Title: William Hammatt Davis Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1905-1963

Creator:

• Davis, William Hammatt, 1879-

Call Number: U.S. Mss AW; PH U.S. Mss AW

Quantity: 16.4 c.f. (41 archives boxes) and 6 photographs (1 folder)

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Papers of William Hammatt Davis, a New York patent attorney and labor mediator who held many appointments in New York state agencies and in the federal government. Included is correspondence with leaders in labor, industry, government, and the academic world; and other material relating to private and government organizations concerned with atomic energy and industrial and international relations. The collection contains general correspondence; correspondence relating to Davis' speeches and articles; and files of letters, reports, memoranda, press releases, and other materials concerning his participation in many organizations and projects, particularly those relating to the role of government in industrial relations. Among the organizations represented are the Citizens' Committee for the International Labor Organization, 1957-1959; the United Nations Mediation Study, 1949-1957; the National Recreation Association, 1946-1954; the New York City Housing Authority, circa 1938-1941; Sydenham Hospital in New York, 1947-1948; the Labor Committee of the Twentieth Century Fund, 1937-1954; the Atomic Energy Labor Relations Commission and the Atomic Energy Labor Relations Panel, 1948-1953; the Atomic Energy Patent Advisory Panel, 1945-1956; the Commission on Industrial Relations in Great Britain and Sweden, 1938-1939; the National Defense Mediation Board, 1941-1942; the Special Commission for Rubber Research of the National Science Foundation, 1955-1956; and the War Labor Board, 1941-1945. Supplementing the correspondence and other organizational records are reference files compiled by Davis on atomic energy, labor arbitration, the Taft-Hartley bill and other legislation affecting labor, and wage and price stabilization.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-us0000aw

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William H. Davis, a prominent patent attorney in private life, had a long record of public service, most notably as the Chairman of the National War Labor Board during World War II. He held membership in an impressive number of private organizations devoted to the cause of human understanding in industrial relations and international relations. His services were employed by the state of New York at different times, and the federal government often called upon him in times of national emergency.

Born in Bangor, Maine on August 29, 1879, Davis spent much of his childhood there and in the coal-mining areas of Eastern Kentucky with his seven siblings, many of whom gained prominence in their own fields, and his parents Owen Warren Davis and Abigail (Gould) Davis. He attended the Corcoran Scientific School and received his law degree from George Washington University in 1901.

Davis began his career in 1902 as a Patent Examiner in the U.S. Patent Office, leaving shortly thereafter to join the law firm of Betts, Betts, Sheffield & Betts in New York. He then joined Pennie & Goldsborough in 1906 and that same year married Grace Greenwood Colyer with whom he had three children: Eaton Greenwood, Alida Pennie, and Patricia Gould. He became a partner in 1911 and eventually went on to be a senior member of Pennie, Davis, Marvin & Edmunds.

During World War I, Davis served first in the War Department's Division of Purchase, Storage and Traffic in the Contract Section and then as a member of the Appeals Board for the War Department Board of Contract Adjustment. After the war ended, Davis returned to private practice until 1933 when he joined the ranks of the National Recovery Administration, first as Deputy Administrator and later as National Compliance Director. After the demise of the NRA, he was appointed by President Roosevelt to the Committee of Industrial Analysis to evaluate the NRA experiment. In 1937, he served as a member of a Presidential Emergency Board under the Railway Labor Act. The following year, the president sent Davis and others to Great Britain and Sweden to study industrial relations in those countries. That same year Davis became the first Chairman of the New York State Mediation Board.

After the start of World War II, Davis became Vice Chairman of the National Defense Mediation Board (with Clarence Dykstra serving as Chairman) and later became the Chairman of the National War Labor Board after it was established on January 12, 1942. While serving as the Vice-Chairman of the National Defense Mediation Board, Davis took on the difficult Allis-Chalmers strike case and settled it within four days.

Toward the end of the war, Davis was appointed Director of the Office of Economic Stabilization, only to leave the position in September of 1945 amid much controversy regarding a supposed statement he had made concerning wages. Davis insisted that the statement was falsely reported. After returning to private practice, Davis took part-time assignments for the government. He was chairman of the Patent Panel of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Atomic Energy Labor Relations Panel, and the Special Commission for Rubber Research (under the National Science Foundation). He also took part in the Kheel Committee, the group of lawyers who fought to help Martin Luther King, Jr. when the state of Alabama took him to court, and the New York Hospital Strike of 1959.

