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Madison Week

Preserving Mr. Madison’s message

By Colleen Dixon, Madison Magazine

Normally, speakers don’t get up and say, “A funny thing happened to me on the way here,” but Matt Fulgham (’89, ’91M) could do just that on Tuesday, March 11. He just happened to see his car, which he had just finished loading with presentation materials for the trip from Northern Virginia to Harrisonburg, rolling toward the fence in his yard. “I saved it by throwing myself in front of it before it hit the fence. It’s a Mini Cooper. That’s another reason not to buy an SUV,” Fulgham joked.

JMU alumnus Matt Fulgham discusses the vital role of document archiving and preservation.

Fulgham is the assistant director of the Center for Legislative Archives at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C., and among the treasures he brought to Harrisonburg were facsimilies of documents from the archives. A chance meeting led to his visit during Centennial Week to speak to students, faculty, staff and community members about James Madison and the vital role of document archiving and preservation. Phil Bigler, director of the James Madison Center, was at the National Archives recently and ran into a former student, Maureen Ryan (’00). Ryan introduced Bigler to the director of the Center for Legislative Archives, who in turn introduced him to Fulgham.

“The original title of the talk was supposed to be ‘From Madison’s messages to the 9/11 Commission e-mails,’” said Fulgham. “A typo left off the last ‘s’ in messages so that it read ‘From Madison’s message to the 9/11 Commission e-mail.’” That started him thinking about Madison’s stance on preservation and archiving. “Madison was frustrated in his own research when he couldn’t find any documents on older democracies,” Fulgham said, “and he was determined to take meticulous notes during debates at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention.” Thus was born the idea of document preservation. Madison was a staunch advocate of making information available to the general public.

Among the facsimiles of older documents Fulgham showed was a note from President George Washington to James Madison instructing him to secure a place for Washington to stay in Philadelphia that was appropriate to his new office—protocol was already a concern for the newly-sworn-in Washington. Fulgham also showed his favorite document, a marked-up Bill of Rights. “It’s amazing to see such an important document like the Bill of Rights with additions and corrections, just like a regular piece of legislation,” Fulgham said.