United States. Dept. of the Interior. Office of the Secretary.

The Division of Power was established in 1941 to supervise electric power work of the Department. In 1943 the functions of the National Power Policy Committee were transferred to the Division. This Division was replaced in 1950 by the Division of Water and Power and served as technical staff to the Assistant Secretary for Water and Power Development.

This Division had charge of those Department personnel matters centralized in the Secretary's office.

The Patents and Miscellaneous Division (formerly known as the Pension and Miscellaneous Division and briefly in 1907 as the Miscellaneous Division) has records dating from 1849, although the Division was not formally established until much later. There are records concerning Patent Office agricultural business until 1862, and Pension Office business, 1849-1907. Usually the Patents and Miscellaneous Division handled census work in the Office of the Secretary; there are no separate records of the temporary Census Division.

The Patents and Miscellaneous Division administered public buildings and grounds work, welfare institutions, prisons, and affairs of the District of Columbia. It directed court officers, suppression of the African slave trade, and black colonization. The Division directed the Office of Education, national parks, administration of territories, the Geological Survey and its predecessors (except reclamation work assigned to the Lands and Railroads Division), legislation, the Executive Mansion, census taking, creation of forest reserves, 1891-95, building construction, and adminission of attorneys and agents to practice before the Department. The patents and Miscellaneous Division was abolished in 1907 and some of its duties were transferred to Department bureaus, others to the Chief Clerk.

The Office of Explorations and Surveys, created by an act of March 3,1853, which authorized the Secretary of War to determine "the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean."

These records are designated as File No. 15 of the central files, but were kept separately by the Division of Personnel Management and its predecessors.

This Division, formally established about 1870, had functioned since 1849, administering the public domain and the General Land Office, mostly handling appeals to the Secretary from decisions of the Commissioner of the General Land Office.

A Pacific Wagon Road Office in the Office of the Secretary was discontinued at the beginning of the Civil War. In 1865 an Engineer office was established to handle matters concerning the Pacific railroads, land-grant railroads, Government wagon roads, the Washington aqueduct and other public works in the District of Columbia, and the Capitol Extension. In 1867 this Office was replaced by the Pacific Railroad Division, which in 1870 was merged into the Lands and Railroads Division.

The Finance Division or Disbursing Office was established in 1853, and some of the Secretary's records for earlier years have been kept with those of the Division. Most records are those of the disbursing clerk, who from 1871 to 1883 was Chief of the Disbursement Division and from 1883 to 1921 Chief of the Division of Finance.

The Office of the solicitor is a continuation of the Office of the Assistant Attorney General for the Department of the Interior established in 1871. The title was changed in 1914.

After 1898 this Division conducted the business of the Office of the Secretary relating to the Indian Territory and the Five Civilized Tribes.

On April 15, 1940, the Office of Land Utilization was created to plan land use for the Department. In 1950 the name of the Office was changed to Division of Land Utilization. It provided a technical staff for the Assistant Secretary for Public Land Management until it was abolished in 1953.

The Technical Review Staff, established in 1953, took over certain activities of the Program Staff, Division of Land Utilization, Division of Water and Power, Minerals and Fuels Division, and Division of International Activities.

The information office existing in the Office of the Secretary since 1923 was organized in 1937 as the Division of Information to handle public relations.

Between 1924 and 1928 an Inspection Division functioned in the Office of the Secretary, directed by a Chief Inspector.

The Department of the Interior was established by an act of March 3, 1849, which provided that the Secretary of the Interior should assume powers previously exercised by the Secretary of War over the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, by the Secretary of the Treasury over the General Land Office, by the Secretaries of War and the Navy over the Commissioner of Pensions, by the Secretary of State over the Commissioners of Patents, and by the President over the Commissioner of Public Buildings. Jurisdiction over census taking, marshals and court officers, Federal buildings and grounds throughout the United States, and charitable and penal institutions in the District of Columbia was also placed in the Department.

Agencies that have since been transferred from the Department include the Patent Office, Pension Office (Veterans Administration), Census Bureau, Office of Education, Office of Railroads, Capitol Buildings and Grounds, Freedmen's Hospital, St. Elizabeth's Hospital, the Columbia Institution for the Deaf (Gallaudet College), and Howard University. Separate record groups have been established for the records of many operating units of the Department.

The Purchasing Office was established by the Secretary in 1932 and was discontinued in 1947.

An act of 1871 authorized an Assistant Attorney General to advise the Secretary of the Interior while remaining an official of the Department of Justice.

In 1907 the Office of the Secretary was reorganized, several divisions were abolished, and a central filing system established.