K. Ross Toole Archives
The Mike Mansfield Papers: Series Notes
Series XXI: House/Senate: Speeches and Reports, 1942-1977 (36.5 linear ft.)
This series is primarily documentary and is evenly divided between collections of clippings and copies of speeches. The series covers Mansfield's entire tenure in Washington. The organization of the series is clear and coherent. The first thirty-three boxes contain clippings; the speeches listed chronologically beginning in 1952 start at Box 35. The clippings are from newspapers, magazines, and the Congressional Record. They appear to have been compiled by Mansfield's staff and include a broad range of subjects. The boxes initially begin with folders divided by subject, with all the clippings on a given topic grouped together. These include topics like foreign affairs, Berlin, Asia, and H. H. Adberson. Though subject divisions help locate information, a "Montana Affairs" folder might hold information on local news, federal projects in the state, and editorials from newspapers around Montana. The boxes shift to chronological divisions and contain unsorted clippings for any given month in a single folder. For example the "July 1973" file holds stories about cloud seeding, library funding, real estate sales, and a Butte fire. It is unclear why some categories of clippings like Asia appear here and not in the Foreign Relations series, but it is worth checking both places for information. The clippings do show both what news interested Mansfield's office over more than thirty years and a progression of news highlights from Montana over that same span.
The collected speeches begin in 1952 and proceed chronologically to 1976. They include drafts and copies of speeches Mansfield made. Testimony for House and Senate hearings, transcripts of radio and television broadcasts, and press releases from Mansfield's office also appear in these boxes. There are also copies of speeches, testimony, and press releases from other members of Montana's Congressional delegation. It is useful to see virtually every official public word uttered by Mansfield during his Congressional career. The speeches portion of the series serves as a nice complement to the rest of the collection by providing Mansfield's actual words on a plethora of topics documented in other series.
See a sample document from this series: A record of the Senate's 1974 recommendation that the Watergate criminals not be pardoned, with Mansfield's "yes" vote.
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Last Updated: 7 July 2002.