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Arlington Public Library, Center for Local History
Arlington Public Library, Center for Local History© 2013 Arlington Public Library, Center for Local History
The collection is open for research.
There are no restrictions.
Records of the Arlington County Civic Federation, Collection # RG 14, Arlington Public Library, Center for Local History
Various Civic Federation members have made donations to this collection in 1982, 1989, 1997, 2002, 2008, 2010, and 2018.
Founded in 1916 and still active, the Arlington County Civic Federation is a non partisan organization composed of member community organizations. Each member association "sends delegates to meetings to discuss and adopt positions or resolutions on community civic matters that affect Arlington County and its citizens." The Federation has no official status nor is it part of the local government. Through its member organizations, meetings, and numerous committees, the Federation has been responsible for educating local citizens about major issues affecting the county and has played an active role in bringing about major improvements throughout the county. The Federation has also served as one of the county government "watchdogs" through monitoring and influencing County Board decisions and actions. The Federation presents citizens' collective views to the Board on issues which include zoning, schools, libraries, parks, police, taxes, transportation, development, and planning.
Record Group 14 houses the records of the Arlington County Civic Federation, a federation of Arlington County local neighborhood civic associations. The collection dates from 1928 through 2008 and houses such records as the Federation's general and executive committee minutes and meeting files, committee reports, committee files, subject correspondence files, lists of delegates and officers, financial records, bulletins, annual banquet files, and other records. A complete listing of the record series is attached. The collection measures approximately 17 linear feet.
These records present a valuable resource to researchers interested in most aspects of Arlington County history and development. Subgroup 3, Activities , and Subgroup 5, Office of the Secretary, Tommye Morton , house meeting minutes and committee reports that represent an almost intact record of all Federation activities from 1928 through 2008. The committee files and subject files arranged in Subgroup 3 house additional information regarding issues, activities, and the relationship of the Federation to the county board and local government for the period of 1943 through the early 2000s. Of particular interest are the committee files on zoning and community development. Lists of the Federation committees and the subject files are attached to this finding aid. Information regarding the structure and organization of the Federation is located in Subgroup 1, Organization .
Record Group 14 is arranged into seven subgroups, based on broad functional categories. Within Subgroups 1, 2, 3, and 4 , records series have been established according to type of material. Most of the file units are in rough chronological order. The correspondence in Subgroup 3, Series 7 , was originally in binders with the executive committee minutes ( Subgroup 3, Series 2 ) for the designated years. Subgroup 5 is the donated records of the Secretary of the ACCF, Tommye Morton. The records have been maintained in the original order of one file for each month and a file for a yearly index. Often the index file also has a list of Federation delegates. The material includes meeting minutes, correspondence, and agendas and covers the dates December 1986 through June 1995. The files for the months of January 1987 and January 1991 are missing. Subgroup 6, Financial Materials, consists of financial files for the Federation, 1961-2007. Subgroup 7, Arlington County Official Publications, consists of county publications collected by the Federation, apparently for study. Folders containing photographs have an asterisk [*] after the file name.
The Community Archives hold the records of many different county organizations that are members of the Civic Federation. Please contact a CLH staff member or check the library catalog for our collection holdings. RG 32, County Manager's Library , contains Civic Federation material from their schools committee.