Review of Elizabeth Hamer Kegan, “A Becoming Regard to Posterity,” American Archivist 40, no. 1 (1976): 5–15, https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.40.1.n1705547v12x802v.

Reviewed by Bradley J. Wiles, Northern Illinois University [PDF Full Text]

Reading and rereading the opening sentences of Elizabeth Hamer Kegan’s 1976 presidential address to the Society of American Archivists (SAA), delivered during the US Bicentennial, I feel a strange mix of jealousy, exhaustion, and resolve. Kegan writes about being dazzled by a fireworks display, her “spirits lifted by the beauty and majesty of the tall ships,” and her “mind reassured by the spontaneity, enthusiasm, and renewed sense of optimism” around the country because of the nationwide celebrations (p. 5). Kegan’s patriotism rekindled, her address then delves into the role of archives in helping shape the early republic, as a politically and culturally diffuse grouping of states and citizens attempted to coalesce into a single nation with a shared purpose. Kegan praises the foresight of certain Founding Fathers to document and preserve this formative era of the American experiment, while also acknowledging the derision that any praise of such “great white men” is likely to receive (p. 9). She then convincingly illustrates how this early precedent that established the importance of records in historical memory might inform the contentious political and social setting of the immediate post-Watergate era she was writing in.

I feel jealous when reading Kegan’s address because in 2026 we are stuck with this awkward term of art, Semiquincentennial, a word that sounds more like a curse than a milestone worth celebrating, or an example of long-forgotten phonetic wordplay conjured solely to remind us of how much of a drag everything is right now. The length, the spelling, the pronunciation—everything about this word—appears designed to suck the joy out of the commemoration, the only mercy being that it will all but disappear once this year ends. I am envious that we currently cannot live in a space with the relative simplicity of tall ships and fireworks to mark this moment, but instead will soon face a bombardment of maximalist patriotic spectacle in the form of gladiatorial competition[1] on the White House lawn and the construction of other temporary or permanent monuments[2] to the current president’s ego, all while bombs drop on foreign countries and the American countryside fills up with Department of Homeland Security concentration camps[3] and Big Tech data warehouses.[4] I covet a unifying moment that in 2026 seems so completely out of reach.

I am exhausted because as an archivist who helps determine how history is understood and engaged with, the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence should be a once-in-a-career type of opportunity to demonstrate the value of archives to receptive audiences within the brief window of expanded historical consciousness that such a commemoration usually affords. Instead, public attention is repeatedly (and necessarily) drawn to official attempts at historical erasure and toxic revisionism that privileges comfort and blind consensus over accuracy and deliberation,[5] while the most important archives and records story of the last few decades mostly provides regular reminders of abuses of power with no accountability for the perpetrators on the foreseeable horizon.[6] It is exceedingly difficult to muster the enthusiasm that Kegan exhibits as she recounts the contributions of the Founding Fathers to the historical record and thus historical accountability, or at least the possibility of this, when I see how everything works now. Kegan’s distinguished career as an archivist and curator at the National Archives, Assistant Librarian of Congress, and founding member of SAA likely drew inspiration from this legacy, so her reverence is understandable.[7] But like many other archivists in this current environment, I am running low on the energy required to keep finding silver linings in the past or present and am struggling to press ahead with business as usual.

I am strangely resolved, however, to find a way through because, as Kegan’s address illustrates, revolution is a state of mind as much as it is any specific event or activity in history. As archivists we have a responsibility to carry forward with American revolutionary principles that sought to ensure a free and open society for all, despite how hypocritically the Founding Fathers framed and enacted them, and despite how difficult it may be to find ways to do this in our work that actually make some difference. As Kegan points out, the Bicentennial occurred at a similarly tumultuous time for America, and it is worth briefly looking back if only to remind ourselves of the parallels with our current situation.

