Presidential Libraries—One Researcher's Point of View

Abstract

T O DO RESEARCH in the presidential libraries is to expose oneself frequently to many criticisms of these new institutions."They compete unfairly.""They promote undesirable decentralization of manuscript collections.""They are nothing but monuments operated by biased archivists who worship the GREAT MAN."These charges, and others, often presented in a very vigorous fashion, challenge everyone connected with the libraries.1 From my point of view, however, the libraries have already demonstrated their great value as research centers.The rapidly mounting stack of important publications on Franklin Roosevelt, the New Deal, World War II, and various aspects of the Truman Administration provides the evidence.Largely because of the Roosevelt Library, as a student of the research on both Woodrow Wilson and F. D. R. has pointed out, scholars are much further ahead in exploring the career of a public figure of such importance than would normally be the case.Roosevelt scholarship, for example, has almost reached the same stage today as that of Wilson scholarship, with the notable exception that more scholarly articles are available on Wilson. 2 This statement appeared nearly four years ago, and since then several important books and a flood of scholarly articles that draw upon the Roosevelt Library have been produced, the Truman Li-* Paper read before the Society of American Archivists on Oct. 7, 1961, at the Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Mo., as a part of a session of the Society's 35th annual meeting.Dr. Kirkendall, an associate professor of history in the University of Missouri, has published several articles on intellectuals in politics in the period of the New Deal.1 For evidence of some of the criticism see "Acquisition Policies of Presidential Libraries," a reprint of a paper by Herman Kahn, with discussion by Howard H. Peckham, David C. Mearns, et at.

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