Tag Archives: project

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

Marlboro Oral History Collection

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Project description: This collection contains dozens of interviews regarding Marlboro cigarettes, with a heavy focus on how cigarette advertising changed over time both in the U.S. and in other countries. The broad range of interviewees included executives of Philip Morris, advertising agency personnel from Leo Burnett, photographers, production staff, sales and marketing personnel, and Marlboro cowboys.

Regulatory significance: Uncertain, as the interviews are not available online, but this collection likely speaks to health and safety regulation of cigarettes, and particularly cigarette advertising.

Repository: National Museum of American History

Interview dates: bulk 1985-87, covering the 1930s to the 1980s.

Digital access: No online access.

Physical access: Holdings are available to researchers at the Archives Center of the National Museum of American History, in Washington, DC.

Link: http://amhistory.si.edu/archives/d7198.htm

Containerization Oral History Collection

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Project description: This project involved about a dozen interviewees involved in the process of containerization: standardizing shipping crates to fit a variety of transportation methods and pack in more efficient ways. Interviews were conducted by Arthur Donovan, who wrote a book on the subject.

Regulatory significance: Uncertain, as the interviews are not available online, but this collection likely speaks to standard setting in both public and private contexts. Container disparities in size, shape, and material have been considered a non-tariff barrier to trade, and the process of standardizing containers facilitated globalization.

Repository: National Museum of American History

Interview dates: 1995-1998

Digital access: No online access.

Physical access: Holdings are available to researchers at the Archives Center of the National Museum of American History, in Washington, DC.

Link: URL for catalog description

Computer Oral History Collection

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Project description: This project began in 1967 with the main objective to collect, document, house, and make available for research source material surrounding the development of the computer. The project collected taped oral interviews with individuals who figured prominently in developing or advancing the computer field.

Regulatory significance: At least some interviews speak to issues of private regulatory processes related to standardization of computer language, hardware, etc. A fuller survey of this collection is needed to assess the degree to which it addresses governmental regulation of the computer industry.

Repository: National Museum of American History

Interview dates: 1969-1973, 1977

Digital access: Dozens of online transcripts are available.

Physical access: Holdings are available to researchers at the Archives Center of the National Museum of American History, in Washington, DC.

Link: http://amhistory.si.edu/archives/AC0196.htm

Southern Agriculture Oral History Project

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Project description: This project interviewed 159 farmers across the South, focusing on changes in rural communities, technological change, and the financial challenges of farming.

Regulatory significance: At least some interviews from Mississippi include discussion of soil conservation programs. Some interviews likely include discussion of other commodity programs.

Repository: National Museum of American History

Interview dates: 1986-1991

Digital access: Only a handful of pictures are available online. No transcripts or audio.

Physical access: Holdings are available to researchers at the Archives Center of the National Museum of American History, in Washington, DC.

Link: http://amhistory.si.edu/archives/d9773.htm

USDA Oral History, 1993-2000

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Project description: This oral history collection was produced as part of a retrospective on the Clinton Department of Agriculture. Record does not specify the total number of interviewees for the project, but they include Secretaries of Agriculture Dan Glickman and Mike Espy.

Regulatory significance: Uncertain, given the lack of specificity in the finding aid.

Repository: National Agriculture Library

Interview dates: 2000 – 2001

Digital access: None

Physical access: For transcripts and audio, researchers may visit the National Agriculture Library in Washington, DC.

Link: No direct link. Search for “257” (collection number) on this page: https://www.nal.usda.gov/speccoll/collectionsguide/collection2.php?subject=Audiovisuals

Florida Legislative History Oral Histories

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Project description: The Florida Division of Historical Resources conducted this series of  interviews for the creation of a proposed “Museum of Florida Political History and Governance,” but the museum was never built. Interviews were conducted with “prominent and influential political figures from Florida’s legislative past,” according to the project description.

Regulatory significance: Difficult to determine, as no online abstracts of these interviews are available.

Repository: State Archives of Florida

Interview dates: 2000 – 20002

Digital access: None.

Physical access: For audio and, in some cases, video, researchers may visit the State Archives of Florida in Tallahassee.

Link: http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/barm/rediscovery/default.asp?IDCFile=/fsa/detailss.idc,SPECIFIC=481,DATABASE=SERIES

Behind the Veil Project

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Project description: This project consists of more than 1,200 interviews conducted across the U.S. South in an effort to document African American daily life during the Jim Crow era.

Regulatory significance: Some of these interviews offer a glimpse at the role of federal regulation in attempting to redress racially discriminatory laws and practices in the Jim Crow South. A few highlight the role of local regulatory bodies, such as agricultural commissions and zoning boards, in perpetuating racial inequality.

Repository: Duke University

Interview dates: Mostly 1993-1997

Digital access: Some interviews are accessible online.

Physical access: Materials, including audio and some transcripts, are available at Duke University, Durham, NC. See the finding aid for more information about specific interviews and restrictions.

Link: http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/btv/

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/

Southern Rural Poverty Collection

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Project description: This project contains more than 30 interviews with individuals who worked to address southern poverty in their communities up to the early 1990s. The focus of the interviews is on efforts after the passage of major federal civil rights legislation in 1964 and 1965, including those related to Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty.

Regulatory significance: Many of the interviewees discuss issues that stem from overlapping regulatory jurisdictions at the local, state, and federal level. Health care, housing, employment, and agriculture are major themes, and some interviewees discuss environmental regulation to improve the health of the rural poor.

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

Interview dates: 1992-1994

Digital access: Video recordings of the oral histories are available for many interviews, and transcripts are available for almost all of them.

