10 THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY , HISTORICAL RECORDS: THEIR LACK OF CARE AND RESTORATION After viewing the wonderful restoration of Williamsburg, Va.j one whose chief occupation for the past thirty-four years has been the care and preservation of historical books, newspapers, maps and manuscripts, is moved to call attention to the deplorable condition of such documents in almost every repository, for without them, restoration work of this magnitude would be impossible. To this day there is no national archives building, although one has been advocated and urged for the past twenty-five years. While New York State has a Division of Archives and History, as part of its Education Department, its hands are tied for lack of an appropriation to take adequate care of its records. Twenty years have passed since the disastrous fire in the State capitol destroyed so many of the State's records. Those that were salvaged^—for the most part with edges burned and otherwise charred—remain to this day either in packages or in cardboard boxes, practically impossible to handle without loss of some part of them, and, therefore, not available for use. Before the development of the public library system—which concerned itself but little with the care of historical documents in its early years—the historical societies were the only repositories for such material. In 1789, immediately after the adoption of the Federal Constitution and the inauguration of George Washington as first President of the United States, the Massachusetts Historical Society at Boston was organized. This was followed in 1804 by The New York Historical Society; in 1812 by the American Antiquarian Society; in 1823 by the New Hampshire Historical Society; in 1824 by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and so on, until to-day we have historical societies and kindred organizations in almost every community—all interested in the preservation of memorabilia. In these early organizations great quantities of original records are to be found in urgent need of attention. Research work makes constant calls on these papers> and their continuous handling, before they are properly prepared for it, has a deteriorating effect