Serving as the Senate's institutional memory, the Historical Office collects and provides information on important events, precedents, dates, statistics, and historical comparisons of current and past Senate activities for use by members and staff, the media, scholars, and the general public. The office develops and maintains all historical material on the Senate website, produces publications covering various aspects of Senate history, and provides educational outreach through email and Twitter.
The office advises senators and committees on cost-effective disposition of their non-current office files, assists researchers seeking access to Senate records, and maintains information detailing locations of former members' papers.
It conducts oral history interviews with retired senators and senior Senate staff and keeps extensive biographical and bibliographical information on former senators. A collection of more than 30,000 Senate-related photographs and other illustrations is available for research and publication use.
The United States Senate, An Institutional Bibliography: More than 600 citations to books, articles, and government documents printed since 1789.
About the United States Senate Archives: Information about official Senate records as well as private paper collections of former senators. Includes Reports of the Advisory Committee on the Records of Congress.
For help with research questions, contact the Senate Historical Office by email at historian@sec.senate.gov, or by phone at 202-224-6900. For questions about historical images, contact the Senate Photo Historian at photo_historian@sec.senate.gov.
