The Kitchen Sisters Present

“From the very beginning the intent was that the American people needed to be able to access the records so that we would be able to hold the government accountable for its actions.” - David FerrieroDuring the first Trump administration, when access to certain websites and information was being threatened, we started our Keepers series about activist archivists, rogue librarians, historians, collectors, curators — protectors of the culture and the free flow of information and ideas. Today our national librarians and archivists are being fired, our museums are being threatened, our journalists are being hampered, and truth and transparency is once again under attack.In 2017, we talked with David Ferriero, the 10th Archivist of the United States, about the the beginnings of the National Archives under Franklin Roosevelt and its purpose. Ferriero tells of early keepers like Stephen Pleasonton, a brave civil servant who saved the Constitution and Declaration of Independence as the British burned Washington during