Preparations for the 1976 celebrations that Kegan witnessed officially commenced a decade earlier with President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1966 letter to Congress requesting the establishment of a commission that would plan for national events, support public and private commemoration efforts, and increase knowledge and appreciation of the American Revolution through “our schools and universities and our historians and scholars.”[8] In Johnson’s vision, the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission would be “composed of members of Congress and the Executive Branch and distinguished and outstanding Americans appointed by the President,” who would help the federal government “share its knowledge and resources with states, local communities, historical societies, and others across the Nation.”[9] A 1973 letter sent to Congress upon establishing the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration (ARBA) captures this sentiment, with President Richard M. Nixon insisting that the anniversary “will have the greatest significance of any celebration of this type that this country has ever had.”[10]

No doubt this milestone held such potential, but the creation of ARBA was largely a response to widespread criticism of the initial commission’s alleged cronyism and overt commercialization of the planned festivities, which prompted a congressional review of commission activities.[11] The American public’s perception of the government’s historic role in domestic and world affairs was far from unified at that time and made more complicated by the economic malaise, civil unrest, and deteriorating situation in Vietnam. By the time of America’s embarrassing withdrawal from Saigon and Nixon’s exit from office in the wake of the Watergate scandal, many Americans were ready to embrace “the appeal of myth and the restorative nostalgia manifested . . . in a reconstruction of the monuments of the past,” while actively seeking tangible connections within their communities that might help ameliorate a pervading sense of identity loss as a nation.[12]

President Gerald R. Ford’s official proclamation establishing 1976 as The Bicentennial Year indicated this more individuated and localized direction for the commemoration, calling on all Americans to “celebrate the diversity of tradition, culture and heritage that reflects our people and our patrimony,” and to undertake “actions which bespeak a continuing commitment to a heritage of individual initiative, creativity, and liberty.”[13] According to David Ryan, any overall successes of the Bicentennial celebration can largely be attributed to ARBA’s “emphasis on low-key events and the participation of local and state initiatives without the imposition of a dominant theme.”[14] This reflected a resurgent local history focus with origins in New Deal–era historiography, which had been building in the academy and elsewhere since the 1950s with the development of identity-based social movements and their emphasis on the history of specific ethnic and cultural groups that were often marginalized and ignored in previous historical narratives, especially the grand narratives that dominated history education and the public imagination.[15]

The passing of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 and the pop culture phenomenon of television shows like Roots prompted an explosion of interest in genealogy, family history, and other aspects of history on an immediate scale.[16] The last decades of the twentieth century also marked centennial and sesquicentennial milestones for many states, municipalities, and other collective bodies located across the United States. Historical legacy and memory were certainly at the forefront of public celebration and reflection, whether inspired by patriotism, nostalgia, criticism, or as a response to the uncertainty wrought by rapid social change.[17] Tammy S. Gordon notes that by the 1970s:

Social history, consumerism, distrust of the federal government and cold war consensus, and new cultural emphasis on the importance of the self led to a mass search for the spirit of the American Revolution in the past and present. . . The 1976 observance of the American Revolution revealed that historical memory played a key part in the major social, cultural, and political changes taking place. . .  and was the first national observance in which Americans previously disenfranchised by more traditional historical narratives—African Americans, women, American Indians, workers, young people—armed themselves with the information presented by the new social history and demanded a voice and representation in the federal body guiding the observance.[18]

One could convincingly argue that not much has changed since 1976, that we are fighting the same battles, just in updated uniforms. But there is something else that is different now, and it is unclear what this means for archivists. As Kegan indicates, the perfidy of the Watergate scandal and the resulting legal and political fallout had special resonance for the archives profession because of what it meant for capturing, preserving, and making accessible the records and information of the powerful thereafter. But beyond that, it helped initiate a much larger chain of events related to presidential authority, administrative reach, and constitutional checks and balances, which have had far reaching consequences for the quality of American citizenship and the stability of American institutions that traditionally depend on the rule of law and a shared sense of fact-based reality.[19] Archives have long sought to support a duly informed citizenry as a matter of practice and principle, but in 2026, we can no longer assume that our most powerful social and political institutions will adhere to basic notions of evidence, authenticity, reliability, normative behavior, and verifiable truth. Archives have and will continue to feel this in very direct ways.

