On September 15, 1789, Congress renamed the newly created Department of Foreign Affairs the Department of State. The change came less than two months after the First Congress had established the department to conduct the new federal government’s foreign relations. Its new name reflected an expanded set of domestic responsibilities as well as its diplomatic role.
Under the law commonly known as the Records Act, the Secretary of State became responsible for the safekeeping of federal acts, records, and papers, as well as custody of the Great Seal of the United States. The department also helped ensure that federal laws, resolutions, orders, and votes were printed and distributed. These duties made the office a central keeper of the new government’s official documentary record.
Thomas Jefferson was appointed to lead the newly expanded office, formally entering on duty as the first Secretary of State in March 1790 upon his return from France. In its early years, the department combined foreign-policy work with responsibilities that later shifted to other parts of the federal government, including the preservation and publication of official records. The office initially operated with a very small staff, illustrating how modest the national government remained even as it established permanent administrative institutions.
When the federal government moved from Philadelphia to Washington in 1800, the Department of State moved with it. The 1789 renaming remains significant because it established the department as more than a diplomatic office: it became an early center for the authentication, preservation, and circulation of the federal government’s official acts.
Image: U.S. State Department building in Washington, D.C. in 1835, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
