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FBI Filing and Records Procedures
From the 1920s into the 1980s, the FBI maintained a complex system of records designed to prevent outside discovery of operations and investigative techniques. The documents reproduced here act as a guide to these filing procedures.
City and Business Directories: Tennessee, 1849-1929
City directories are among the most comprehensive sources of historical and personal information available. Their emphasis on ordinary people and the common-place event make them important in the study of American history and culture. One of the few means available for researchers to uncover information on specific individuals, these directories provides such information as: Addresses; City and county officers; Heads of families, firms and names of those doing business in the city; Lists of city residents; Occupations; and Street Directories. In addition, researchers can learn much about day-to-day life through analysis of information on churches, public and private schools, benevolent, literary and other associations, and banks. Finally, most directories include advertising, often illustrating the products being sold. This information lends valuable insight into the city’s lifestyles and illustrates popular trends.
County and Regional Histories & Atlases: Wisconsin
State and especially local history gives students a chance to understand the people, places and things around them with which they’re already familiar. Originally compiled and produced by publishers and subscriptions agents for area residents and patrons, the original histories are difficult-to-find materials. Included in this collection on New York are 28 cities, regions, and counties in 465 titles. These titles comprise tables and lists of vital statistics, military service records, municipal and county officers, chronologies, portraits of individuals, and views of urban and rural life not found anywhere else. The atlases provide additional information on land use, settlement patterns, and scarce early town and city plans.
U.S. Army Center of Military History Historical Manuscripts Collection: The Korean War
U.S. participation in the war, plus U.S. relations with Korea immediately before and after, is documented in this unique collection of never-before published documents produced by the Military History Section of the Far East Command.
Chinese Maritime Customs Service: The Customs’ Gazette, 1869-1913
The Chinese Maritime Customs Service (中国海关; CMCS) was established in 1854 during the Qing Dynasty and operated until the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. The Service was run by an international-- predominantly British-staffed—team and the last foreign Inspector-General resigned in 1950. Established to collect taxes on maritime trade when Chinese officials were unable to collect them during the Taiping Rebellion, its functions quickly expanded. It became responsible for domestic customs administration (the Native Customs), postal administration, harbour and waterway management, weather reporting, and anti- smuggling operations. It mapped, lit, and policed the China coast and the Yangtze river. It was involved in loan negotiations, currency reform, and financial and economic management. It was always much more than just a tax collection agency, being well informed about local conditions, as well as deeply involved in local, provincial, and national politics, along with international affairs. The Service further involved itself in China's diplomacy, organized its representation at nearly thirty world fairs and exhibitions, and ran various educational establishments. Among its various publications, the Customs Gazette is a quarterly published by order of the Inspector General of Customs of China in Shanghai. It was established in 1869 and ceased publication in 1913. The Gazette published quarterly reports on trade prepared and submitted by the custom houses based across the country such as Newchuang, Tientsin, Chefoo, Hankow, Chinkiang, Ningpo, Foochow, Amoy, Swatow, Tamsui, Takow, Kiukiang, and Canton. Each report covers figures of vehicles, imports, exports, re-exports, internal transit, passenger traffic, revenue, etc. There are also sections in the Gazette on quarterly reports on dues and duties, précis of fines and confiscations, notifications, movement in the service, and appendixes. The Gazette published a total of 180 issues and this collection contains 152 of them. The missing issues are 29-36, 49-56, 61-64, and 77-84.
Johnson Presidency Administrative Histories: Foreign Affairs and National Security
This collection provides extensive documentation on a variety of presidential programs and initiatives. Agency and departmental records include: Administrative History of the Department of State; Agency for International Development; Panama Canal Company and the Canal Zone Government; U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency; and U.S. Information Agency.
Rise and Fall of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy
The brief but dramatic political reign of Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy (1908–1957) is examined in this collection, from the Wheeling speech in 1950 to McCarthy's condemnation by the Senate in late 1954. McCarthy rode the crest of U.S. anti-communist paranoia in the early 1950s, and his tactics of accusation through insinuation and innuendo have come to be known as "McCarthyism". His popularity was short-lived, however; in 1954 his television appearances severely damaged his image, followed by a backlash by his political opponents resulting in a condemnation vote by the Senate in December that year.
