Manuscripts and Archives Collections
Manuscripts and Archives is a special collection in Sterling Memorial Library. It’s collections include the Yale University Archives, personal and family papers of generations of Yale-related families, Yale publications, and the Fortunoff Video Archive of Holocaust Testimonies.
The Yale Finding Aid Database contains collection guides for Manuscripts and Archives’ archival collections, and you can keyword search through these guides. Alternatively, the list below comprises collections containing significant materials that would serve as great primary sources for a paper on some aspect of the United States during the New Deal era. The bolded title of each collection listed serves as a link to its online finding aid. The overview section of each finding aid provides biographical information on individuals that will help you situate them in the New Deal era.
Dean Gooderham Acheson Papers: Note that while the papers reflect his government service, they are not the records of his service in various positions, including Secretary of State under President Harry Truman.
Alfred Mitchell Bingham and the Common Sense Collection: Social reformer, writer, founder and editor of Common Sense, lawyer, and politician.
Edwin Montefiore Borchard Papers: Specialist in international law, adviser to government and business, and controversial advocate of American neutrality in both world wars.
Chester Bowles Papers: Served in the Office of Price Administration in Connecticut and at the federal level, as a Special Assistant to the Secretary General of the United Nations, elected governor of Connecticut (1948-1950), served as ambassador to India (1951-1953, 1963-1969), and was elected to the U.S. Congress (1959-1960).
William C. Bullitt Papers: Journalist, diplomat, served in various State Department positions beginning in 1933, including as the first U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, and later ambassador to France.
Laurance Johnson Carmalt Papers: New Haven civil engineer and city planner active in programs to combat unemployment during the Great Depression.
Roe Family Papers: Particularly Henry Roe Cloud, the first Native American to graduate from Yale (1910), who served in various capacities in the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the 1930s. See also Ravi Goel Collection on Henry Roe Cloud.
Isidore Sydney Falk Papers: Public health advocate who worked for the Social Security Board beginning in 1936.
Irving Fisher Papers: Political economist and social activist with interests in monetary theory and policy, national politics, health reform, prohibition, nutrition, among other topics.
Jerome New Frank Papers: Lawyer, government official during the New Deal, author, legal philosopher, teacher, and federal judge.
Allen Grover Records of the Committee on War Information: Associate Director of the federal Office of Facts and Figures (OFF) in 1941-1942.
John Dennett Guthrie Papers: Documents concerning forestry and forest policy and Guthrie's association with Civilian Conservation Corps.
Howard Lee Haag Papers: Document Haag’s work with the YMCA in Manchuria, with Russian refugees fleeing the revolution, and in the Philippines, Japan, and Bridgeport, CT in the 1930s-1950s.
Ira Vaughan Hiscock: Public health expert who worked with Yale-in-China and the World Health Assembly.
Charles Humboldt Papers: Left-wing editor, poet and critic variously connected with Art Front ,New Masses , Masses and Mainstream , and the National Guardian.
Victor Jeremy Jerome Papers: American communist, writer, editor of Political Affairs, and political activist convicted in 1952 for violation of the Smith Act.
Chase Kimball Papers: Document Kimball's participation in many national and local social, political, and religious organizations, primarily concerned with international peace and justice, and also with civic improvement in Connecticut.
Florence Ledyard Cross Kitchelt Papers: Document Kitchelt's work on behalf of international peace, through the Connecticut League of Nations Association and the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies.
Arthur Bliss Lane Papers: Career diplomat, public servant, and lecturer, Lane served in Latin America during the 1930s, culminating in his appointment as ambassador to Colombia (1942-1944) and to Poland (1945-1947).
Howard Dwight Lasswell Papers: Director of War Communications Research at the Library of Congress (1939-1946) and as professor of law and political science at Yale.
Russell Cornell Leffingwell Papers: Served at the Department of Treasury and a partner at J.P. Morgan, and advised every U.S. president from Wilson to Eisenhower, including extensive correspondence with FDR.
Max Lerner Papers: educator, author, lecturer, historian, and political scientist who advocated for Jewish causes and Zionism and maintained close ties to Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh Papers: Author and public figure who took an active interest in many organizations and social issues.
Charles Augustus Lindbergh Papers: Pilot, developer of commercial aviation and rocketry, bio-engineer, air force officer and consultant, pioneer environmentalist, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and public figure.
Walter Lippmann Papers: Journalist and editor who served on the first editorial board of the New Republic, was editor of the New York World (1922-1931), and beginning in 1931 wrote the column “Today and Tomorrow” for the New York Herald Tribune, which would later be syndicated nationally until 1967.
Dwight Macdonald Papers: Journalist and writer with an interest in communism, the Trotskyite movement, pacifism, and American social and political life from the 1920s-1970s.
David Townsend Mason Papers: Diaries and travel journals deal chiefly with forestry and give considerable attention to the formulation of national policy on forests in the 1930s.
Keith Merrill Papers: Documents assembled by a U.S. Foreign Service officer while serving with the Board of Economic Warfare during World War II.
Palestine Statehood Committee Papers: Records of five committees active in the United States from 1939-1949 in the area of rescue and repatriation of European Jews to a Jewish nation in independent Palestine.
Charles Parsons Papers: Polemicist and ideologist who advocated for various conservative and anti-communist causes and issues, largely between 1934-1965.
Bogdan Radica Papers: Press officer in the Yugoslav Legation in Washington, D.C. and the Yugoslav Information Center in New York during World War II.
Than Vanneman Ranck Papers: Editorial manager for the Hearst newspapers from 1928 to 1937.
James Harvey Rogers Papers: Yale economist who participated in formulating New Deal economic policies and served as American representative to the Economic Committee of the League of Nations.
Socialist Party (New Haven, CT) Records: Correspondence and newsletters of the organization in the early 20th century.
Henry Lewis Stimson Papers: Personal papers (not official government records) documenting his service as Secretary of War under President Taft, (1911-1913), Secretary of State under President Hoover (1929-1933) and as Secretary of War in the cabinets of Presidents Roosevelt and Truman (1940-1945).
Harold Phelps Stokes Papers: Journalist (New York Times, 1929-1937) with an interest in foreign policy and domestic politics, the Alger Hiss case, the Paris Peace Conference, New York City politics and government, and prison reform.
Rose Pastor Stokes Papers: Writer, artist, and radical political and social activist involved with a variety of radical groups, including the American Communist Party and the Socialist Party.
Thomas Day Thacher Papers: New York City judge and politician who corresponded with many important figures from the mid 20th century.
Donald Crossley Vining Papers: Diaries provide a detailed account of the life of an intellectual, gay man in the 1940s and 1950s.
William John Walker Papers: Correspondence and campaign materials relating to his unsuccessful campaign as Republican candidate for mayor of Albany, NY in 1937.
Anna Strunsky Walling Papers: Socialite who was involved in many political causes, including the Socialist Labor Party, in the first part of the 20th century, and corresponded with political and literary figures of the era.
Harry Weinberger Papers: Lawyer in New York City who specialized in civil liberties cases in the early to mid-20th century, including representing Emma Goldman.
Wendell Lewis Wilkie Presidential Campaign Papers: Documentation from his presidential campaign in 1940.
