Big!

Published to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the National Archives, Washington, D.C. in 2009, this new volume features big records, big events, and big ideas from the US National Archives collection. Starting with the 13-foot scroll of the Articles of Confederation—the first constitution of the United States—the full-scale records reveal some of the formative moments in American history.

Among the items reproduced, some with fold-out pages, are a section from the enormous 13-foot square map of the Gettysburg battlefield, and the size 22 sneakers of basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal. The variety of documents and objects is huge, ranging from orders for fitting out of a ship with reinforced beds and extra large baths to carry William H. Taft – at 320lbs, the heaviest President in U.S. history – to prints of the mammoth glass-plate negatives by photographer Carleton Watkins of Yosemite Valley in California, now the site of a National Park, dating from the 1860s.