Tag Archives: financial

Gerald Ford Library

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The Ford Library houses several oral history projects including the Gerald Ford Library Oral History Project, 1981-Present. These interviews are not sufficiently described online to determine if they have significant regulation-related content.  Interviewees include the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Transportation, the Administrator of the Small Business Administration, the Secretary of the Interior, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Commerce. These interviews likely include discussions relevant to regulation.

Within the manuscript collections, the John Robson Papers, 1970-93, contains an interview transcript entitled “The Move to Airline Deregulation: Perspective of Former CAB Chairman John E. Robson.” The William E. Simon microfiche of papers, 1972-1977, housed at the Lafayette College Library but linked from the Ford Library, include an extensive oral history interview (1000+ pages) with the former Secretary and Deputy Secretary of the US Treasury. Neither of these transcripts are available online.

Summary by:  Elizabeth Brake

Oral History of the Texas Oil Industry

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Project description: This collection consists of 179 interviews transcribed and indexed interviews recorded with participants in the Texas oil industry. The finding aid characterizes interviewees as “roughnecks, drillers, promoters, financiers, contractors, leasemen and law officers.”

Regulatory significance: Difficult to assess given that the collection is not available online. If you are familiar with this collection, please contact us with more information.

Repository: University of Texas – Austin

Interview dates: 1952 – 1958

Digital access: No online access.

Physical access: For access to interview materials, visit the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas. Finding aid says that audio recording is by appointment only at archive, but seems likely from description of project that transcripts are available.

Link: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utcah/00282/cah-00282.html

University of North Texas Legislative Project

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Project description: This project was established by the Oral History program of North Texas State University in 1966, and it was still ongoing in 1985. The program appears to be discontinued now and the interviews absorbed into the broader UNT oral history program archives.

Regulatory significance: The project interviewed legislators and other state government officials, including regulatory board and commission members. Interviews occurred every two years, at the close of biennial legislative sessions and topics ranged across the spectrum of policy issues encountered during the session. (For a detailed description of project history and methodology, see Ronald E. Marcello, “Interviewing Contemporary Texas Legislators: An Atypical Approach,” The Public Historian 7:4 (Fall 1985): 53-64.)

Repository: University of North Texas

Interview dates: 1966 ~ 1990

Digital access: No online access. The UNT interview guide (linked below) has abstracts of archived interviews, including those produced though the Legislative Project.

Physical access: For access to transcripts, visit the Wills Library at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas.

Link: There is no dedicated link to this project, but see this pdf oral history guide for information that includes these interviews.

Ronald Reagan Gubernatorial Era

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Project description: This is the catch all for interviews housed at the Regional Oral History Office (ROHO) at UC – Berkeley related to Ronald Reagan’s gubernatorial administration from 1967 – 1975. ROHO also lists relevant interviews housed at other California repositories.

Regulatory significance: Interviews cover a variety of regulatory topics, including consumer affairs, financial regulation, health care, and farm labor conditions.

Repository: University of California – Berkeley

Interview dates: 1980 – 1989

Digital access: Transcripts for interviews housed at ROHO are available online.

Physical access: For access to all transcripts and audio, visit the Bancroft Library at UC-Berkeley, California.

Link: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/collections/subjectarea/pol_gov/reagan.html

Interviews on Business History

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Project description: This is the catch all for business history interviews housed at the Regional Oral History Office at UC – Berkeley. These are interviews with major West Coast players in a wide variety of industries and business sectors: textiles, shipping, banking, agriculture, import-export businesses, etc. Most of the interviews are extensive life histories and transcripts run to hundreds of pages.

Regulatory significance: A large swath of these interviews at least touch on regulatory issues related to the specific industries that the interviewees worked in. This is a very rich collection for exploring the perspective of business on government regulation. Of particular note on financial regulation is an interview with Walter E. Hoadley, former Federal Reserve system director.

Repository: University of California – Berkeley

Interview dates: 1955 – present

Digital access: Transcripts for these interviews are available online.

Physical access: For access to all transcripts and audio, visit the Bancroft Library at UC-Berkeley, California.

