The New Deal and Local Archives: The Pacific Northwest

Abstract

A recent article in the Journal of American History, Gerald T. White of the University of California at Irvine discusses the value of regional Federal Records Centers to the historical profession. The centers were first established in 1950, when it was decided to send Federal records of a regional or local character to these subtreasury record banks. Very simply, the rate of paper production in Washington made this decision imperative. One of Professor White's main points is that the existence of these centers is too often unknown to historians. The professor is encouraged, however, in that steps are being taken to alert the profession to this vast collection of records. Archival journals have printed inventories, and the centers have sponsored day-long symposia in their regions to familiarize the scholarly community with what they are doing. As a result of this campaign in 1966, some 400 people expressed interest in the records held at the centers, but, according to White's survey, most of these inquiries were of a cursory nature. Indeed, his general conclusion about the centers seems somewhat gloomy. He writes that It seems certain that a good many inquiries made at the centers in the future, as in the past, will be specific in nature and often of marginal scholarly significance.1 Because the local records lack what he calls the richness of the National Archives and other depositories, he feels that their main contribution in the future will be minimal. This essay treats the question of whether or not the professor's pessimism is warranted when one considers the relevance of local materials available in the Pacific Northwest for a study of the 1930's and the New Deal. In order to establish a reference point for a consideration of the sources available in this immediate region and how they might contribute to the overall evaluation of the period, it might be wise to first examine the present state of New Deal historiography. Precise figures are not available, but there seem good grounds for asserting that few decades in American history have received the amount of attention given the 1930's and the New Deal. One scholar estimated that over a hundred scholarly books and articles dealing with the period