Of course, skepticism and suspicion have characterized the American people to some degree for much of our country’s history, but at no point in my lifetime (which began in 1976) has it seemed so likely that this epistemic free-for-all could be the vehicle of this country’s undoing. In the Semiquincentennial activities this year, I believe we will witness millions of competing (some mutually hostile) interpretations of what it is to be an American,[20] with the loudest voices amplified by partisan interests and corporate sponsorship,[21] but mostly enabled by the indifference of a populace that is just comfortable enough to ignore much of what is happening around them even if they are deeply dissatisfied with the state of the country.[22] Archivists, historians, and their friends and allies must use this time to sound the alarm, because archives and records are an embedded but too often overlooked element in so many current issues and events that directly impact citizenship. Attempts at election intimidation and interference by the Trump administration through confiscating ballots and documentation from a settled election is an archives and records story.[23] Unregulated and unchecked AI development by large for-profit businesses using public resources is an archives and records story.[24] Targeting citizens and legal residents for surveillance over political differences is an archives and records story.[25]

Arthur Schlesinger reminds us that history does not offer a cure-all for what currently troubles us, but the lessons of the past are real and “will do us no harm as we grope through the darkness of our own days.”[26] Indeed, finding lifelines into the past may put both the promises and perils of our current age into perspective and offer an antidote to “every generation’s illusion that its own problems are uniquely oppressive.”[27] In 2026, we have the rare opportunity to revisit all the questions Kegan asked concerning the practicalities of stewarding the records of the powerful, but we also have time to examine and communicate the implications and real-world impact of that power. The overall framework of the Semiquincentennial also may give us some chances for finding common ground in an otherwise severely divided country, and as in 1976 this will likely be most effective at the local level with the communities we already serve or those we hope to. I would encourage all SAA members and American archivists to seize the revolutionary spirit of the moment, not out of allegiance to any specific set of ideals or in performance of what we believe others want to see of us, but to really think about what kind of country we want to live in and what this means for our actions and our work moving forward.

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[1] Brett Okamato, “Everything to Know About UFC at the White House,” ESPN, March 4, 2026, https://www.espn.com/mma/story/_/id/47912515/everything-know-ufc-white-house-june-14.

[2] Jasmine Baehr, “White House Touts Trump’s ‘Bold Vision’ for Towering Independence Arch for America 250,” Fox News, January 31, 2026, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-touts-trumps-bold-vision-towering-independence-arch-america-250.

[3] Eric Westervelt, Anusha Mathur, and Brent Jones, “Mapping ICE’s Expanding Footprint, and the Communities Fighting Back,” NPR, March 26, 2026, https://www.npr.org/2026/03/23/g-s1-114107/ices-growing-detention-footprint-and-the-communities-fighting-back.

[4] Amber X. Chen, “A.I. Is on the Rise, and So Is the Environmental Impact of the Data Centers That Drive It,” Smithsonian Magazine, September 29, 2025, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/with-ai-on-the-rise-what-will-be-the-environmental-impacts-of-data-centers-180987379/.

[5] Delano Massey, “America Stares Down Erasure of Black History and Progress,” Axios, November 29, 2025, https://www.axios.com/2025/11/29/funding-cuts-erasing-black-history-blackout-report; David Corn, “The Erasure of January 6,” Mother Jones, January 6, 2026, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/01/january-6-5th-anniversary-capitol-mob-trump-orwell/.

[6] Ankush Khardori, “Why DOJ Hasn’t Charged Anyone Else from the Epstein Files,” Politico Magazine, March 11, 2026, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/03/11/epstein-files-justice-department-no-prosecutions-column-00821127.

[7] Jessie Kratz, “Elizabeth Hamer Kegan: Educator and Innovator,” Pieces of History: A Blog of the U.S. National Archives, March 11, 2016, https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2016/03/11/elizabeth-hamer-kegan-educator-and-innovator/.

[8] Lyndon B. Johnson, “Letter to the President of the Senate and to the Speaker of the House Proposing the Establishment of an American Bicentennial Commission, March 10, 1966,” in Public Papers of the Presidents (Washington, DC: Office of the Federal Register, 1967), 302–3, accessed November 4, 2025, https://archive.org/details/4731549.1966.001.umich.edu/page/302/mode/2up.

[9] Johnson, “Letter to the President of the Senate,” 302.

[10] Richard M. Nixon, “Remarks on Signing a Bill Establishing the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration, December 11, 1973,” in Public Papers of the Presidents (Washington, DC: Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration,1975), 1008–9, accessed November 6, 2025, https://archive.org/details/4731942.1973.001.umich.edu/page/1009/mode/2up.

