Correspondence held by University of Iowa Libraries (Indexed in The Wallace Papers)
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Scope and Contents
An extensive collection of papers of the 33rd Vice-President of the United States, this collection is comprised of ten series. The first series, Audiovisual contains many formats, from large records to CDs and is made up of sound and moving pictures of speeches and music.
The second series contains many clippings about Wallace and the Progressive Party.
The third series contains correspondence. The Wallace correspondence at Iowa is arranged chronologically. Large quantities of similar letters are also held at the Library of Congress and the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library. With the help of a grant from the National Historical Publications Commission, all three collections were microfilmed in the early 1970s. At the end of the project, a printed index to the Microform Edition was published by the Libraries: The Wallace Papers: an index to the microfilm editions of the Henry A. Wallace papers in the University of Iowa Libraries, the Library of Congress, and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (Iowa City: University of Iowa Libraries, 1975). Copies of this two-volume work are held in the Main Library Reference Collection and in Special Collections. Copies of the work can be borrowed from the Libraries, as can be the microfilms themselves. These letters have been digitized as well and can be viewed in the Iowa Digital Library. Letters held by the Library of Congress are included in this collection in paper and digital, but those held by the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library are not. They are indexed in The Wallace Papers but to see the copy one must contact the FDR library.
As well, the library has obtained, and continues to obtain, letters that are not indexed in The Wallace Papers. In 2003 an index was made of these letters and this index will be made available via PDF in the near future.
The fourth series, Government documents contains information on campaigns, elections, and inaugurations; FBI files; the House Committee on Un-American Activities; materials from Wallace's time as Head of the Department of Agriculture; and the Progressive Party.
Series V is Miscellaneous and Memorabilia.
Series VI is Personal Papers. Here are found appointment books, awards, biographical material, books from the Wallace library, diaries, scrapbooks, and items having to with Wallace's travels.
Series VII is comprised of photographs and images and consists primarily of photographs from his trips to China and Russia and Latin America.
Series VIII is Research and is made up of notes, charts, and publications on the many research interests of Wallace. These are agriculture; land, money and the economy, population, railroads; miscellaneous topics; and spiritualism. This series is also home to research conducted on Wallace and includes items from Donald Murphy, who edited Wallace's diaries; Dean Albertson who conducted an oral history of Wallace; and Paul Richards who collected Wallace autographs. Also here will be found theses, dissertations, and other school papers written about Wallace.
Series IX contains materials on the publications with which Wallace was associated, Wallace's Farmer and The New Republic. Also in this series are found materials dealing with the various foundations and institutes which have grown up around the Wallace name - The Wallace Birthplace Foundation, Wallace House Foundation, Country Life Center, Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture, The Wallace Centers of Iowa, Pioneer Hybird Seed Corn Company.
Series X contains writings, which includes articles, speeches, and statement by and about Wallace.
Please note that the series are numbered with Arabic numerals in the finding aid, but the boxes themselves are numbered with Roman numerals for series numbers.
Under provision 5B of the donor's agreement:
"Donee shall be the sole and exclusive proprietor of the copyright estate therein. Donee shall, in its discretion, have the rights to use any or all of said papers with or without the general publications thereof , and it may, in its discretion, claim to itself or to its assigns the exclusive right to copy any or all of the said papers after publication and to perfect the statutory copyright thereto in accordance with the laws of the United States and any and all other countries."
A group of sound recordings is shelved in the wood cabinets just outside and to the right of the vault. -this is outdated LM 3/18
Note: the 2009 addendum is made up of photocopies of photographs. These photocopies may not be reproduced; however, there are notes with each photograph as to where to obtain copies. Sometimes copyright information is included with this information. jlr
There is a copy of The Wallace Papers in Special Collections Reference. This is an index to the bulk , though not all, of the correspondence. jlr
Dates
- Creation: 1923-2004
Conditions Governing Access
This collection is open for research.
