Records of the White House Office: Records Relating to the Redesign of the Presidential Seal(Record Group 130)

These records include correspondence, executive orders, photographs, and other items relating to the redesign of the Presidential Seal.

Size: 2.5 linear inches (about 300 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: Documents created by U.S. government officials in the course of their official duties are in the public domain. Copyright interest in other documents presumably belongs to the creators of those documents, or their heirs.
Processed by: Emily Turner (2016) as part of the Truman Library Internship Program.
Supervising Archivists: Randy Sowell and David Clark.

The White House Office was established by Executive Order 8248 on September 8, 1939, as one of the five divisions of the Executive Office of the President. Functions of the White House Office include performing administrative duties assigned by the President and maintaining communication with the Congress and its individual members, heads of Executive agencies, the press, and the general public.

The Records of the White House Office: Records Relating to the Redesign of the Presidential Seal (Record Group 130) include correspondence, executive orders, photographs and other items relating to the redesign of the Presidential Seal in 1916, 1945, 1959, and 1960. The collection is arranged in a single series, the Subject File.

Drawings and photographs in the collection include both images of the 1916 seal and images of the 1945 seal, revised by President Harry S. Truman to make it consistent with the Great Seal of the Unites States. The correspondence in the collection includes memorandums to federal agencies and White House offices concerning the use of the old seal, and letters from the Cadillac, Ford, and Pierce Arrow companies regarding changes in the seal used by the White House Garage. Other photographs and drawings chronicle the changes to the coat of arms of the President, the Presidential Seal, and the corresponding flag of the President.

Executive orders by Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower document the changes and the standardization of elements in the seal. After major changes in 1916 and 1945, executive orders in 1959 and 1960 reflected the addition of the states of Alaska and Hawaii to the Union by the addition of a star for each new state.

More information on the seals and flags of the United States, the President, and the departments of the U.S. Government can be found in the Permanent File of the Harry S. Truman Papers.