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Scope and Content Note
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.
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