| Government Red Tape | |
| This shoelace style crimson cotton ribbon was used to to bind together United States Federal Court documents from approximately 1790 to 1915. The wide, soft, braided cotton ribbon was used because it did not cut through the paper documents. At the end of each business day the Court Clerk would tri-fold all the documents he completed that day and tie them in a bundle with the crimson ribbon. | The documents were placed in a wooden file box (a Woodruf Box) in chronological order to aid reference needs. In order to review a particular court case, one would have to cut the red ribbon to open the bundle of documents and find the record of the legal action. This process eventually entered our modern american language in the phrase cutting through the government red tape. |
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since 2/8/2000