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John R. Steelman PapersDates: 1905-1996. Bulk Date Span: 1934-1953.
The papers of John R. Steelman contain information about his career as a labor-management conciliator and government official. Most of his papers relate to his service as Assistant to the President and in several other important posts during the Truman administration. The collection includes correspondence, memoranda, and appointment calendars documenting Steelman's government service during the Truman years, along with scrapbooks, printed material, and other items. Reflecting Steelman's background as a mediator of labor disputes, his papers are especially informative concerning strikes and other labor-management issues. Also included is material relating to a wide variety of matters that crossed the desk of Steelman in his capacity as President Truman's chief assistant in the White House, and during his temporary assignments as head of the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion, the President's Scientific Research Board, the National Security Resources Board, and the Office of Defense Mobilization. See also: John R. Steelman Files Finding Aid
Size: 31.5 linear feet (about 63,000 pages).
[ Top of the page | Administrative Information | Biographical Sketch | Collection Description | Series Descriptions | Folder Title List ]
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| 1900 (June 23) | Born, Thornton, Arkansas | |
| 1922 | A.B., Henderson Brown College, Arkadelphia, Arkansas | |
| 1924 | M.A., Vanderbilt University | |
| 1928 | Ph.D., University of North Carolina | |
| 1928-34 | Professor of Sociology and Economics, Alabama College, Montevallo, Alabama | |
| 1934-36 | Commissioner of Conciliation, U.S. Conciliation Service, Department of Labor | |
| 1936-37 | Special Assistant to the Secretary of Labor | |
| 1937-44 | Director, U.S. Conciliation Service, Department of Labor | |
| 1944-45 | Public Relations Consultant, New York City | |
| 1945-46 | Special Assistant to the President | |
| 1946 | Director, Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion | |
| 1946-53 | The Assistant to the President | |
| 1946-47 | Chairman, President's Scientific Research Board | |
| 1948-50 | Acting Chairman, National Security Resources Board | |
| 1952 | Acting Director, Office of Defense Mobilization | |
| 1953 | Served briefly as Special Assistant to the President, helping the Eisenhower administration get underway | |
| 1953-c.1968 | Industrial Relations Consultant, Washington, D.C. | |
| 1955-69 | Served at various times as president of the Montgomery Publishing Company and chairman of the board of the Record Publishing Company, and as publisher of newspapers in Bethesda, Silver Spring, and Rockville, Maryland | |
| 1999 (July 14) | Died, Naples, Florida |
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The papers of John R. Steelman document his entire career as a scholar, college professor, labor-management conciliator, government official, consultant, and publisher. They mostly consist of materials that Steelman accumulated during his years of service with the federal government, beginning in 1934 and ending in 1953. Steelman was teaching at Alabama College, a women's school in Montevallo, Alabama, when he met Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins during her visit to the college in 1934. Impressed by the young professor's familiarity with labor conditions in Alabama, Perkins persuaded him to leave academia and accept a position as Commissioner of Conciliation in the Labor Department's U.S. Conciliation Service. Steelman helped resolve hundreds of disputes between labor and management while serving in this post from 1934 to 1936. He became a Special Assistant to Secretary Perkins in 1936 and was named Director of the U.S. Conciliation Service in 1937. During a tumultuous period that spanned the Great Depression and the Second World War, Steelman headed the federal government's efforts to avert strikes and secure labor-management cooperation. He resigned in 1944 and became a consultant in New York City. Only a year later, he returned to the government at the request of the new President, Harry S. Truman, who asked him to serve as his Special Assistant in the White House with responsibility for labor affairs. In 1946, Steelman was named "The Assistant to the President," a title which reflected his status as Truman's de facto chief of staff. Even in this capacity, however, he continued to devote much of his time and energy to labor problems. Steelman was the White House adviser most responsible for trying to prevent or resolve the wave of national strikes that plagued the U.S. during the postwar years. Steelman remained Assistant to the President until the end of the Truman administration in 1953. However, Truman frequently called upon him to undertake temporary assignments in addition to his regular duties at the White House. This practice reflected the extent to which the President appreciated and relied upon Steelman's administrative talents. At various times, Steelman served as the last Director of the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion, as Chairman of the President's Scientific Research Board (which prepared a series of reports to the President on science and public policy), as Acting Chairman of the National Security Resources Board, and as Acting Director of the Office of Defense Mobilization during the Korean War. Within the White House, Steelman was regarded as one of the President's more conservative advisers, exerting an influence that ran counter to the liberal "Wardman Park Group," which was composed of such