Essays by German Officers and Officials, 1939-1945
At the end of World War II, a joint United States and British Naval intelligence party seized the Marinearchiv (German Naval Archives) at Tambach Castle. This discovery, which included military records from as far back as 1805, prompted one of the most massive microfilming projects of military records in history. Many of the documents, now held by the National Archives, concern the administration and military strategies of the Third Reich. In order to place these primary sources in their historical context, two parallel projects took place: 1) the translation of important naval documents (including the translation of the Seekriegsleitung diaries and the Fuhrer Conferences on Naval Matters) and; 2) a study program by former German officers of various aspects of World War II. This publication is a combination of essays written after the war and during the war, including transcripts of speeches, personal accounts of wartime experiences, and research and development reports.
This collection is made up of eight smaller groups of documents: 1) Submarine Operational History of World War II; 2) Japanese Naval and Merchant Ship Losses during WW II by All Causes; 3) The Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II: A Graphic Presentation of the Japanese Naval Organization and List of Combatant and Non-Combatant Vessels Lost or Damaged in the War; 4) Submarine Report: Depth Charge, Bomb Mine, Torpedo and Gunfire Damage, Including Losses in Action (Dec. 7, 1941-Aug. 15, 1945); 5) U.S. Submarine Losses in World War II; 6) Current Tactical Orders Submarines, April 1939; 7) Submarine Officers Conferences, 1940-1949; and 8) The Role of Communications Intelligence in Submarine Warfare in the Pacific, January 1943-October 1943.
The documents reproduced in this publication are from the Records of the Department of State, in the custody of the National Archives of the United States. This publication consists of documents comprising RG 59: Records of the Department of State, Central Subject Files, East Germany and Berlin, POL subject category for the years 1963 through 1966.
Administrative Histories of U.S. Civilian Agencies: World War II
Few studies have been made of the civilian agencies which were charged with the awesome tasks and responsibilities of managing a nation at total war. The Administrative Histories of World War II Civilian Agencies of the Federal Government were originally produced under the Second World War History Program of the Federal Government. The histories were initially the work of the War Records Section of the Division of Administrative Management of the Bureau of the Budget. In March 1942, the program evolved into the Committee on Records of War Administration. Members of the Committee were well known historians, economists, and political scientists. The issues addressed in these records recur frequently throughout modern history. Inflationary pressures, oil and fuel shortages, discussions of rationing, dislocations in manufacturing and in the labor force, and many other problems appear throughout the collection and offer opportunities for contrast with current events. The growth of war production and problems in price stabilization, transportation and shipping, manpower, rationing, federal housing, and the allocation of raw materials demanded prompt coordination with scores of other wartime activities. In addition, the histories offer valuable insight into the development of agencies devoted expressly to the regulation of the country at war, including alien property and war assets, censorship, civilian defense, community war services, defense-related education, scientific research for the war effort, and public health during wartime.
Official Papers of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King
Admiral Ernest J. King was one of the most prominent Allied military leaders of World War II. In 1941, he was appointed commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet and as such oversaw the fulfillment of lend-lease programs to Great Britain and the Soviet Union. After the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor, he was selected to fill the new billet of commander in chief, U.S. Fleet (COMINCH), assuming operational control of all American naval forces. In early 1942, Admiral Harold R. Stark resigned as chief of naval operations (CNO), and President Roosevelt signed an executive order naming King to serve as both COMINCH and CNO. King was also a member of the newly formed Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combined Chiefs of Staff, through which he played a pivotal role in the shaping of Allied grand strategy from the Arcadia Conference to Potsdam. Official Papers of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King primarily contains records from the 1940s, of which the first series, correspondence and memorandums, makes up the bulk.
