|
Student
Research File
"It
is my opinion that the only accurate source of information on which
to make a proper historical assessment of the performances of past
Presidents is in the Presidential files. This is why I think these
documents not only ought to be preserved but should be placed and
arranged so that they can be used."
Harry S. Truman, Mr. Citizen, 1960. |
Introduction
The Student Research
File is composed of copies of what historians call primary sources-memoranda,
letters, reports, speeches, notes, cables, and published material (newspaper
and magazine articles and other printed items) that are either contemporaneous
with the events they describe or which are based on personal memories
of the events described. Primary source materials are usually (excepting
retrospective primary sources such as memoirs and oral history interviews)
records of personal and organizational activity that were created as the
activity was occurring. They are the essential evidence for the day's
events when the day itself is long gone and swallowed up into the past.
They are always fragmentary in character, documenting individually only
small pieces of past activity, and they are always challenging to use.
They are the best things we have-together with evidence of material culture-to
allow us to recover and understand the past.
The Student Research
File is currently divided into 53 topics, which are listed below.
Each topic is focused on an event or issue from Truman's life and presidency
and contains between 500 and 1500 pages of documents selected from the
Truman Library's collections by its archives staff. The selected documents
do not represent all of the library's holdings on any topic, but the archives
staff believes them to be the most interesting and informative documents
on these topics. Students may carry their research beyond the Student
Research File into the library's entire manuscript collection if they
wish, and perhaps as well into the collections of other archival repositories
and libraries.
Accessing
the Print Student Research File
Five institutions
in the greater Kansas City area hold complete sets of the Student Research
File:
Truman Presidential
Museum & Library can accommodate individuals anytime during
normal research room hours. Class groups
of up to 50 students can also be accommodated; teachers should call the
library at least two weeks prior to a visit (816-268-8272).
University
of Missouri-Kansas City can accommodate individuals at the Miller
Nichols Library Special
Collections Department during normal hours and by appointment. Class
groups of up to 40 students can also be accommodated; teachers should
call the Department at least four weeks prior to a visit (816-235-5712).
Graceland
University, Independence Campus can accommodate individuals during
normal hours. Class groups of up to 25 students can also be accommodated;
teachers should call at least a week prior to a visit (816-833-0524),
ask for the staff of the Center
for the Study of the Korean War).
Longview
Community College can accommodate individuals in its library
during normal fall and spring hours (Call for summer hours.) Class groups
of up to 40 students can also be accommodated; teachers should call at
least two weeks prior to a visit (816-672-2278, ask for the library manager).
Mid-Continent
Public Library can accommodate individuals and class groups at
its North Independence
Branch during normal hours. Teachers wishing to bring class groups
to the North Independence Branch should contact the branch's reference
department (816-252-0950) at least one week in advance of a visit. The
library can also accommodate individuals and class groups at any of its
other 28 branch libraries. Those wishing to use the Student Research File
at a branch library should contact the North Independence Branch's reference
department (816-252-0950) at least a week prior to a visit to make appropriate
arrangements.
Thirty-five of the
topics from the Student Research File have been published in book form
under the title, Documentary History of the Truman Presidency
(Dennis Merrill, editor, University Publications of America). The volumes
include most of the documents from the original Student Research File
topics-all except published materials such as newspapers and magazine
articles.
Student
Research Files available online
Complete
List of Topics
The
Student Research File topics are listed below. They are arranged in an
approximate chronological order.
- The
Personal Life and Views of Harry S. Truman.
- Renovation of the White House, 1945-52.
- Planning for the Postwar
World: President Truman at the Potsdam Conference, July 17-August 2,
1945.
- United States Policy in
Occupied Germany After World War II: Denazification, Decartelization,
Demilitarization and Democratization.
- The
Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb on Japan
- The
War Relocation Authority and the Incarceration of Japanese-Americans
During World War II.
- President Truman and the
Plight of Displaced Persons in Europe Following World War II.
