The Creation of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library: A Personal Narrative

Abstract

learned that on the previous day President Franklin D. Roosevelt had announced to a party of 18 persons assembled at luncheon in the White House a long-cherished plan to present to the United States his already vast accumulation of correspondence and other papers, documents, books, pamphlets, pictures, and objects of personal or historic interest.He proposed to place these collections in a building which should be erected at private cost, on a plot of land donated to the United States from the estate then owned by his mother, on the Albany Post Road about 5 miles north of Poughkeepsie, N. Y.At the same time he announced his expectation that the rest of the hundred acres or more between the Post Road and the Hudson River, on which the family residence was situated, would, as he expressed it, "eventually go to the Federal Government to be maintained for the benefit of the public."Both the intention and the expectation have been realized.The luncheon guests included, in addition to Judge Samuel I. Rosenman and Mr. Frank C. Walker, university presidents Ed- 1 This paper is based upon materials in the author's file, kept as chairman of the Executive Committee, which will be transferred to the National Archives in due time, and in a special file in the office of the Archivist of the United States.Included in these files are such documents as correspondence of members of the Executive Committee, lists of members of committees, lists of guarantors of the cost of building the library, surveys of materials in the White House, memoranda by the President, incorporation and bylaws of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Inc., audit of receipts and expenditures of the corporation, transcripts of addresses at the cornerstone laying, November 19, 1939, and at the dinner of February 4, 1939, drafts of legislation, newspaper clippings, press releases, and the like."The Story of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library" by Robert D. W. Connor printed in American Archivist, 3:81-92 (Apr.1940), contains supplemental information and appraisal.The article by Herman Kahn, Director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, on "Research Materials at the Franklin D

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