Ball, Max W. Papers

Director, Oil and Gas Division, Department of the Interior, 1946-1948

The papers of Max W. Ball include diaries, printed materials, correspondence, speech transcripts, and other items concerning Ball's life and his career as a government official and oil and gas industry consultant.

Size: 1 linear foot, 9 linear inches (about 3,200 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: No donation of copyright was received with this collection. Documents created by U.S. Government employees in the course of their official duties are in the public domain. Copyright interest in other documents in this collection presumably belongs to the creators of those documents, or their heirs.
Processed by: Erwin J. Mueller (1976); Sandra Colyer and David Clark (2015).
Updated by: Mikhail Faulconer (2018) as part of the Truman Library Internship Program.
Supervising Archivists: Randy Sowell and David Clark.

The papers of Max W. Ball include diaries, printed materials, correspondence, speech transcripts, and other items concerning Ball's life and his career as a government official and an oil and gas industry consultant. The collection is arranged alphabetically in one series, a Subject File.

Most of the collection is comprised of Ball's typewritten diaries. Dating from 1947 to 1954, the diary entries mostly cover his daily work, meetings, and trips, including those to Venezuela, Turkey, and Israel. Ball also writes more sparingly in the diaries about his personal travels, errands, and leisure time spent with his family, particularly playing cards with his wife and reading. Ball occasionally comments on daily events and his personal health. Most of the diaries date from Ball's years as a consultant after he left government service in 1948.

The collection also contains newspaper and magazine articles dating from 1941 to 1954 on issues related to oil and gas, including several authored by Ball himself. The collection includes copies of a number of Ball's remarks and speeches to the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, National Petroleum Council, Colorado School of Mines, and other groups. Letters of congratulation, appreciation, and invitation are also included.

The collection includes Ball's handwritten journals dating from 1944 to 1946, while he was the Special Assistant to the Deputy Petroleum Administrator. These journals mostly relate to his duties in that office.

More information about oil and gas policy during the Truman administration can be found at the Truman Library in the papers of Secretary of the Interior Oscar L. Chapman, Ralph K. Davies, Edwin W. Pauley, and Stephen J. Spingarn.