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Internal Memorandum To: Miss Adams Februaxy 2, 1954 From? K. McRLmstry Re: Appointment with Professor Arthtir H. Cole, Librarian, Baker Library, Harvard Business School, February 1, 1954* On Monday morning, February 1, I spent over an hour talking with Professor Cole. I described to him the major outline of your history project: (l) the biographical material on Board members, officers and directors of the Reserve Banks, economists -within the System, etc.; (2) a proposed bibliography of unpublished materials—location, private papers available, System memoranda, etc,} (3) a proposed comprehensive bibliography of published writings? (4-) & subject filej and (5) the chronology of events, legislation, etc. I told him that Miss Adams understood that his project on entrepreneurial histoiy had some model system of a central research file, making use of cards "which might be useful as a model for this Reserre System history project* He seemed genuinely puzzled by this* He said all the people connected with these studies did their own research privately and not at any center* The only carding system he -was aware of •was one used £y William Miller in connection -with his study of business leaders* He said he made some statistical analyses, using for the purpose IBM cards recording how many compaqy executives had college degrees• He said that Professor Thomas C* Corcoran had made use of perforated cards for various statistical ^tabulations, but this, he thought, could not be -what you had in mind* He said all the work om entrepreneurial history was varied and scattered, thoxjgh there was a small collection of relevant materials assembled across the river in Holyoke House* I took him up on — 2 — this and suggested visiting Holyoke House, but he asstared me there would be nothiiag useful for us in that. He said all this contained was material on changes in American business techniques, practices, and perforaiances# He said, for example, that Professor Redlich had been makixig a stMy of aristocratic entrepreneurs in the period down thrcrqgh the eighteenth centux«y, and made use of this Holyoke House material. The second man in charge of this entrepreneurial history project is Professor Hugh Aitksn, who is editor of its journal* He is working on an introduction to scientific management. William Miller, whose name he also mentioned, is living in Darien and working on another volume on business leaders• Mabel leweomer (of ?assar), who contributed to "fee first volume, had a system of handliiag data on business leaders entirely of her own manufacture which he thought might be of interest. He also mentioned the mme of Professor Richard C, Overton of the Business School faculty ^ho, he said, is a historian of the Burlington i^ystem. He is working now on a full-size history of that railroad and had just had a book published, entitled ¥est to thjs Rockiest this, I take it, way be the first of his projected four-volume work on that subject. One other person he mentioned as of possible interest to us was Bray Hammond, fomerly at the Reserve Board, who has done much work on Systes history. He said the last he had heard about Hammond that he had gone abroad to Italy for a year with his wife (his wife is an Italian) • He also mentioned the name of John Sawyer, an economic historian recently acquired lay lale from Harvard, but said he thought Sawyer was now on a year*s sabbatical* - 3 I asked him Aether the Business School had acquired any important private collections of papers, and mentioned specifically that I noticed that they had an Aldrich Room, deriving from Senator Nelson ¥• Aldrich• He said that this Boom contained a collection of books that Senator Aldrich had made when he was stuping financial and tariff questions • He did not think it contained anything that was not generally available in other libraries? it did not include any personal papers at all* He thought Winthrop Aldrich would be the one who might either still have his father1 s papers or know what final disposition had been made of them? he thoi^ght some might possibly have been tiaraed over to ] the Bhode Island Historical Society* He said that Baker Libraiy had recently received a feift from Walter Lichtenstein, including a collection of personal papers* but that the library staff has not yet had time to go through them and sort them out» He said, after checking by telephone with someone in the library, that the correspondence which had been turned over to them by Mr» Lichtenstein dated from the 1930 f s, and so did not include ai$f correspondence with Governor Strong* He said perhaps the only items of possible interest to us would be certain minutes of meetings which came in this collection* He said these minutes were hard to come by as originally there were only a few copies of themj he thought they pertained, however, to Mr. Lichtenstein1 s work as Secretary of the Reserve City Bankers Association rather to thai}/Federal Reserve matters. He said he could have someone look over the collection to see what was in it relating to the Federal Reserve, but in any case he was sure there was nothing much included bearing on the period of the twenties or on Governor Strong. Professor Cole closed "by saying he would of course be glad to answer any specific questions Miss Adams might care to address to him at aiay time* # # # I spent the remainder of the day lookings over the book > files at both the Business School and Videner Library. The Business School1s collection is veiy meager and uninteresting• They have nothing that is mot duplicated in the big Widener Library* I spent most of the day on digging out what I thought might be scarce items by Federal Reserve people, particularly from the early years, and feel sure that next to our own Library and the big Fifth Avenue Library, Widener will prove most useful for the bibliography of published works and unpublished theses in this area*
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