Link: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/collections/subjectarea/business/businesst.html

Federal Trade Commissioners Oral Histories

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Project description: The FTC catalogues oral histories with eight former commissioners. Only one of these interviews was conducted by the FTC; the rest were conducted for presidential libraries and universities.

Regulatory significance: Some of these interviews deal at length with regulatory issues at the FTC during the commissioners era and beyond—see especially the interview with Mary Gardiner Jones, and to a lesser extent, those with Stephen Spingarn and Lowell B. Mason. Others, such as the interview with Leon Higginbotham, deal mostly with Washington personalities and the longer political biography of the interviewee (particularly in connection with the presidents they served under).

Interview dates: Widely varied

Digital access: Transcripts are available online for interviews with Mary Gardiner Jones (1964-1973); Leon Higginbotham (1962-1964); Stephen Spingarn (1950-1953); Lowell B. Mason (1945-56).

Physical access: Interviews in various repositories, including presidential libraries and Columbia University.

Link: http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/history/oralhistory.shtm

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis

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Project description: Per the finding aid, these five interviews provide the current and past presidents of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis with the opportunity to reflect on what they perceive to be the key historical events and managerial decisions that have influenced Bank history. The interviews address topics such as policy development and implementation, organization, staffing, building issues, special initiatives, and major operational events.

Regulatory significance: These interviews are instructive regarding financial regulation, particularly as it relates to agriculture and the linkages in the Federal Reserve.

Repository: Minnesota Historical Society

Interview dates: 1991-1992

Digital access: Transcripts are available online.

Physical access: Audio tapes are kept at the Federal Reserve Bank Library in Minneapolis.

Link: http://collections.mnhs.org/voicesofmn/index.php/10002818

The Financial Crisis

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Project description: Conducted by PBS Frontline with Duke University’s DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy, this collection of more than 20 interviews includes many prominent academics, businessmen, and regulators regarding the financial crisis of 2007-2008.

Regulatory significance: These interviews are some of the first available specifically on the financial crisis of 2007-2008. The series presents a variety of perspectives on the crisis and the role of regulation (and deregulation) both in causing the crisis and in its response.

Repository: Duke University, DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy

Interview dates: 2009-2012

Digital access: Edited transcripts are available online, though navigating them is made more cumbersome by the construct of the Frontline website. Approximately eight interviews are available in full as video.

Link: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/oral-history/financial-crisis/

International Negotiations Project

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Project description: Edward W. Barrett, director of the Communications Institute of the Academy for Educational Development, conducted a series of interviews with practitioners in the field of international negotiations and mediation of disputes. The interviews are preserved by the Oral History program and will be drawn on in delineating guidelines that may be useful to those mediating and negotiating international differences in the future. [Description from finding aid]

Regulatory significance: This project should be valuable to researchers interested in international law and the negotiation of transnational regulation. While most of the interviews appear to relate to national security rather than business regulation, at least one interview involves international bank and monetary regulation and another discusses the European common market.

Repository: Columbia Center for Oral History

Interview dates: 1970-1973

Digital access: Only abstracts. No online transcripts or audio.

Physical access: For transcripts and audio, researchers may visit the Columbia Center for Oral History.

Link: http://oralhistoryportal.cul.columbia.edu/document.php?id=ldpd_4072696

Interviewees: Theodore C. Achilles, 43; Frederik Arkhurst, 60; George W. Ball, 19; Lucius D. Battle, 51; Manlio Brosio, 24; W. Randolph Burgess, 29; Norman Cousins, 23; Rajeshwar Dayal, 35; Hugh Mackintosh Foot (Baron Caradon), 62; Gerald R. Ford, 34; Arthur Goldberg, 51, permission required; W. Averell Harriman, 353; Sir Geoffrey Harrison, 34; John D. Hickerson, 36; Max Jakobson, 51; Philip C. Jessup, 49; Joseph E. Johnson, 120, permission required; Khwaja Kaiser, 29; Theodore W. Kheel, 43; Robert Lovett, 28; John J. McCloy, 24; George C. McGhee, 48; Livingston D. Merchant, 41; Robert D. Murphy, 35; Kenneth Rush, 9; J. Robert Schaetzel, 59; Dirk Spierenberg, 39; Llewellyn Thompson, 29; Ernst Van Der Buegel, 51; Vladimir Velebit, 80; Sir Alan Watt, 67; Charles W. Yost, 21. Round table discussions of their roles in international negotiations; Paris Peace talks; SALT talks; Arab-Israeli discussions; Russian diplomacy; UN role in mediation. Participants: Edward W. Barrett, Andrew Cordier, Alvin Eurich, Adrian S. Fisher, Joseph E. Johnson, Henry Cabot Lodge, others. 104 pp. John M. Allison, 23; Davis Bobrow, 41; Emerson Chapin, 25; Theodore Chen, 26; Tillman Durdin, 20; Robert S. Elegant, 33; John Fairbank, 25; C.T. Hu, 18; Harold Isaacs, 9; T.B. Koh, 28; Daniel Lerner, 15; John Lindbeck, 18; Sidney Liu, 28; Ithiel de Sola Pool, 20; Lucien Pye, 32; Milton Sacks, 26; Sol Sanders, 52; Ezra Vogel, 23.