Davis was a founder and member of the Board of Trustees of the Grand Central Art Galleries in New York. He also served as chairman for The New School of Social Research and was active in the Cornell Labor Relations Institute. Davis was chairman of the Twentieth Century Fund Labor Committee and actively participated in the United Nations Mediation Study. He also held membership on the boards of directors of the National Recreation Association, Sydenham Hospital, the Council on Foreign Relations, and numerous other organizations. He remained active both in these organizations and as a lawyer until his death in 1964.

The William Hammatt Davis Papers not only reflect the activities of a prominent labor mediator, but also record the role of government in industrial relations, and generally may serve as important source material in the fields of industrial relations, economic stabilization, labor legislation, and patent law.

The collection is organized in two parts. The first part is the Original Collection received in the Archives in 1956 and 1961. Its contents date 1934-1957 and are divided into three subseries: Correspondence, Organizations, and Reference Files.

The second part is the Additions received in the Archives in 1966. The contents of this part date 1905-1963 and are organized in six subseries: Personal Correspondence, Professional Correspondence, Letterbooks, Writings and Speeches, Organizations, Miscellany, and Photographs.

The majority of the collection is from the years 1938 to 1964 and consists principally of correspondence, both personal and professional. Though designated “Personal Correspondence,” these files in the Additions also contain letters regarding Davis' professional life. Letters to and by the Davis family can be found primarily within the folder of Family Papers (1905, 1918, 1959-1961) which contain letters from Grace, Eaton, Alida, Owen (Davis' brother), and Davis himself. Eaton was an artist and an author and some of his short stories can be found here.

Most of the Professional Correspondence in the Additions is filed according to the organization or topic to which it is related. The following list is representative of the number and types of Davis' correspondents, but is by no means complete:

• Baruch, Bernard M.
• Beard, Charles (copy)
• Bidwell, Percy W.
• Brophy, John
• Broucher, Howard
• Brownlow, James A.
• Ching, Cyrus S.
• Clark, Evans
• Cohn, Alfred E.
• Commager, Henry Steele
• Cousins, Norman
• Dewhurst, J. Frederick
• Dienner, John A.
• Dunlop, John T.
• Farley, James A.
• Feinsinger, Nathan P.
• Finletter, Thomas K.
• Fisher, Adrian S.
• Flanders, Ralph E.
• Fred, Edwin B.
• Garrison, Lloyd K.
• Golden, Clinton S.
• Green, William
• Hirschman, Ira A.
• Holifield, Chet
• Ickes, Harold L.
• Johnston, Eric A.
• Keezer, Dexter M.
• Leiserson, William M.
• Lilienthal, David E.
• Lubin, Isador
• McMahon, Brian
• Marts, Arnaud C.
• Meyer, Arthur C.
• Morse, Wayne
• Murray, Philip
• Nathan, Robert R.
• Niebuhr, Reinhold
• Ooms, Caspar W.
• Reuther, Walter P.
• Roper, Daniel C.
• Ruml, Bernard M.
• Sachs, Alexander
• Sarnoff, David
• Slichter, Sumner
• Smith, Oscar S.
• Symington, W. Stuart
• Taylor, George W.
• Thomas, Norman
• Tobin, Maurice J.
• Truman, Harry S.
• Waldman, Louis
• Waterman, Alan T.
• Wilson, Charles E.
• Wilson, Caroll L.
• Wirtz, W. Willard
• Witte, Edwin E.

The LETTERBOOKS in the Additions contain information about Davis' experiences as a patent lawyer. Many of the letters contained within them deal with cases such as Keyes vs. Chaplin (1951), U.S. vs. California (1950-51), and Federal Telephone & Radio Corp. vs. Associated Telephone & Telegraph Co.

An attempt has been made to preserve as much as possible the original arrangement of the William H. Davis Papers. The bulk of the material in the original portion of the collection is thus classified and arranged alphabetically by ORGANIZATIONS to which Davis belonged. Material for a particular organization may contain correspondence, memoranda, reports, minutes of meetings, briefs, resolutions, press releases, and so on. This is also the case for the Organization files in the Additions although some of the organizational materials will also be found within the professional correspondence.

Davis was very concerned with education and many of his organizational affiliations show this concern documenting his tenure as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees at The New School (1952-1962), and his involvement with the Cornell University Labor Institute (1956-1958) and the Civil Liberties Educational Foundation (1956-1962).

