The Historian of the United States Senate heads the United States Senate Historical Office, which was created in 1975 to record and preserve historical information about the United States Senate

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

. The current Historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 of the Senate is Donald A. Ritchie

Donald A. Ritchie

Donald A. Ritchie is the Historian of the United States Senate.He graduated from the City College of New York and received a Master's Degree and Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps, 1969–1971.He was responsible for editing the closed hearing...

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Purpose

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 advises senators and committees on cost-effective disposition of their non-current office files, assists researchers seeking access to Senate records, and maintains automated information databases detailing locations of former members' papers.

It conducts oral history interviews with retired senior Senate staff and keeps extensive biographical and bibliographical information on former senators. Many of these interviews are available on the Senate website. A collection of more than thirty thousand Senate-related photographs and other illustrations is available for research and publication use. The Historical Office and its staff has also produced numerous publications through the years, covering all aspects of Senate history.

External links

• http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/reference/a_three_sections_with_teasers/biblio.htm
• http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/Senate_Historical_Office.htm