[11] Comptroller General of the United States, Organization and Operations of the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission (Washington, DC: United States General Accounting Office, 1972), 46–50, accessed December 13, 2025, https://www.gao.gov/assets/b-166850.pdf.

[12] David Ryan, “Re-Enacting Independence Through Nostalgia—The 1976 US Bicentennial After the Vietnam War,” Forum for Inter-American Research 5, no. 3 (2012), http://interamericaonline.org/volume-5-3/ryan/.

[13] Gerald R. Ford, “Proclamation 4411, The Bicentennial Year, December 31, 1975,” The American Presidency Project, accessed December 20, 2025, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-4411-the-bicentennial-year.

[14] Ryan, “Re-Enacting Independence,” para 2.

[15] Lara Leigh Kelland, “Clio’s Foot Soldiers: Twentieth-Century US Social Movements and the Uses of Collective Memory,” Order No. 3573321, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2013, 1–2.

[16] David A. Gerber, “Local and Community History: Some Cautionary Remarks on an Idea Whose Time Has Returned,” The History Teacher 13, no. 1 (1979): 7–30; Tammy S. Gordon, The Spirit of 1976: Commerce, Community, and the Politics of Commemoration (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2013); Max Page and Marla R. Miller, “Introduction,” in Bending the Future: Fifty Ideas for the Next Fifty Years of Historic Preservation in the United States, eds. Max Page and Marla R. Miller (Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2016), 11.

[17] Gordon, The Spirit of 1976, 3–4.

[18] Gordon, The Spirit of 1976, 3–4.

[19] Stuart Streichler, “Watergate’s Ironic Legacy,” Boston Review, June 16, 2022, https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/watergates-ironic-legacy/.

[20] Beverly Gage, “America Is Suffering an Identity Crisis,” The Atlantic, October 14, 2024, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/10/america-birthday-national-story/680248/; Walter Parker, “Competing Stories Complicate America’s Upcoming 250th Birthday Party,” Post Alley, October 24, 2025, https://www.postalley.org/2025/10/24/competing-stories-complicate-americas-upcoming-250th-birthday-party/.

[21] Jennifer Schuessler, “Will America Be Ready for Its 250th Birthday?” New York Times, July 3, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/03/arts/america-250-anniversary-1776.html.

[22] Glenn Ellmers, “Deserving Success: America at 250,” The American Mind, April 1, 2026, https://americanmind.org/features/the-age-of-america/deserving-success-america-at-250/; Jeff Munroe, “Trying (and Failing) to Whip up Enthusiasm for the USA’s 250th,” Reformed Journal, March 23, 2026, https://reformedjournal.com/2026/03/23/trying-and-failing-to-whip-up-enthusiasm-for-the-usas-250th/; Richard Wike, “As the U.S. Nears its 250th Birthday, Dissatisfaction with Democracy Is Widespread,” Pew Trust Magazine, February 4, 2026, https://www.pew.org/en/trust/archive/winter-2026/as-the-us-approaches-its-250th-birthday-there-is-broad-dissatisfaction-with-democracy.

[23] Wendy R. Weiser, “Trump Administration Escalates Election Meddling by Seizing 2020 Voting Records in Georgia,” Brennan Center for Justice, February 4, 2026, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/trump-administration-escalates-election-meddling-seizing-2020-voting.

[24] Kei Kebreau, “AI: Socialized Cost vs. Privatized Profit,” Communist Party USA, September 23, 2025, https://www.cpusa.org/article/ai-socialized-costs-vs-privatized-profit/; Aaron Shaffer, Will Oremus, and Nitasha Tiku, “Inside an AI Start-Up’s Plan to Scan and Dispose of Millions of Books,” Washington Post, January 27, 2026, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/01/27/anthropic-ai-scan-destroy-books/.

[25] Steven Hubbard, “Mission Creep: AI Surveillance at DHS Crosses Dangerous Line into Tracking Americans,” American Immigration Council, February 6, 2026, https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/ice-ai-surveillance-tracking-americans/; Josie Stewart, Michelle Du, and Nicol Turner Lee, “How Tech Powers Immigration Enforcement,” Brookings, October 6, 2025, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-tech-powers-immigration-enforcement/.

[26] Arthur Schlesinger Jr., “The Challenge of Change,” New York Times Magazine, July 27, 1986.

[27] Schlesinger Jr., “The Challenge of Change.”