Three small subseries in the Additions are Writings and Speeches, Miscellany, and Photographs. Writings and Speeches (1938-1960) consist of articles and speeches concerning atomic energy, wages, patents, and labor, and other topics. Transcripts of interviews conducted with Davis can also be found here, the majority of which were conducted circa 1958.

The Miscellany subseries consists of reference files dealing with Patents (1939-1961), Labor (1959-1962), and National Defense (1940-1941). Also included are numerous certificates and awards presented to Davis, scrapbooks concerning Davis' trip to Sweden and England in 1938, his removal from office in 1945, and an autograph folder containing copies of letters from figures such as Harry S. Truman and Eleanor Roosevelt. (Other Reference Files are in the Original Collection.)

The Photographs depict Davis alone, with his wife, with Harry S. Truman, and with the National War Labor Board.

Acquisition Information

Presented by William Hammatt Davis, New York, New York, 1956 and 1961, and by George Faithful, New York, New York, 1966.

Processing Information

Additions processed by Christina Kruger (Intern), May 2003.

U.S. Mss AW	Series: Part 1: Original Collection, 1934-1957
	Subseries: Correspondence
Box   1	General correspondence, 1941-1957
Box   2	Correspondence relating to speeches and articles, 1941, 1945-1957
	Subseries: Organizations	⇧
Box   3	International Affairs
Box   3	Citizen's Committee for the International Labor Organization, 1957-1959
Box   3	Cooperative Forum, 1945
Box   3	Council on Foreign Relations, 1944-1948
Box   3	Great Island Conference, 1947-1948
Box   3-4	United Nations Mediation Study, 1949-1957
Box   4	World Trade Foundation, 1945-1946
Box   4-5	National Recreation Association, 1946-1954
Box   5	New Friends of Music, Inc., 1950-1952
	New York
Box   5	Citizen's Non-Partisan Committee, 1953
Box   5	Democratic Citizen's Committee, 1953
Box   5-7	Labor: Arbitration between the New York Shipping Assoc. and the International Longshoremen's Association, 1945 Nov. - 1949
Box   7-8	Labor: Fact Finding Board on the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations vs. AFL Local 32-B, 1950
Box   8	New York City Housing Authority, circa 1938-1941
Box   8-11	Twentieth Century Fund - Labor Committee, 1937-1954
	United States
Box   11	Advisory Council on Social Security, 1949
Box   11	Atomic Energy Labor Relations Commission, 1948-1949
	Atomic Energy Labor Relations Panel
Box   12	General Scope and Content Note: Correspondence, miscellaneous reports, and mimeographed matter.
Box   13-16	Disputes, 1949-1953 Scope and Content Note: Correspondence, briefs, reports, decisions, etc.; an index to disputes is in Box 13.
Box   16-17	Atomic Energy Patent Advisory Panel, 1945-1956
Box   18	Commission on Industrial Relations in Great Britain and Sweden, 1938-1939
Box   19	Committee of Industrial Analysis, 1934-1937
Box   19	Economic Stabilization Agency (press conference), 1945
Box   19	Emergency Mediation Board under Railway Disputes Act, 1937
Box   20	National Advisory Board on Defense Mobilization Policy, 1951-1953
Box   20	National Defense Mediation Board (press releases), 1941-1942
Box   20-21	National Science Foundation - Special Commission for Rubber Research, 1955-1956
Box   21-24	National War Labor Board (primarily press releases), 1942-1945
Box   24	Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion Advisory Board, 1945-1947
Box   25	President's Committee on the Cost of Living, 1944
	Subseries: Reference Files	⇧
Box   25	Atomic Energy, 1945-1955
	Labor
Box   25	Arbitration and mediation of disputes (unsorted), circa 1942-1949
Box   26	Government Bills
Box   26	Miscellaneous bills (annotated), circa 1945-1946
Box   26	Morse-Thomas Labor Extension Service Bill, 1948
Box   26	Taft-Hartley Bill, 1947 Scope and Content Note: Annotated bill, Davis testimony, and correspondence with leaders in government, industry, and labor.
