Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Research Reports, ca. 1936-1970
Finding Aid by Janet S. Ayres and Jennifer L. Rawlings
March 2001
INTRODUCTION TO THE COLLECTION
The Secretary of the Interior, through the National Park Service, was instructed by Executive Order of the President on December 21, 1935, to acquire 38 city blocks within the City of St. Louis at and near the site of Old St. Louis and to develop and preserve it as Jefferson National Expansion Memorial under the terms of the Historic Buildings and Sites Act of August 21, 1935. Under the terms of this Act, the Secretary of the Interior, through the National Park Service, was given the power to, and instructed to, secure and preserve drawings, photographs, and other data of historic and archeological sites and buildings. He was further instructed to make a survey of the historic and archaeological sites and buildings and to make necessary investigations relating to particular sites and buildings to obtain accurate information concerning them.
This collection began as a series of reports generated about those sites and buildings. It now consists of more than 250 reports that deal with a wide variety of subjects ranging from information about specific buildings to biographies of historical personalities; from the study of architecture in St. Louis to methods used to construct sod houses; from projections of cost estimates for the entire JNEM to the role of Native Americans in westward expansion; from weather data to a study of plant life to be considered for inclusion in the Memorial area. The subjects are as diverse as a project of the magnitude of building the memorial would indicate.
These reports were written by dozens of people and range in length from one or two pages to hundreds of pages. The reports were written during the 1930's through the 1990's. Over 350 photographs, mostly in the form of photostatic copies, are sprinkled throughout the collection. Several reports include maps, scale drawings, or other visual materials pertinent to the report's subject matter. Numbered reports were assigned numbers arbitrarily and are arranged numerically. Unnumbered reports are arranged alphabetically. Capitalization is inconsistent throughout the various reports and the inconsistencies in this finding aid reflect the usage in the original documents.
Information obtained from this collection must be properly cited, whether used in publication or in other formats. A citation suggested for this collection is:
National Park Service
Gateway Arch National Park Archives
Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Research Reports
Box__, Folder__
Researchers are advised that before records, photographs, and any other unpublished materials from this collection can be published or exhibited, permission from the National Park Service must be obtained in writing.