administration officials as Clark Clifford and Leon Keyserling. Avowedly nonpartisan, Steelman remained at the White House for the first few weeks of the Eisenhower Presidency in 1953, serving as Special Assistant to the President until the transition to the new Republican administration was completed. He then left government service and embarked upon a new career as an industrial relations consultant and newspaper publisher. The papers of John R. Steelman are comprised of eleven series. The first series, the Harry S. Truman File, contains correspondence, newspaper clippings, printed material, memoranda, and other items relating to President Truman. Included in this series are copies of many congratulatory letters (apparently drafted by Steelman and his staff) from the President to labor unions that were holding conventions or celebrating anniversaries, and copies of some post-presidential letters from Steelman to Truman. The series also contains information about such topics as the renovation of the White House during the Truman administration and the activities of the Truman Centennial Committee in 1984. The second series, the Appointment File, contains Steelman's daily appointment schedules, both typed and handwritten, for the period from 1944 to 1987 (although there are only a few intermittent schedules for the years after 1953). Included are desk calendars, appointment diaries, and notes regarding telephone calls, business to be transacted, and requests for appointments, as well as drafts of some related letters and memoranda. The material in the Appointment File is especially informative concerning Steelman's activities during the Truman administration; his meetings with labor and business leaders as well as reporters and government officials; and his involvement in the major strikes of the period. However, the schedules usually do not provide detailed information about what went on at Steelman's meetings.>/p> The third series, Christmas Gifts, contains lists of Christmas presents given and received by Steelman, along with lists of names and addresses, and related correspondence. Included in this series is information about Steelman's gifts to various staff members and other employees at the White House. The next series, the Chronological Copies File, is the largest series in the collection. It contains copies of Steelman's outgoing correspondence from October 1945 (when he became a Special Assistant in the Truman White House) to June 1952. Also included are some letters from others, memoranda, and copies of speeches and public statements. Beginning in 1947, the series is divided into official and personal correspondence. Although most of the official correspondence relates to Steelman's work as Assistant to the President, there are separate subject headings for material pertaining to his temporary assignments as acting head of the National Security Resources Board and the Office of Defense Mobilization, and as coordinator of federal efforts to relieve unemployment during the 1949 recession. Not surprisingly, the series contains a great deal of information about strikes and labor-management mediation. It also includes a small amount of material documenting Steelman's post-Truman administration activities, from 1954 to 1964. The fifth series, Coal and Railroad Strikes, contains teletyped news reports on developments in the coal and railroad strikes of 1946. The sixth series, Congratulatory Letters on Retirement from the Department of Labor, consists of letters Steelman received, upon his resignation as Director of the U.S. Conciliation Service in 1944, from acquaintances and admirers in business, labor, government, and academia. The seventh series, the Scrapbook File, is the second largest in the collection. It contains documentation of Steelman's activities from 1933 to 1985 (although most of the material dates from 1945 to 1953). Included are newspaper clippings, other printed material, correspondence, memoranda, speeches, programs, news teletypes, and other items. The material in this series provides considerable information concerning Steelman's career as a labor-management mediator, from his early years with the U.S. Conciliation Service during the New Deal to his involvement in the major strikes that disrupted the coal, railroad, and steel industries during the Truman administration. Included are many articles written by Steelman on labor and economic issues. Also included are scripts for "Battle Report-Washington," a televised news program on which Steelman frequently appeared during the early 1950s. The contents of the Scrapbook File were assembled for preservation in numerically arranged scrapbooks; it appears, however, that the materials were never actually placed in scrapbooks. The Subject File, the eighth series in the collection, contains a variety of materials documenting Steelman's life and career, ranging from school papers that he wrote in the early 1920s to the transcript of a 1990 oral history interview with Steelman. The series includes declassified letters and memoranda from his years in the White House, congratulatory letters received after the 1948 campaign, notes on a few Cabinet meetings, published articles by and about Steelman, and an outline of a book that he planned to write about his public career. Also included are photographs, newspaper clippings on a variety of topics, and Christmas cards that Steelman received from such prominent persons as Averell Harriman, Hubert Humphrey, and Bob Hope. The ninth series, the Speech and Press Release File, contains copies of speeches made by Steelman from 1938 to 1963. For Steelman's White House years, the speeches are in the form of press