Box   26	Miscellaneous (unsorted)
Box   26	Wage and Price Stabilization, 1939-1951
Box   26	Wartime Disputes Procedures, circa 1942-1950
	Series: Part 2: Additions, 1905-1963	⇧
	Subseries: Personal Correspondence
Box   27 Folder   1-6	A-K, 1940-1963
Box   28 Folder   1-8	L-S, 1935-1963
Box   29 Folder   1-2	T-Z, 1945-1963
Box   29 Folder   3	Family papers, 1905, 1918, 1959-1961
Box   29 Folder   4	General, 1919-1920, 1932-1941, 1945
Box   29 Folder   5	Letters of Congratulations, 1941
Box   29 Folder   6	Arbitration Award, 1942
Box   29 Folder   7-8	Speeches and Articles (Misc. Authors), 1944-1959
Box   30 Folder   1	Letters regarding leaving the Office of Economic Stabilization, 1945
Box   30 Folder   2	Truman, 1945-1953
Box   30 Folder   3-4	General, 1945-1964
Box   30 Folder   5	Century Association, 1946-1953
Box   30 Folder   6	Nation Article, 1956-1959
Box   30 Folder   7	Letters of Commendation, 1960
	Subseries: Professional Correspondence	⇧
Box   30 Folder   8	National Labor Relations Board, 1935-1945
Box   30 Folder   9	National Defense Plan, 1940-1941
Box   31 Folder   1	War Labor Board, 1941-1945
Box   31 Folder   2-7	President's Patent Survey Committee, 1942-1956
Box   32 Folder   1-2	Memos regarding President's Patent Survey Committee, 1944-1950, undated
Box   32 Folder   3	National Labor and Wage Policy, 1945-1950
Box   32 Folder   4	National Patent Council, 1945-1951
Box   32 Folder   5-6	National Planning Association, 1945-1959
Box   32 Folder   7	Taft-Hartley Bill, 1946-1953
Box   33 Folder   1	Hospital Strike Employee Case, 1952, 1954-1959
Box   33 Folder   2	Hospital Strike, 1954-1959
Box   33 Folder   3	Kheel Committee, 1961-1963
Box   33 Folder   4	White House Conference on Economic Issues, 1962
	Subseries: Letterbooks	⇧
Box   33 Volume   1-2	1947-1948
Box   34 Volume   3-8	1950-1957
Box   35 Volume   9-11	1958-1961
	Subseries: Writings and Speeches	⇧
Box   35 Folder   1-3	Writings, 1938-1960
Box   36 Folder   1-2	Interviews, 1942-1958
Box   36 Folder   3-5	Speeches, 1934-1959
	Subseries: Organizations	⇧
Box   36 Folder   6	Committee for Economic Development, 1942-1946
Box   37 Folder   1-2	Grand Central Art Galleries, 1946-1964
Box   37 Folder   3-6	National Planning Association, 1946-1954, undated
Box   37 Folder   7	Americans for Democratic Action, 1947-1959
Box   38 Folder   1-4	The New School, 1952-1962
Box   38 Folder   5	Political, 1953-1960
Box   38 Folder   6	Citizen's Union, 1953-1964
Box   38 Folder   7	Citizen's Union Transit Committee, 1956-1958
Box   38 Folder   8	New York City Department of Labor, 1954-1955
Box   39 Folder   1	The Town School, Inc., 1954-1959
Box   39 Folder   2	New York Civil Liberties Union, 1954-1962
Box   39 Folder   3-4	Civil Liberties Educational Foundation, 1956-1962
Box   39 Folder   5-6	Conference on Economic Progress, 1954-1964
Box   39 Folder   7	Stevenson for President Committee, 1955-1957
Box   39 Folder   8	Cornell University Labor Institute, 1956-1958
Box   39 Folder   9	Civil Service Reform Association, 1956-1959
	Subseries: Miscellany	⇧
Box   40 Folder   1	Autograph folder, 1928-1960
Box   40 Folder   2-5	Scrapbooks, 1920-1947
Box   40 Folder   6	Notes, 1942, 1952
Box   40 Folder   7	National Defense, 1940-1941
	Reference Patents
Box   40 Folder   8-9	1939-1961
Box   41 Folder   1	1943-1961
Box   41 Folder   2	Patent Reports, 1946
Box   41 Folder   3	Labor
Box   41 Folder   4	Commission on Industrial Relations in Britain and Sweden
Box   41 Folder   5	Bus Arbitration Clippings
Box   41 Folder   6	News clippings
Box   41 Folder   7	Passports
Box   41 Folder   8	Certificates, 1915-1963
PH U.S. Mss AW	Subseries: Photographs	⇧
Folder   1 Item   1-2	William H. Davis
Folder   1 Item   3	William H. and Grace Davis
Folder   1 Item   4-5	National War Labor Board, 1942, undated
Folder   1 Item   6	Truman and Davis