,
Eighteenth century The
Articles of Confederation did not designate a separate executive branch of the government. Foreign affairs were delegated to the
Committee of Secret Correspondence by the
Congress of the Confederation in 1775, based on the Committee of Correspondence that was used by the colony of Massachusetts to communicate with the other colonies. The Committee of Secret Correspondence was renamed the
Committee of Foreign Affairs in 1777. In 1781, the
Department of Foreign Affairs was established as a permanent body to replace the Committee of Foreign Affairs, and the office of secretary of foreign affairs was established to lead the department. The
U.S. Constitution, drafted September 1787 and
ratified the following year, gave the
president responsibility for conducting the federal government's affairs with foreign states. To that end, on July 21, 1789, the
First Congress approved legislation to reestablish the Department of Foreign Affairs under the new government, which President
George Washington signed into law on July 27, making the department the first federal agency to be created under the new Constitution. This legislation remains the basic law of the Department of State. In September 1789,
additional legislation changed the name of the agency to the
Department of State and assigned it a variety of domestic duties, including managing the
United States Mint, keeping the
Great Seal of the United States, and administering the
census. President Washington signed the new legislation on September 15. Most of these domestic duties gradually were transferred to various federal departments and agencies established in the 19th century. However, the secretary of state still retains a few domestic responsibilities, such as serving as keeper of the Great Seal and being the officer to whom a president or vice president wishing to resign must deliver an
instrument in writing declaring the decision. Reflecting the fledgling status of the US at the time, the Department of State under Secretary Jefferson comprised only six personnel, two diplomatic posts (in London and Paris), and 10 consular posts. Each service developed separately, but both lacked sufficient funding to provide for a career; consequently, appointments to either service fell on those with the financial means to sustain their work abroad. Combined with the common practice of appointing individuals based on politics or patronage, rather than merit, this led the department to largely favor those with political networks and wealth, rather than skill and knowledge. In 1833, Secretary of State
Louis McLane oversaw a major restructure of the Department of State into a formal collection of seven bureaus: the Diplomatic Bureau; the Consular Bureau; the Home Bureau; the Bureau of Archives, Laws, and Commissions; the Bureau of Pardons and Remissions, Copyrights, and the Care of the Library; the Disbursing and Superintending Bureau; and the Translating and Miscellaneous Bureau. His successor
John Forsyth reduced this number to just four the following year, overseen by a chief clerk: the Diplomatic Bureau; the Consular Bureau; the Home Bureau; and the Keeper of the Archives, Translator, and Disbursing Agent. The office of Commissioner of Patents was created in 1836. In 1842, the Department of State was required to report to Congress on foreign commercial systems, and a clerk within the department was assigned the responsibility of arranging this information. This position was established as the Superintendent of Statistics in 1854 and the Statistical Office was created within the department. In 1853, the office of
Assistant Secretary of State was created to oversee the heads of each bureau. A Commissioner of Immigration existed between 1864 and 1868. An Examiner of Claims was established in 1868 to address claims by American citizens against foreign governments, but it was abolished in 1868 and then reestablished in 1870 under the newly established Law Bureau. In 1870, Secretary of State
Hamilton Fish reorganized the department into twelve bureaus: the Chief Clerk's Bureau, two Diplomatic Bureaus, two Consular Bureaus, the Law Bureau, the Bureau of Accounts, the Statistical Bureau, the Bureau of Translations, the Bureau of Pardons and Commissions, the Bureau of Domestic Records, and the Passport Bureau. The bureaus of law, translations, and domestic records each consisted of a single person responsible for that duty. A mail division was established in 1872 and the office of Keeper of Rolls was made independent of the Chief Clerk's Bureau in 1873. Congress legally recognized the bureau system and provided official salaries for some bureau positions in 1873. Following Congressional recognition, several acts of Congress modified the structure of the bureaus between 1874 and 1882. At the end of the nineteenth century, the department consisted of the Chief Clerk's Bureau, the Diplomatic Bureau, the Consular Bureau, the Bureau of Accounts, the Bureau of Foreign Commerce, the Bureau of Appointments, and the Bureau of Archives. Other offices, such as that of translator, also operated separately from the bureau system.
