A City at Work: Images from the Seattle Municipal Archives Photo Collection
About the Seattle Municipal Archives
 Broken Water Main, 1951 |
The Seattle Municipal Archives, located in Seattle's City Hall, was founded in 1985. It is a program of the Office of the City Clerk, a division of the Legislative Department. Since its creation, the Archives has acquired over 10,000 cubic feet of records documenting the history, development, and activities of the agencies and elected officials of Seattle. The goals of the Archives are to support the transparency of City government; preserve the documentary history of City government for the benefit of a wide array of customers; and serve the business and administrative needs of City agencies through the access to this information.
 City Employment Office, 1916 |
The Seattle Municipal Archives holdings include textual records, maps, plans and drawings, moving images, audio recordings, and photographs. Researchers may search among several online indexes to locate records of interest and then visit the Archives to review these records.
The Archives is committed to educating the public about the history and activities of Seattle City Government through finding aids, exhibits (like this one), the Archives Gazette newsletter, the SMA Flickr site, digital document libraries, and other resources.
More information about the Seattle Municipal Archives and its holdings is available on this website.