This index to the Records of the Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs of Egypt, 1910-1929, collection provides the dates each reel covers. Government Information MAY NOT hold all of these reels. The record in the library catalog describes the extent of our holdings. For help, or to make an appointment to view a reel, email rad@colorado.edu
On the 31 rolls of this microfilm publication are reproduced the records from the decimal file of the Department of State, 1910-29, that relate to internal affairs of Egypt. The records consist of loose documents. They are mostly instructions to and despatches from diplomatic and consular officials; the despatches are often accompanied by enclosures such as diplomatic notes exchanged, pamphlets, and newspapers. Also included in these records are notes between the Department of State and foreign diplomatic representatives in the United States, memoranda prepared by officials of the Department, and correspondence with officials of other Government departments and with private firms and individuals. The Lists of Documents or "purport sheets" reproduced on Roll 1 give brief abstracts of the documents reproduced in this microcopy and serve as a finding aid to the documents themselves. The arrangement of the entries on these lists corresponds to the arrangement of the documents in the file.
Since 1910 the central files of the Department of State have been grouped and arranged by a decimal system of subject classification. This decimal file initially consisted of nine primary classes numbered 0 through 8, each covering a broad subject area. Under Class 8, Internal Affairs of States, the documents are arranged according to the country concerned. Each country has been assigned a 2-digit number and the number for Egypt is 83; thus the documents reproduced in this microcopy bear the file number 883 and relate to internal affairs of Egypt. A decimal point is used after the first three digits, followed by a number that represents a specific subtopic. This number, in turn, may be followed by a slant mark (/). The numbers that follow the slant mark are assigned to individual documents as they are accumulated on a specific subject. For example, a decimal file number taken from a document reproduced in this microcopy is 883.6363/13- The four-digit number 6363 signifies that the subtopic is petroleum, and the number following the slant mark indicates that this is the 13th paper received on this subtopic.
The documents under one subject classification are generally in chronological order, coinciding with the document number- assigned (which follows the slant mark). There are instances, however, when a document file number was not assigned until a date considerably later than the one on which the document was received.
Cross-reference sheets that refer to related records under other subject classifications in the decimal file have been reproduced as they occur and appropriate cross reference notations appear in the Lists of Documents. Other cross-reference notations are to documents in the "numerical file," a system used for the central files of the Department of State for the period 1906-10. This numerical system of assigning consecutive numbers to subject case files was replaced by the decimal system of subject classification in 1910.
Before the records were filmed a search was made by the National Archives and the Department of State for missing documents. The checkmarks that appear by most entries in the left-hand column of the Lists of Documents indicate that the papers are in the file. The absence of checkmarks denotes that the documents were not found; it is believed that they were not among the records when they were received from the Department.
Some of the documents that have been checked in the Lists of Documents do not appear in this microcopy. The decimal file contains security-classified documents and communications received from and classified by foreign governments and Federal agencies, as well as those classified by the Department of State. The documents that have not been declassified are not available as part of this microcopy. The National Archives and Records Service does not have authority to make reproductions of such documents available to searchers.
The largest groups of records reproduced in this microcopy concern political affairs, mixed tribunals, financial affairs, and newspaper clippings and items. Some of the other subtopics relating to Egyptian internal affairs are government, education, agriculture, mines and mining, canals, and archaeology.
Among the records in Class 7 of the Department of State decimal file, 1910-29, are two series dealing with Egyptian affairs that are closely related to the records reproduced in this microcopy. One concerns political relations "between the United States and Egypt (Microcopy 5T2), and the other political relations between Egypt and Other States (Microcopy 573)-
A list of the rolls of this microfilm publication, indicating the document number range and the subjects covered by the documents on each roll, is filmed after the information on related record groups given below.
The records reproduced in this microcopy are part of a "body of records in the National Archives designated as Record Group 59, General Records of the Department of State.
The spreadsheet attached below contains a reel-by-reel description of the complete collection.