DEPARTMENT OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH.* 



J. Franklin Jameson, Director. 



The following report, the seventh annual report of the present Director, 

 covers the period from November i, 191 1, to October 31, 1912. The regular 

 staff of the Department has not been changed during the year, but assistance 

 of great value has been rendered by three Research Associates. For brief 

 periods in the early part of the year Prof. Frank H. Hodder, of the Kansas 

 State University, and Prof. Orin G. Libby, of the University of North Da- 

 kota, were associated in Washington with the work of the Department rela- 

 tive to the preparation of the proposed atlas of the historical geography of 

 the United States. The former cooperated in the planning of the portion 

 of the work concerning State boundaries, the latter in that concerning the 

 plotting in geographical form of political votes. A third Research Associate, 

 Dr. Charles O. Paullin, was connected with the work of the Department for 

 four months, laboring upon the atlas in conjunction with these gentlemen, 

 and then pursuing alone the elaboration of the political part of the proposed 

 work. A fourth, Prof. Max Farrand, of Yale University, has in October 

 begun a period of assistance in the matter of economic and social geography. 

 Miss Davenport has remained in Europe throughout the year ; Mr. Leland, 

 however, returned in November 191 1, The Director and the secretary, Miss 

 Pierce, were in Europe throughout the summer. 



In June the quarters which the Department had for eight years occupied in 

 the Bond Building, but which recent building operations in the neighborhood 

 had made unsuitable, were abandoned and others, much more satisfactory, 

 were secured and entered upon. These consist of a suite of nine rooms on 

 the eleventh floor of the Woodward Building, at the southeast corner of H 

 and Fifteenth Streets. The address is 1140 Woodward Building. In cer- 

 tain respects a separate building near the Library of Congress would be more 

 advantageous for the work of the Department than this new suite of rooms ; 

 but experience will show whether the nature of our work during the next 

 few years will or will not require so much recourse to the Library of Con- 

 gress that these advantages of propinquity would overbalance the merits 

 which the present rooms, excellent in themselves, have by reason of their 

 nearness to the business portions of the city. 



From the latter part of June until the latter part of September the office 

 work of the Department, mainly in the charge of Mr. Leland during the 

 Director's absence, was carried on in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where by 

 the courtesy of the president of Harvard University and the head of the 

 Semitic Department, an adequate room in the Semitic Museum was placed 

 at the disposal of the Department. 



* Address Woodward Building, Washington, D. C. Grant No. 745. $26,600 for in- 

 vestigations and maintenance during 1912. (For previous reports see Year Books 3-10.) 

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