Note: Sessions of Congress with Corresponding Debate Record Volume Numbers (1789 - Current) will give you the appropriate volume numbers in the Aof/CG/CR etc by Congress
Note: You can find indexes to all of these in one place at Sessional indexes 1789 - 1963 (HathiTrust)
1789-1875: A Century of Lawmaking - Library of Congress
All Congressional documents from the first 14 congresses (1789-1816) and some additional years are known as the American State Papers. Records are not complete due to the Capitol fire of 1814 and the lack of record-keeping. The ASP is available online at A Century of Lawmaking: American State Papers.
"The Serial Set is a somewhat changing composite of almost all House and Senate reports and documents published since 1817. It generally includes committee reports related to bills and other matters, presidential communications to Congress, treaty materials, certain executive department publications, and certain non-governmental publications.
The Serial Set does not normally include the text of congressional debates, bills, resolutions, hearings, committee prints, and publications from support agencies of Congress such as the General Accounting Office and the Congressional Budget Office. However, by special order (usually in the Senate) some 300 selected hearings and many bill texts were included, especially in the 19th century and early 20th century." http://www.llsdc.org/serial-set-volumes-guide#overview
Note: The Serial Set is ongoing, but our paywalled database access to it via Readex only goes to 1994. For current volumes see the Serial Set at govinfo. It is always running behind because it takes so long to gather and process everything! You will see that it is currently being digitized back to the first volume and will eventually be freely available (but without the item-level indexing that we get via our Readex database version).
"The serial number is a unique number applied to each book in the series of congressional publications running consecutively from the 15th Congress [1817-1819] [to current].
Note: "Documents and Reports can be located using the volume or serial number but should be cited using the publication number and Congress and session number." - from ACoL:SS
Reports - "usually from congressional committees dealing with proposed legislation and issues under investigation" Good for research/background/intent. May include notices of hearings with access points for finding them (i.e. terms, date, committee, bill#, etc.)
Documents - "all other papers ordered printed by the House or Senate. Documents cover a wide variety of topics and may include reports of executive departments and independent organizations, reports of special investigations made for Congress, and annual reports of non-governmental organizations. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, executive-branch materials were also published in the Serial Set."
U.S. Congressional Serial Set (1817 - 1994 via Readex - WSU Only)
Committee Reports may also be found via the Congressional Record Index (1873 -)
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"Congressional Committee Prints are publications issued by Congressional Committees that include topics related to their legislative or research activities, as well as other matters such as memorial tributes. The prints are an excellent resource for statistical and historical information, and for legislative analysis. The subjects of the Committee Prints vary greatly due to the different concerns and actions of each committee. Some basic categories of Congressional Committee Prints are: draft reports and bills, directories, statistical materials, investigative reports, historical reports, situational studies, confidential staff reports, hearings, and legislative analyses."(via and more: GPO: About Congressional Committee Prints)
About the Serial Set
Accessing the Serial Set
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American Indian and Alaskan Native Documents in the Congressional Serial Set: 1817 – 1899,
Upon introduction, a bill is sent to a committee, subcommittee, select committee, or (especially in the case of the early years) the Committee of the Whole for the chamber. If you do not know where the bill was referred to, check its introduction in the Congressional Record/Globe/etc. You will also find it in the relevant House or Senate Journal or Journal indexes.
Note that there were a lot fewer congressional/congressional committee hearings in the nineteenth century than there are today.
Note: Hearings may be topical or investigative, and not tied to a particular bill
Another Note: Check Search It. We have a lot of hearings in microfiche that are indexed by title in Search It. (Lorena is checking this)
CIS Microfiche Library - KF 49.C62 C58x
Gov Doc Microfiche ?