Eisenhower Administration Project

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Project description: This project includes more than 350 oral histories from those who played major roles in the Eisenhower Administration (1953-1961), as well as the recollections of observers and of those knowledgeable about special aspects. In addition to General Dwight D. Eisenhower and members of his family, the list of participants below includes members of the White House staff, cabinet members, political advisers, members of Congress, administrators, scientists, journalists, ambassadors, military and civilian specialists, and others in a position to testify about trends and events of the period. In addition to memoirs done under Columbia’s aegis, the series includes twelve donated by Professor Herbert S. Parmet and sixty-eight acquired from the Eisenhower Library through an exchange agreement whereby both institutions share oral history transcripts about Eisenhower, his family, career and administration, under identical restrictions. [Description from finding aid]

Regulatory significance: Numerous interviews involve significant discussions of federal regulatory agencies and Eisenhower policies related to banking, agriculture, budgeting, and nuclear energy.

Repository: Columbia Center for Oral History

Interview dates: 1962-1972

Digital access: Only abstracts. No online transcripts or audio at Columbia, but check the Eisenhower presidential library for specific interviews.

Physical access: For transcripts and audio, researchers may visit the Columbia Center for Oral History.

Link: http://oralhistoryportal.cul.columbia.edu/document.php?id=ldpd_4074583

Minnesota Farm Economy Oral History Project

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Project description: These eighteen interviews explore Minnesota farm life, particularly during the early 20th century. Interviewees discuss their roles and those of various agricultural organizations, and their work in banking and business development on Minnesota’s agricultural economy.

Regulatory significance: Some of these interviews explore the links between financial regulations and agriculture. They also address issues of private regulation through agricultural organizations and lobbying efforts to change agricultural regulatory practice, including price setting. Migrant labor and labor regulation also comes in a few interviews.

Repository: Minnesota Historical Society

Interview dates: 1988-1992

Digital access: Transcripts, as well as audio and in some cases video, are available online.

Physical access: Audio tapes are kept at the Federal Reserve Bank Library in Minneapolis.

Link: http://collections.mnhs.org/voicesofmn/index.php/10002533

Houston Mayor Bill White Collection

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Description: Collection consists of approximately 100 interviews, commissioned by Houston mayor Bill White and conducted circa 2007. Users can browse interviews by subject, and relevant subjects include: community development, conservation of the environment, environment, legislators, oil and gas industry, and politics and government. Historians at the University of Texas, Texas Southern University, and Rice University advised on the project, but many interviews were not conducted by historians but by community volunteers. The focus of the series is on exploring how Houston has changed from the 1950s to the present.

Regulatory significance: These interviews are particularly rich regarding local regulation (including the lack thereof) of urban growth, real estate development, and historic building preservation. Some address the oil industry, environmental regulation, and the relationship between banking and real estate development.

Dates: Most interviews were conducted from 2007-2008

Repository: Houston Library

Digital access: Yes. Video and transcripts available on-line through links in the finding aid.

Physical access: Material housed at the Houston Library.

Notable interviews: On environmental regulation, Terry Hershey; on real estate development and building preservation, Bob Eury, Gerald Hines, George Mitchell, and Betty Chapman; on bank and financial regulation, Marc Shapiro.

Link: http://digital.houstonlibrary.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/oralhistory