by: Mau­reen Callahan

The his­to­rian John Lewis Gad­dis, author of a 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winning biog­ra­phy of George Ken­nan, has stated that the Mudd Library holds “the most sig­nif­i­cant set of papers for the study of mod­ern Amer­i­can his­tory out­side of fed­eral hands.”

This may be true, but is often only rel­e­vant to researchers who have the resources to access them. We have worked dili­gently to make sure peo­ple could find infor­ma­tion about our col­lec­tions, but until now, there were only a very few ways to actu­ally study these records – come to Prince­ton, New Jer­sey and access them in the read­ing room, or order pho­to­copies of what you think you might be inter­ested in, based on descrip­tions in our find­ing aids (we also have a few col­lec­tions dig­i­tized and online, and some micro­filmed col­lec­tions of our records may be in your local library).

We want to change this to make it eas­ier for every­one to access our mate­ri­als. Thanks to the gen­eros­ity of the National His­tor­i­cal Pub­li­ca­tions and Records Com­mis­sion (NHPRC), a taxpayer-funded orga­ni­za­tion that sup­ports efforts to pro­mote doc­u­men­tary sources, over 400,000 pages of records from six of our most-used col­lec­tions will be dig­i­tized and put online for any­one with an inter­net con­nec­tion to access. We hope that our records will become newly acces­si­ble and indis­pen­si­ble to inter­na­tional researchers, high school and col­lege stu­dents, and any­one else with an inter­est in the his­tory of the Cold War.  As Gad­dis wrote in a let­ter of sup­port for our grant, this kind of access “has the poten­tial, quite lit­er­ally, to glob­al­ize the pos­si­bil­ity of doing archival research. That’s no guar­an­tee that this will pro­duce a greater num­ber of great books than in the past. What it will ensure, how­ever, is a quan­tum leap in the oppor­tu­ni­ties stu­dents and their teach­ers will have to bring the excite­ment of work­ing with orig­i­nal doc­u­ments into all classrooms.”

Col­lec­tions include:

John Fos­ter Dulles Papers

John Fos­ter Dulles (1888–1959), the fifty-third Sec­re­tary of State of the United States for Pres­i­dent Dwight D. Eisen­hower, had a long and dis­tin­guished pub­lic career with sig­nif­i­cant impact upon the for­mu­la­tion of United States for­eign poli­cies. He was espe­cially involved with efforts to estab­lish world peace after World War I, the role of the United States in world gov­er­nance, and Cold War rela­tions between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Dulles papers doc­u­ment his entire pub­lic career and his influ­ence on the for­ma­tion of United States for­eign pol­icy, espe­cially for the period when he was Sec­re­tary of State.

We plan to dig­i­tize the following:

Series 1. Selected Cor­re­spon­dence 1891–1960

Series 3. Diaries and Jour­nals 1907–1938

Series 5. Speeches, State­ments, Press Con­fer­ences, Etc 1913–1958

George Ken­nan Papers

George F. Ken­nan (1904–2005) was a diplo­mat and a his­to­rian, noted espe­cially for his influ­ence on United States pol­icy towards the Soviet Union dur­ing the Cold War and for his schol­arly exper­tise in the areas of Russ­ian his­tory and for­eign pol­icy. Kennan’s papers doc­u­ment his career as a scholar at the Insti­tute for Advanced Study and his time in the For­eign Service.

We plan to dig­i­tize the following:

Sub­series 1A, Per­ma­nent Cor­re­spon­dence 1947–2004

Sub­series 4D, Major Unused Drafts 1933–1978

Sub­series 4G, Unpub­lished Works 1938–2000

Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions Records

The Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions is a non­profit, non­par­ti­san research and national mem­ber­ship orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cated to improv­ing under­stand­ing of inter­na­tional affairs by pro­mot­ing a range of ideas and opin­ions on United States for­eign pol­icy. The Coun­cil has had a sig­nif­i­cant impact in the devel­op­ment of twen­ti­eth cen­tury United States for­eign pol­icy. The Records of the Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions doc­u­ment the his­tory of the orga­ni­za­tion from its found­ing in 1921 through the present.

We plan to dig­i­tize the following:

Stud­ies Depart­ment 1918–1945

Allen W. Dulles Papers

The Allen W. Dulles Papers con­tains cor­re­spon­dence, speeches, writ­ings, and pho­tographs doc­u­ment­ing the life of this lawyer, diplo­mat, busi­ness­man, and spy. One of the longest-serving direc­tors of the Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency (1953–1961), he also served in a key intel­li­gence post in Bern, Switzer­land dur­ing World War II, as well as on the War­ren Commission.

We plan to dig­i­tize the following:

Series 1, Cor­re­spon­dence 1891–1969

Series 4, War­ren Com­mis­sion Files 1959–1967

Adlai E. Steven­son Papers

The Adlai E. Steven­son Papers doc­u­ment the pub­lic life of Adlai Steven­son (1900–1965), gov­er­nor of Illi­nois, Demo­c­ra­tic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, and United Nations ambas­sador. The col­lec­tion con­tains cor­re­spon­dence, speeches, writ­ings, cam­paign mate­ri­als, sub­ject files, United Nations mate­ri­als, per­sonal files, pho­tographs, and audio­vi­sual mate­ri­als, illu­mi­nat­ing Stevenson’s career in law, pol­i­tics, and diplo­macy, pri­mar­ily from his first pres­i­den­tial cam­paign until his death in 1965.

We plan to dig­i­tize the following:

Sub­series 5D, U.S. Ambas­sador to the United Nations 1946–1947

James For­re­stal Papers

James V. For­re­stal (1892–1949) was a Wall Street busi­ness­man who played an impor­tant role in U.S. mil­i­tary oper­a­tions dur­ing and imme­di­ately after World War II. From 1940 to 1949 For­re­stal served as, in order, assis­tant to Pres­i­dent Roo­sevelt, Under Sec­re­tary of the Navy, Sec­re­tary of the Navy, and the first Sec­re­tary of Defense.

We plan to dig­i­tize the following:

Sub­series 1A, Alpha­bet­i­cal Correspondence

Sub­series 5A, Diaries

Dig­i­ti­za­tion will occur over the course of two years, and mate­ri­als will be added to the web as they are dig­i­tized. Please be in touch with us if you have any ques­tions about any of our materials.