Twentieth century In 1903, the Bureau of Foreign Commerce was transferred to the newly created
Department of Commerce and Labor, and the bureau was replaced by an office to facilitate the transfer of information between consular offices and the new department. The Passport Bureau was restored the same year, and its name was changed to the Bureau of Citizenship in 1907. The department underwent a major reform in 1909 when Congress expanded its funding. Separate divisions were established within the Department for Latin American Affairs, Far Eastern Affairs, Near Eastern Affairs, Western European Affairs, and Information. An additional Division of Mexican Affairs was established in 1915. The Bureau of Trade Relations was abolished in 1912 and replaced by an Office of Foreign Trade Advisers, and the Office of the Adviser on Commercial Treaties was split from this office in 1916. During
World War I, the Bureau of Citizenship was tasked with vetting every person who entered or departed from the United States to ensure public safety. New branches of the Bureau of Citizenship were opened in New York and San Francisco. In the final months of World War I, the Bureau of Citizenship was split into the Division of Passport Control and the Visa Office. Other changes made during World War I include the conversion of the Division of Information into the Division of Foreign Intelligence in 1917 and the establishment of the Correspondence Bureau in 1918. The Division of Russian Affairs was established in 1919, and the Division of Political Information was established in 1920. The Department of State underwent its first major overhaul with the
Rogers Act of 1924, which merged the diplomatic and consular services into the
Foreign Service, a professionalized personnel system under which the
secretary of state is authorized to assign
diplomats abroad. An extremely difficult Foreign Service examination was also implemented to ensure highly qualified recruits, along with a merit-based system of promotions. The Rogers Act also created the Board of the Foreign Service, which advises the Secretary of State on managing the Foreign Service, and the Board of Examiners of the Foreign Service, which administers the examination process. The post-Second World War period saw an unprecedented increase in funding and staff commensurate with the US's emergence as a superpower and its competition with the Soviet Union in the subsequent Cold War. Consequently, the number of domestic and overseas employees grew from roughly 2,000 in 1940 to over 13,000 in 1960. The Rewards For Justice program offered money as an incentive for information leading to the arrest of leaders of
terrorist groups, financiers of terrorism, including any individual that abide in plotting
terror attacks by cooperating with extremist groups. In 1997,
Madeleine Albright became the first woman appointed Secretary of State and the first foreign-born woman to serve in the Cabinet.
Present The 21st century saw the department reinvent itself in response to the rapid
digitization of society and the global economy. In 2007, it launched an official blog,
Dipnote, as well as a
Twitter account of the same name, to engage with a global audience. Internally, it launched a
wiki,
Diplopedia; a suggestion forum called the
Sounding Board; and a professional networking software, "Corridor". In May 2009, the
Virtual Student Federal Service (VSFS) was created to provide remote internships to students. The same year, the Department of State was the fourth most desired employer for undergraduates according to
BusinessWeek. From 2009 to 2017, the State Department launched
21st Century Statecraft, with the official goal of "complementing traditional foreign policy tools with newly innovated and adapted instruments of statecraft that fully leverage the technologies of our interconnected world." The initiative was designed to utilize digital technology and the Internet to promote foreign policy goals; examples include promoting an
SMS campaign to provide disaster relief to Pakistan, and sending DOS personnel to Libya to assist in developing Internet infrastructure and e-government.
Colin Powell, who led the department from 2001 to 2005, became the
first African-American to hold the post; his immediate successor,
Condoleezza Rice, was the
second female secretary of state and the second African-American.
Hillary Clinton became the third female secretary of state when she was appointed in 2009. In 2014, the State Department began expanding into the Navy Hill Complex across 23rd Street NW from the Truman Building. A joint venture consisting of the architectural firms of
Goody, Clancy and the
Louis Berger Group won a $2.5 million contract in January 2014 to begin planning the renovation of the buildings on the Navy Hill campus, which housed the World War II headquarters of the
Office of Strategic Services and was the first headquarters of the
Central Intelligence Agency. In June 2022, the State Department launched a new
transnational association, the
Minerals Security Partnership. On August 28, 2025, the State Department announced a new policy that would require the
National Visa Center to schedule routine immigrant visa interviews at all overseas US embassies and consulates for immigrant visa applicants, incl. the parents of US citizens who are not present in the US but were documentarily qualified, starting on November 1, 2025. In other words, the new policy, announced on August 28, 2025 by the State Department, requires immigrant visa applicants, such as the parents of US citizens who are not present in the US but were documentarily qualified, to attend immigrant visa interviews at all overseas US embassies and consulates as of November 1, 2025. ==Duties and responsibilities==