November 30, 1942
To THE HONORABLE

HALL OF RECORDS COMMISSION,
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND

Gentlemen:

The following report will give you as full an account as such reports
can of the activities of the Hall of Records for the fiscal year October
1, 1941 to September 30, 1942 which was the seventh year of its estab-
lishment. Annual reports for the first three years were submitted to
you in typescript by the late Dr. James A. Robertson. The report for
the fourth year was prepared by the present Archivist who took up
his duties at the Hall of Records June 16, 1939. The fifth and sixth
annual reports were the first to be printed and distributed to archival
agencies, university libraries and historical societies in Maryland and
elsewhere. This report will also be printed and distributed.

Like other institutions of similar nature throughout the country,
the Hall of Records has not escaped the impact of the war despite the
general misconception that such institutions are aloof from the hurly-
burly of present-day life. How the war has affected our work will be
indicated in detail in the body of this report. It will suffice here to
indicate the broad effects. First, the administrative duties of the
Archivist have been considerably multiplied due to the many changes in
staff membership, to the difficulties attendant upon the purchase of
supplies and to the inconveniences of travel. Fewer new records have
been acquired than last year primarily because it has been thought
better for the duration of the war not to concentrate vital records
any more than is absolutely necessary. In other cases, where local
records might benefit by being brought to the Hall of Records the
difficulties of travel and the necessity for administrative reasons of
being in Annapolis constantly have made it impossible for the Archivist
to continue our previously successful policy of propagandizing in the
county seats. There have been other and more positive effects as well
We have, for example, made elaborate plans for the evacuation of
records if the Commission should ever feel this step to be necessary:
we have spent a great deal of time and money microfilming our most