War on Poverty Community Profiles: Southern States
The Community Profiles provide an in-depth analysis of poverty in America with an extensive inventory of historical data at a local level. Each profile, composed as a narrative with statistical indices, contains information showing general poverty indicators, size and composition of the poor population, and selected aspects of geography, demography, economy, and social resources. Southern states in this collection include Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Dissent in Poland: Solidarity: Birth of a Social Movement
KARTA’s several collections are drawn from the immediate prewar period (1930s), the wartime occupations, and the Communist era (1945 to 1989). Solidarnosc—narodziny ruchu (Solidarity: The Birth of the Movement) is the final collection included from KARTA’s mass of materials. In 2003, its holdings were entered into the world list of UNESCO’s Memory of the World program. The collection began in 1982, when materials were first being gathered--clandestinely and without ties to other underground organizations. A group of activists and historians created Archiwum Solidarnosci (Archive of Solidarity) following a government raid on the Mazowsze Regional Solidarity radio station that resulted in their internment in a camp for oppositionists. The original archive was supplemented by materials from the Opposition Archive and it focuses most closely on the sixteen-month period from the founding of Solidarity in September 1980 to the imposition of martial law in December 1981. Martial law was imposed in December 1981, under General Wojciech Jaruzelski; Solidarity activists were arrested or otherwise punished, yet they continued to resist the military dictatorship until elections brought them into the government in 1989. The Polish opposition played a crucial role in the end of Soviet rule in Eastern Europe and eventually, the complete collapse of the Soviet Union. The documents from this remarkable Warsaw collection will be of interest to scholars of democratization and opposition movements, and to those studying the politics of late Leninist party-states. They also chart the rise of human rights and the ascendancy of an autonomous civil society in a state which, since its inception after World War II, had tried various tactics to establish a one-party monopoly on politics and ideas.
Colombia: Records of the U.S. Department of State, 1960-1963
The documents in this collection offer a snapshot of Colombia at the height of the Cold War. Numerous records track the impact of the Castro revolution in Cuba, for example: “Colombia Tourist Agent Visits Embassy Regarding Prospective Travel of Colombians on Planned USSR Flights Between Havana and Moscow”; and naval equipment on loan: “Colombian Navy would like to lease … from the United States Navy, under similar terms as those contained in the lease for the Floating Dry Dock.” On the economy: National Coffee Federation tabulations (September 1960); and “it was a sellers’ market during December for anyone holding dollars for sale as the Colombian peso continued to fall in relation to the dollar. The free market has advanced nervousness since October” (15 January 1963).
The Papers of Neville Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940) remains the best-known of the Chamberlain family due to his controversial policy of "appeasement" towards Hitler. The Papers of Neville Chamberlain contain political papers documenting his policies as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister, but also highlight his personal correspondence with his family. These provide insight into the intentions behind his policies, his concerns at the development of the Second World War, as well as letters covering his life together with his wife Annie and his sisters, particularly Hilda and Ida. The correspondence of his wife with his biographer and the handling of his estates following his death can be found in this collection as well.
Liberation Movement in Africa and African America
Africa's entrance into the international arena and American Cold War politics, helped fuel the Civil Rights and the Black Power movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Composed of FBI surveillance files on the activities of the African Liberation Support Committee and All African People's Revolutionary Party; this collection provides two unique views on African American support for liberation struggles in Africa, the issues of Pan-Africanism and Militant Black nationalism, as well as the role of African independence movements as political leverage for domestic Black struggles.
James Dombrowski was a southern white Methodist minister and intellectual who was active in the African American civil rights movement from the 1940s through 1960s. This collection consists of his correspondence and papers as leader of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, 1941-1948, and executive director of the Southern Conference Educational Fund, 1948-1966. These interracial civil rights organizations were instrumental in laying the groundwork for the success of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is a UK organization that advocates the abandonment of nuclear weapons by the UK and the world. This collection collects internal documents of the CND from 1985 to 1990, such as its national council minutes, committee records, the Trade Union CND papers, other affiliated group's papers, as well as external documents such as local group newsletters. In addition it contains speeches and articles by Bruce Kent from 1981-1989. Bruce Kent was the CND's general secretary from 1980-1985 and chair from 1987-1990.
The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) was a Christian pacifist group founded in December 1914 as a direct result of World War I. The membership was originally, but not exclusively, non-conformist and Quaker. This collection consists of the minute books and early papers, including: General Committee minutes; Executive Committee minutes; records of the Literature Committee; the Propaganda Committee; the Christian Pacifist Management Committee; the World War One Committee; the Post-World War One Committee; and other documents. This collection documents the formation of the FOR, and gives a detailed record of its role during WWI, and its views on such key issues as conscription, appeasement and disarmament.