releases as well as typed reading copies. Many of the speeches were delivered to labor unions and business groups. Also included in the series are lists of Steelman's speaking engagements and materials that Steelman apparently accumulated while preparing his speeches: notes, outlines, published items, and assorted quotes, quips, and anecdotes. The series also contains White House press releases on a variety of topics, and copies of speeches delivered by President Truman and other public figures. The Personal File is the tenth series in the collection, and includes material relating to many aspects of Steelman's life, including his early academic career and his work as a consultant and newspaper publisher after he left the White House. The items of interest in this series include a thesis submitted by Steelman to satisfy the requirements for a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Vanderbilt University in 1925; the 1934 Alabama College yearbook; congratulatory letters received by Steelman when he established his consulting business in Washington in 1953; transcripts of several oral history interviews with Steelman; and a long article by Steelman entitled, "So You Want To Be President." Also included are Steelman's letters of resignation from various government posts, and some information on his family history. The eleventh and last series in the collection is the Printed Materials File. It mostly contains published government reports such as the annual reports of the Secretary of Labor and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. Of particular interest are the reports of the President's Scientific Research Board, which Steelman headed from 1946 to 1947. Other published materials in the series include a brief for the petitioner in Sawyer v. Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, the steel seizure case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1952; a history of the University of Arkansas; and various Who's Who volumes featuring biographical entries on Steelman. More information about Dr. John R. Steelman can be found at the Truman Library in the Staff Member and Office Files of the Harry S. Truman Papers, specifically in the files of John R. Steelman and his assistants, Fleur Fenton, James V. Fitzgerald, John T. Gibson, Dallas C. Halverstadt, Charles W. Jackson, and Spencer R. Quick. The Library also has two transcribed oral history interviews with Steelman (No. 7 and No. 500). Other relevant manuscript collections include the papers of George Elsey, Charles Murphy, and James Webb.
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| Container Nos. | Series | |
| 1 | HARRY S. TRUMAN FILE, 1943-1991 | |
| Correspondence, newspaper clippings, printed material, memoranda, and other items. Arranged in alphabetical order, and thereunder chronologically. | ||
| 2-14 | APPOINTMENT FILE, 1944-1987 (Bulk Date Span: 1944-1953) | |
| Appointment calendars, correspondence, memoranda, and other items. Arranged by type of material (desk calendars and appointment diaries), and thereunder chronologically. | ||
| 15 | CHRISTMAS GIFTS, 1948-1953 | |
| Lists with related correspondence and memoranda. Arranged roughly in chronological order. | ||
| 16-40 | CHRONOLOGICAL COPIES FILE, 1945-1964 (Bulk Date Span: 1945-1952) | |
| Correspondence, memoranda, and other items. Arranged in chronological order,and thereunder by subject matter of material (official, personal, etc.) | ||
| 41 | COAL AND RAILROAD STRIKES, 1946 | |
| News teletypes. Arranged in alphabetical order, and thereunder chronologically. | ||
| 41 | CONGRATULATORY LETTERS ON RETIREMENT FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, 1944 | |
| Correspondence. Arranged in alphabetical order. | ||
| 42-61 | SCRAPBOOK FILE, 1933-1985 (Bulk Date Span: 1945-1953) | |
| Newspaper clippings, other printed material, correspondence, memoranda, speeches, programs, scripts, news teletypes, and other items. Arranged in chronological order. | ||
| 62-66 | SUBJECT FILE, 1922-1990 | |
| Correspondence, newspaper clippings, other printed material, photographs, and other items. Arranged in alphabetical order. | ||
| 67-70 | SPEECH AND PRESS RELEASE FILE, 1919-1971 | |
| Speeches and speech drafts, press releases, printed material, handwritten notes, and other items. Arranged in chronological order. | ||
| 71-73 | PERSONAL FILE, 1918-1996 | |
| Correspondence, printed material, transcripts of oral history interviews, and other items. Arranged in alphabetical order. | ||
| 74-79 | PRINTED MATERIALS FILE, 1905-1969 | |
| Reports and other published items. Annual reports of the Commissioner, Secretary, and Department of Labor; the Secretary of Commerce; and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service are arranged in chronological order at the beginning of the series. The remaining items are not arranged in any particular order. |
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Box 1
[5 of 12, May] [6 of 12, June] [7 of 12, July] [8 of 12, August] [9 of 12, September] [10 of 12, October]
[12 of 12, December]
[7 of 12, July] [8 of 12, August] [9 of 12, September] [10 of 12, October] [11 of 12, November] [12 of 12, December]
[7 of 12, July] [8 of 12, August] [9 of 12, September] [10 of 12, October] [11 of 12, November] [12 of 12, December]
[9 of 13, September] [10 of 13, October] [11 of 13, November 1-16] [12 of 13, November 17-30] [13 of 13, December]
[8 of 12, July] [9 of 12, August] [10 of 12, September] [11 of 12, October] [12 of 12, November and December]
[8 of 12, August] [9 of 12, September] [10 of 12, October] [11 of 12, November] [12 of 12, December]
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