17891776 Club
Washington signs the department into a new name, and a new job description
Beyond diplomacy, the agency now keeps the Great Seal, runs the Mint, and counts the population.
Two months after Congress stood up the Department of Foreign Affairs as the new government's first federal agency, lawmakers decided the name undersold the job. On September 15, 1789, President Washington signed legislation renaming it the Department of State and loading it with domestic chores no one associates with diplomacy today: loading it with the U.S. Mint, the Great Seal, and the census. The foreign-affairs mission stayed, but so did the odd jobs, and for years the department ran the Mint and the census alongside its embassies…