Extent
From the Collection: 168.00 Linear Feet
Language of Materials
From the Collection: English
Materials Specific Details
Identification of Correspondents
Among the names appearing frequently in the Henry A. Wallace Papers are several who will not be familiar to most users of the index. Mary A. Huss was Wallace's secretary at Wallace's Farmer and during his government service. Mabel A. Cooney, Mildred M. Eaton, and Harold H. Young were among other secretaries and assistants in the 1940s. The relative appearing most frequently in the index is Henry A. Wallace's uncle, Daniel A. Wallace, of Minnesota.
The names of Henry A. Wallace himself (HAW) and 23 others appearing most often in the index have been replaced by initials in all positions. These other names are:
Raymond F. Baker RFB
Louis H. Bean LHB
Earl N. Bressman ENB
George M. Darrow GMD
Paul de Kruif PdK
Laurence Duggan LD
Mildred M. Eaton MME
Fred W. Henshaw FWH
Curtice N. Hitchcock CNH
Cordell Hull CH
Mary A. Huss MAH
Jake S. More JSM
Henry Morgenthau, Jr. HM
Donald R. Murphy DRM
Donald M. Nelson DMN
Milo Perkins MP
Nelson A. Rockefeller NAR
Franklin D. Roosevelt FDR
Ross R. Salmon RRS
Harry S Truman HST
Daniel A. Wallace DAW
Sumner Welles SW
Harold H. Young HHY
The word "from" has been abbreviated as "fr" in the index. Anonymous, illegible, pseudonymous, and unknown correspondents have been replaced in the index by the words "Anonymous" and "Unknown." Multiple correspondents have been entered individually; pairs or larger numbers of writers or recipients of letters have usually had separate index entries made for each name; in a few instances the first name to appear in the salutation or signature is indexed, or the best-known names in either position. Some obscure names and names of spouses have, therefore, been deleted from index entries for multiple correspondents. "Et al" has been used in such entries to indicate many deletions. Two or more letters or copies of letters from a writer to the same recipient on the same day are separately indexed. Government agencies appearing as correspondents are preceded by the name of the government, as in "Iowa State Income Tax Division" and "US Board of Economic Warfare." Most titles of address have been deleted, except for "Mrs." with initials or a husband's first name. A few religious and other titles were retained for otherwise incomplete names. Some women, including Helen Gahagan Douglas, are entered under both their maiden and married names, following the example of each letter indexed. Information not found on the documents has sometimes been supplied by the indexers. An effort has been made to print Chinese, Spanish, and other foreign-language names in correct form, but the user of the index may find that some misreadings have been made or some diacritical marks omitted. In an indexing project of this size there are doubtless other errors and omissions of which the user must beware and for which the editor accepts responsibility.
Dates
The dates of many letters, telegrams, postcards, and memorandums in the Henry A. Wallace Papers are approximate, incomplete, uncertain, or unknown. In the date column, approximate and uncertain dates are followed by "'" Incomplete dates are given as far as they are known, as in "1948" or "1941 My." Unknown dates, where the indexers were unable to determine the year of a document, are represented by "ND" or, when the month and day are known but the year is not, by, for example, "ND Ap 3."
The months have been abbreviated as follows:
January Ja
February Fe
March Mr
April Ap
May My
June Je
July JI
August Ag
September Se
October Oc
November No
December De
A Final Note
An unpublished index of slips for each personal and corporate name found in the texts of the correspondence in the three Wallace microfilm editions is available for consultation in the Special Collections Department of the University of Iowa Libraries. There is a brief published Guide to a Microfilm Edition of the Henry A. Wallace Papers at The University of Iowa (Iowa City, 1974).
Repository Details
Part of the University of Iowa Special Collections Repository
Special Collections Department
University of Iowa Libraries
Iowa City IA 52242 IaU
319-335-5921
319-335-5900 (Fax)
lib-spec@uiowa.edu