K. Ross Toole Archives
The Mike Mansfield Papers
1903-1990
2450 linear ft., 322 scrapbooks, 132 pieces film and video, and 600 art objects
Processed by: Dale Johnson (pre-1996), David Meyer (1998), and Jodi L. Allison-Bunnell (1998)
Collection Number Mss 65
K. Ross Toole Archives, Mansfield Library, The University of Montana--Missoula
Biographical Statement
Michael Mansfield was born March 16, 1903 and raised in Great Falls, Montana. He was educated in Montana, with two quarters on his Ph.D at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1917, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy. In 1919 he enlisted in the U.S. Army for one year, and then served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1920 to 1922. During his military service, he traveled to and established his lifetime interest in Asia. He then returned to Butte, Montana, where he worked as a miner and mining engineer until 1930. He was admitted to Montana School of Mines in Butte by examination and studied there from 1927 to 1928. He married Maureen Hayes, a former Butte high school teacher. He then transferred to Montana State University in Missoula, where he completed his B.A. and M.A. From 1933 to 1943, he was Professor of Latin American and Far Eastern History at Montana State University.
Mansfield was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1942 and served five terms as representative of Montana's 1st District. In October 1951, he was appointed by President Truman as a delegate to the United Nations Sixth Session in Paris. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1952 and re-elected in 1958, 1964 and 1970. In 1958, President Eisenhower appointed Mansfield as United States Delegate to the 13th General Assembly of the United Nations. In November and December 1962, he undertook a foreign policy assignment to West Berlin and Southeast Asia for President Kennedy, and took a similar assignment for President Nixon in 1965. He visited the People's Republic of China with the Senate Minority Leader in 1972 on invitation from Premier Chou-En-lai. In December 1974 and September 1976, he again visited China at the invitation of their government. Through all of this international work, he remained very close to the people and concerns of Montana, and was notorious for his close contact with citizens around the state.
Mansfield's responsibility and prestige steadily increased through his tenure in Congress. He became Assistant Majority Leader (Majority Whip) of the Senate in January 1957, and served in that capacity until 1961, when he was elected Majority Leader of the Senate. He held that position until he retired from the Senate in 1977--longer than any other Majority Leader in the history of the U.S. Senate. President Jimmy Carter appointed Mansfield Ambassador to Japan in 1977, and he served in that position until 1988. Mansfield is a consultant to Goldman Sachs in Washington, DC.
Scope and Content
The collection consists of Mansfield's professional papers through his terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, as well as a selection of items from the ambassadorial period. (The official ambassadorial papers are with the records of the State Department in the National Archives.) The collection includes legislative materials, correspondence, campaign materials, bills introduced, speeches, audio, video, film, photographs, memorabilia, and art objects.
The collection is divided into the following thirty-six series:
VI: House: General Correspondence
VIII: Senate: Bills Introduced
XIII: Senate: Foreign Relations
XVI: House/Senate: Academy Appointments
XVIII: Senate: Intergovernmental Correspondence
XX: Senate: Secretary to Majority
XXIII: House/Senate: Transition (This series remains unprocessed.)
XXIV: House/Senate: Scrapbooks and Clippings
XXVI: House/Senate: Voting record (This series remains unprocessed).
XXVII: House/Senate: Film and Video
XXVII: House/Senate: Audio (This series remains unprocessed.)
XXIX: House/Senate/Ambassador: Awards and Memorabilia (This series remains unprocessed.)
XXX: Ambassador: General correspondence
XXXI: Ambassador: Congressional correspondence
XXXIV: Ambassador: Scrapbooks and photo albums
XXXVI: House/Senate/Ambassador: Photographs
Provenance
The bulk of this collection was received directly from Mansfield's Washington, DC, office in 1969, with the addition of the unofficial ambassadorial papers in 1982-1986. Mansfield also made small gifts of audio tapes, books, and clippings in 1979, 1980, 1983, and 1988. Some additional materials were also received from USIA and USIS in 1987.
Processing
The Mansfield papers were originally processed and prepared for transfer to the archives by Mansfield's staff, with assistance and consultation with The University of Montana archivist Dale Johnson. Likewise, the ambassadorial portion of the papers were largely prepared by Mansfield's staff, and were received in the archives as a separate collection. Once the papers arrived at the archives, they remained largely in their original state. There was extensive documentation prepared for the collection of art objects.
In 1997, the Mansfield Foundation awarded the archives a grant to re-describe the collection and make information about it more readily available electronically. This grant served as a base for much future work on the papers. The House, Senate, and ambassadorial papers were combined to create one continuous collection; many series were combined; art, memorabilia, audio, film, and video were re-integrated into the collection; the series were sampled and surveyed; photographs were removed from acidic albums and listed individually; and the archives collected documentation on preservation problems in the collection. Portions of the papers remain unprocessed.
Related Collections
Oral history collection 22, K. Ross Toole Archives, Mansfield Library, The University of Montana--Missoula.
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Last Updated: 07 June 2002.