Link: http://dewitt.sanford.duke.edu/rutherfurd-living-history/southern-rural-poverty-collection/

Russian Reform Project

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Project description: This collection of 10 oral histories features Russian economic reformers and human rights activists, all of whom played leadership roles in the movements that have transformed Russian society over the past 50 years.

Regulatory significance: Many of the interviewees are economists who discuss the shift from the Soviet era to broader market integration. Some conversations involve regulation and deregulation of various sectors of the economy.

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

Interview dates: 2009

Digital access: Audio is available for all interviews. Some interviews have English transcripts available, and the project appears to be working on Russian transcripts as well.

Link: http://dewitt.sanford.duke.edu/rutherfurd-living-history/russian-reform-hppsc-collection/

Benedum and the Oil Industry Project

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Project description: A record of the oil industry from 1890 to 1950 as shown in the development of the Benedum oil interests and the experiences of Michael Late Benedum (1869-1959) and his associates, notably Joseph Clifton Trees (1869-1943). The material consists of interviews with people having special knowledge of leasing, financing, geology, oil and gas production, legal and tax problems. The interviews contain several accounts of Benedum and Trees as wildcatters; problems of oil exploration outside the U.S. (Mexico, 1911-1916, Colombia, 1915, Rumania, 1918-1919, the Philippines, 1920, and China, 1936); development of companies and corporate holdings; storage, transportation, marketing, and refining; and conservation and proration practices leading to Interstate Oil Compact Commission, 1933. [Description from finding aid]

Regulatory significance: The project provides a glimpse at the emergence and development of oil industry regulation during the early 20th century. It likely addresses to a limited degree how oil companies navigated uneven regulatory terrain across states in the U.S. and across national boundaries while exploring for oil in Mexico, Colombia, Rumania, the Philippines, and China. Additionally, the collection promises some discussion of standardization and self-regulatory organizations.

Repository: Columbia Center for Oral History

Interview dates: Circa 1951

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_4072325

Interviewees: John Charles Adams; William W. Arnold; Darwin Benedum; James Claxton Benedum; Michael Late Benedum; Paul Benedum; Sophie and Pearl Benedum; Charles E. Beyer; Al A. Buchanan; Clem S. Clarke; A.B. Dally, Jr.; Margaret E. Davis; John W. Dieringer; Bascom Giles; William Morris Griffith; Walter Simms Hallanan; Houston Harte; Harry B. Hickman; David Dean Johnson; Caswell S. Jones, Thomas J. Newlin and Alex U. McCandless; William J. Jones; Winchester Kelso; W. B. Lane and Roy Gardner; Charles A. MCClintock; Will E. Odom; Alexander P. Olivey; Foster B. Parriott; Andrew Donaldson Robb; Ovid Daniel Robinson; Frank B. Shepard; Tom Slick; Ernest A. Stiller; Milton E. Witherspoon.

World Bank Project

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Project description: Interviews with officers of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development detail its history and operations from the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference to 1960. Organization, development of policies, management practices, personnel, and the relationship of directors and staff during the presidencies of Eugene Meyer, John McCloy, and Eugene Black are described.

Regulatory significance: The functions of the World Bank are analyzed, including policy formulation and supervision of end-use of funds, project appraisal, creditworthiness, administration and significance of loans, government banks, equity investment and venture capital, bond issues and corollary legislation, and foreign and domestic bond marketing. The relationship of the Bank to the International Monetary Fund and to other financial institutions is explored. There are descriptions of individual projects in various parts of the world, particularly flood protection, railway rehabilitation, the Indus Basin Settlement Plan, the Mekong River Survey, and the Suez Canal.

Repository: Columbia Center for Oral History

Interview dates: Circa 1961

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_4074552

Interviewees: Siem Aldewereld; Gerald Alter, Harold Larsen, and John de Wilde; Eugene R. Black; Robert W. Cavanaugh; Sidney Raymond Cope; Daniel Crena de Iongh; Richard H. Demuth (certain pages closed); William Diamond and Michael Hoffman; Donald Fowler; Robert L. Garner; William F. Howell; Sir William Iliff; Andrew Kamarck; J. Burke Knapp; Harold Larsen; Ansel F. Luxford; Luis Machado; George Martin and Emil Pattberg; Morton Mendels; Lester Nurick (closed during lifetime); Hoyt Peck; Hugh Ripman; Leonard B. Rist; Paul Rosenstein-Rodan; Orvis A. Schmidt; Davidson Sommers; Alexander Stevenson; Raymond A. Wheeler.

Mining Engineers Project

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Project description: Brief interviews with notable mining engineers on salient phases of their careers. Consultants and executives of companies in widely scattered areas from Alaska to South Africa, they also provide information on the discovery and exploration of new mines.

Regulatory significance: This project appears to have only marginal regulatory significance, but some interviews potentially involve mining regulation of labor and environmental conditions. Researchers interested in issues of transnational regulation and regulatory pluralism may find value in some interviews involving mine exploration and contracts outside the U.S. Given the focus on engineering, interviews might involve issues of private regulation, particularly concerning standardization. Finally, at least one interview involves the Foreign Economic Administration and resource management during World War II.

Repository: Columbia Center for Oral History

Interview dates: Circa 1961

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_4076593

Interviewees: Robert Annan; John Baragwanath; Alan Bateman; Arthur Bunker; Henry Carlisle; Louis Cates; Cleveland Dodge; John Gustafson; David Irwin; Ira B. Joralemon; James Knapp; Robert Koenig; Lewis Levensaler; Jaffet Lindberg; Donald McLoughlin; W. W. Mein; Reno Sales; Henry DeWitt Smith; Comar Wilson; William E. Wrather.

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.