  • Records about Individuals
    • Census Records
    • Tax Records
    • Draft Records
    • Naturalization Records
  • Administrative Records
    • Correspondence
    • Financial
    • Personnel
    • Shipyard
  • Records that Document an Action or Process
    • Collecting Customs Duties
    • Building a Ship
  • Records With Legal Value
    • Court Case Files
    • Contracts
    • Sale of Public Property Records (such as Former Nike Missile Sites)
    • Shipyard
  • Subjects of Local and National Interest
    • Federal Court cases including bankruptcy cases, patent infringement cases, War of 1812 and Civil War Prize cases, criminal cases, and other civil cases.
    • Court records related to organized crime, civil rights, the arts and censorship
    • Federal population Census records for all states, 1790-1930
    • Immigration records for Castle Garden and Ellis Island
    • Chinese Exclusion Act enforcement during the early 20th century
    • Records documenting the commerce and maritime activities of New York ports and ships, including the Titanic and Lusitania
    • Invention related records of Samuel Colt, Charles Goodyear, Alexander Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison
  • Historic Names in our Records
    • Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, Susan B. Anthony, Emma Goldman, Marcus Garvey, Adam Clayton Powell, Albert Einstein, Dutch Schultz, Jimmy Hoffa, Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, among many others.

For more information and ideas about topics that can be researched at NARA, see Research by Selected Topic

How to Find Materials for Research

  • Learn How to Get Started doing research at NARA facilities.

  • For help with concepts and terms unique to archival research, see Research Tips

  • See For the Public Access to Historical Documents, For an introduction to the kinds of archival materials located in New York.

  • Try browsing through Selected Finding Aids for the New York facility.

  • Use the Guide to Archival Holdings to see how the records are organized by Record Groups.

  • Search using NARA's online catalog, ARC.
    • Locate digitized historical documents and images of New York regional records in ARC.
      (Please note that ARC is not fully populated at this time and does not represent the entire holdings of any branch of NARA).

  • The archives staff can help. Call us at: 212-401-1620 or toll-free at 1-866-840-1752, or e-mail us at: newyork.archives@nara.gov. When contacting staff, please be ready to explain your topic, including the time period, geographic location, and what you hope to be able to find.

Additional Student Resources

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The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, MD 20740-6001
Telephone: 1-86-NARA-NARA or 1-866-272-6272