- Demobilization and Reconversion:
Rebuilding a Peace-time Economy Following World War II.
- The
War Crimes Trials at Nuremberg and Tokyo, 1945-48.
- The
United Nations, 1945-53: The Development of a World Organization.
- Creating a Pluralistic
Democracy in Japan: The Occupation Government, 1945-52.
- The Development of an Atomic
Weapons Program Following World War II.
- The Chinese Civil War:
General George C. Marshall's Mission to China, 1945-47.
- The Quest for the Peaceful
Atom: The Baruch Plan and the Atomic Energy Act of 1946.
- The Attempt to Achieve
Stable Economic Growth During the Truman Administration.
- The Debate Over Labor Policy:
President Truman's Battle with Congress Over Passage of the Taft-Hartley
Act, January-June 1947.
- The Truman Administration's
Agricultural Policy, 1945-48.
- President Truman's Fight
to Unify the Armed Services, 1945-49.
- The Truman Administration's
Civil Rights Program: The Report of the Committee on Civil Rights, and
President Truman's Message to Congress of February 2, 1948.
- The Truman Administration's
Civil Rights Program: President Truman's Attempts to Put the Principles
of Racial Justice into Law, 1948-50.
- The
Truman Administration's Civil Rights Program: The Desegregation of the
Armed Forces.
- The
Ideological Foundation of the Cold War-the Long Telegram, the Foreign
Affairs "X" Article, the Clifford Report, and NSC 68.
- The
Truman Doctrine and the Beginning of the Cold War, 1947-49.
- Establishing
the Marshall Plan, 1947-48.
- The Central Intelligence
Agency: Its Founding and the Dispute Over Its Mission, 1945-54.
- The Truman Administration's
Loyalty Program
- The
United States Recognition of Israel.
- Running
From Behind: Truman's Strategy for the 1948 Presidential Campaign.
- The Fair Deal-President
Truman's Vision of the American Future.
- The Point Four Program:
Reaching Out to Help the Less Developed Countries.
- Containment in Latin America:
The Truman Administration's Policies Toward Argentina, Brazil, Cuba
and Mexico.
- The Emergence of an Asian
Pacific Rim in American Foreign Policy: Korea, Japan and Formosa.
- The Emergence of an Asian
Pacific Rim in American Foreign Policy: Indochina, Thailand, Burma,
Malaya, Indonesia and the Philippines.
- Cold
War Confrontation: Truman, Stalin and the Berlin Airlift, June 1948-May
1949.
- The Brannan Plan: The Truman
Administration's Attempt to Achieve Full Production Agriculture, 1949-50.
- The
Origins and Establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
1948-52.
- The Truman Administration's
Policy Toward Native Americans.
- The Development of an Energy
Policy During the Truman Administration.
- The Problem of Migratory
Farm Labor in the United State, 1948-52.
- President Truman's Fight
for National Health Insurance, 1949-53.
- Creating a New Balance
of Power: The Integration of Western Europe.
- President Truman's Response
to Women's Issues.
- Preparing to Survive Atomic
Attack: The Truman Administration's Civil Defense Program.
- President Truman's Confrontation
with McCarthyism.
- Prelude to Conflict: United States Policy Toward Korea, 1945-50.
- The
Korean War: The United States Response to North Korea's Invasion of
South Korea, June 25, 1950-October 1950.
- The Korean War: The United
States Response to Communist China's Intervention, October 1950-April
1951.
- The Korean War: President
Truman's Dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur.
- Oil Crisis in Iran, 1950-52.
- The Truman Scandals: The
President Confronts a Political Crisis, 1951-52.
- Waging Psychological Warfare
Against the Communists, 1951-53.
- The Constitutional Crisis
Over President Truman's Seizure of the Steel Industry in 1952.
- Immigration Policy: President
Truman's Veto of the McCarran-Walter Act.
- The Old President as Political
Campaigner, 1952-57.
- The Korean War: The Prison
of War Problem and the Search for Peace, 1951-52.
|
