America 250: From quill pens to AI, how the US records its history

For more than two and a half centuries, America’s story has been recorded on paper.

In 1776, quill and ink were used to tell that story. Typewriters would not enter the federal government until more than a century later.

In 1880, the Executive Mansion now known as the White House got its first typewriter.

The Fairbanks and Company Improved Number Two typewriter was considered so revolutionary that it shared a room with the telephone and telegraph, along with its own operator.

Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur and Grover Cleveland were not too impressed with the new machinery.

The first presidential correspondence would not be written on a typewriter until more than nine years later, thanks to the typing skills of Alice Sanger according to historical records cited by the Shapell Manuscript Foundation.

President Benjamin Harrison appointed Sanger as his secretary, making her the first female presidential staff member.

The future arrived in 1951 with the UNIVAC I.

The U.S. Census Bureau spent $1.25 million more than $15 million in today’s dollars on the Universal Automatic Computer 1.

UNIVAC was the first computer designed to focus on payroll, inventory and data processing rather than scientific calculations.

Using more than 5,000 vacuum tubes, the system was massive. The full unit took up more than 350 square feet and weighed more than 13 tons.

By the mid-1960s, the federal government switched to the IBM System/360.

IBM had strong marketing, a strong product and a business model that made the systems more affordable.

Organizations could buy the IBM 360 or lease it for less money upfront.

As we know today, technology can be intimidating to some and frightening to others.

That tension was reflected in an episode of the television series “Mad Men,” when the lead character Don Draper suggested the IBM 360 could calculate information, but it could not dream.

IBM associate programmer Homer Ahr, who worked on two Apollo missions, said the technology played a vital role in helping NASA win the space race.

“The fact of the matter is, we’d have never gotten to the moon, and we’d have never landed, and we’d never have come back home safe, if it had not been for the IBM hardware and software and operation support. It couldn’t have been done. Man cannot think that fast,” Ahr said in a video on IBM’s YouTube page.

While not in space, another transformational moment in federal recordkeeping happened in the sky in a way.

In 2011, the Obama administration announced plans to replace older government servers with cloud systems by launching the Cloud First Policy.

The 25-point plan aimed to reform government information technology by requiring federal agencies to consider reliable cloud computing options before spending large amounts of money on in-house IT infrastructure.

Now artificial intelligence is on the minds and computers of many Americans, helping with everything from writing letters to restoring old photos.

The federal government also relies on the technology.

For example, artificial intelligence helps people search historical records at the National Archives and helps process benefit claims for veterans more quickly at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

America’s story continues 250 years after Thomas Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident.”

But now, instead of records stored in a dusty basement box, those documents along with much of human history are preserved together in the cloud.