The collection is comprised of five major series, based on the five predecessor organizations of the National Urban Coalition: American Planning and Civic Association Records, Action Inc. Records, States Urban Action Center Records, Urban America Inc. Records, and National Urban Coalition Records (including records of the Urban Coalition).
The records, 1908-1909, 1920-1964, of the AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ASSOCIATION are most numerous for the late 1940s and 1950s, although some predate the formal organization of APCA in 1935. Administrative records consist of constitutions and incorporation papers, including some drafts and revisions, and a folder entitled “Consolidation and Cooperation with Other Associations,” which refers to the 1935 merger of the American Civic Association and the National Conference on City Planning and to administrative cooperation during the 1950s for reasons of economy. APCA correspondence pertains mainly to funding problems and appeals, organizing public opinion for specific causes, electing officers, and preparing for board and membership meetings. Later correspondence is strongly oriented toward financial and personnel problems. Within the files regarding meetings are minutes and reports which summarize APCA's activities and problems of the preceding year, and financial statements used in general financial planning. Several folders of biographical sketches contain material accumulated for a volume of biographies of planning officials published by APCA. APCA also collected data on community planning organizations throughout North America and issued reports in 1949, 1953, and 1956; this data is present in the collection. Federal policy toward land use planning is reflected in files on land acquisitions policy, the Historic American Buildings Survey, and recreation; lands. APCA's biggest issues, judging from the bulk of papers collected, were highways and billboards, and the Hoover Commission's work on reorganization and economy in the federal government. The Association's great concern with planning and conservation in the Washington, D.C., area is also indicated in its files on housing and the C & 0 Canal. Financial records concern solicitations to foundations and other funding appeals and promotion. Until the late 1940s APCA depended heavily on the Russell Sage Foundation and the Rockefeller family for its resources; hopes for assistance from the Ford Foundation and Resources for the Future, Inc., were never fully realized.
Although the records of Action Inc., are quite numerous, they are not as valuable as their bulk might imply. ACTION maintained a hierarchical organization of its central files, and for this reason the folder entitled “Central Files Organization” is useful to the researcher. Most documents in this series bear an alpha-numeric code in the upper right corner, which was assigned by ACTION staff and used to designate location in the filing scheme. ACTION's correspondence files, as present in this collection, were primarily compiled from the staff's “Read Files,” composed of copies of all ACTION-produced letters and internal memoranda, grouped together, and routed to upper-level ACTION executives. Although some incoming correspondence has been incorporated into these files, letters are generally absent from the collection, and many of the items are routine in nature. The existing letters are most valuable for showing how ACTION and Urban Redevelopment Division (URDOA) policy was negotiated with the powerful corporate executives who made up the boards and advisors of ACTION and its divisions. Other topics include how meetings were organized, what they were meant to accomplish, and how participants and staff reacted to the meetings; how funding contacts were made; and how much of the staff's time was devoted to general promotion and recruitment projects.
Financial records of ACTION are present in three folders, and in addition, are located with the papers of board and membership meetings. Papers of ACTION's committee are fragmentary, although there are sizable files relating to ACTION-sponsored urban renewal clinics and several community conferences. Information regarding ACTION's leadership may be gathered from the sub-series on meetings of the board of directors and executive committee, as well as from the directors' biographical files, which are arranged alphabetically.
A major segment of the records of ACTION is that pertaining to research, publications, and publicity, most of which dates from early in ACTION's history. During the 1950s, ACTION was more interested in generalizing its appeal than the organization was in the 1960s, when it was realized that most of its financial and moral support would come from the prominent businessmen who made up the board of directors and professional contacts. Thus, during the late 1950s, ACTION sponsored a series of scholarly research publications probably designed to appeal to the academics who were conspicuous participants in ACTION's programs at that time. The organization subsequently found this approach expensive and not as useful to its constituency as were periodic meetings. The early research files are somewhat sparse, although later ones are more numerous. Publicity materials in the collection show with what energy ACTION originally attempted to reach local property-owners and decision-makers with its campaign of “clean-up, paint-up, fix-up.” However, after 1957, ACTION adopted much more the corporate developers' and planners' aims, and directed its activities toward more narrowly professional and public relations channels. Also included in this sub-series are correspondence and printed matter related to attacks on urban renewal and ACTION's work in this area, as well as general speeches, correspondence, and planning papers, both from ACTION staff members and from others in the field of urban planning. ACTION's publications file consists of copies of the ACTION series on housing, statements of objectives and future programs, reports, newsletters, and other printed and near-print items, and documents regarding their production.
The major divisions and programs of ACTION are also represented in the collection. There are correspondence, grant proposals, studies, reports, newsletters and press releases from the Division of Local Development Services, similar material from the Local Group Associates, and a small number of records of the Neighborhood Rehabilitation Committee. The failed attempt to construct an Urban Transportation Division is illustrated by folders of financial records, correspondence, and papers from organizational meetings, as well as by many planning documents and files regarding “interested persons,” prospectuses for operation, and the recruitment of a director. Most numerous are the records of the Urban Redevelopment Division, which reflect in type and organization the files of its parent body. Although URDOA was more task-oriented and specialized than was ACTION, still evident in the correspondence and conferences and meetings files is a preoccupation with promotion, contact-making, and fund-raising. Other papers include those of URDOA committees and task forces, some financial records, files of director Stephen D. Moses, and collected papers from meetings of other, related organizations. Within the public relations material are several folders regarding reactions to urban renewal, which reflect the outraged response of ACTION staff and private redevelopers to the book, The Federal Bulldozer, by Martin Anderson (later chief domestic advisor to the Reagan Administration), who advocated that the federal government withdraw completely from urban renewal.
The records within the sub-series Agencies and Associations are arranged into federal, national and international, and local groupings, and consist of papers of related organizations and government agencies with which ACTION corresponded. The general tone of this correspondence is one of cooperative endeavor and goodwill.
Within the STATES URBAN ACTION CENTER RECORDS are several folders of organizational records, such as correspondence and other papers of the advisory committee, general correspondence and administrative memos, and correspondence regarding the mergers with Urban America and with the Urban Coalition, Perhaps most interesting are the 1968 annual report and the file entitled “Prospectus; Statements of Organization, Purpose, and Progress,” which describe the origins of SUAC and the policies and services it adopted and performed, SUAC's general reports and publications reveal that the organization was not itself a research organization but was rather a referral agency and clearinghouse for information about urban problems and action projects. Within the section of “Studies” are the responses of mayors of the nation's major cities to a SUAC-conducted survey following the death of Martin Luther King Jr. These papers are interesting not only for the specific information they give about riot prevention and control, but also because they reveal the nervous and defensive tone of some respondents who reported no difficulties. Within the “State Projects” portion are requests for SUAC assistance from state governors, in the form of correspondence or formal proposals, as well as information about the projects carried out. In some states, particularly Connecticut and Massachusetts, SUAC committed itself to sponsor several large consulting projects on problems deemed especially urgent by the states' governors. In other states less was done, but the range of issues that consultants hired by SUAC looked into was very wide. SUAC staff members also collected papers from meetings at which SUAC was represented, from the National Governors' Conference (which originally proposed founding SUAC), and from other “urban interest groups” with which SUAC corresponded.
The records of Urban America Inc. comprise a major portion of the entire collection, and are most valuable in illustrating the activities and projects undertaken and sponsored by the organization. Once again, the correspondence files have been formed by integrating the “Read Files”
with other incoming and outgoing correspondence, and are not comprehensive in nature. There are some minutes, correspondence, reports, and other papers from board of trustees, executive committee, annual and membership meetings. During the late 1960s Urban America sponsored several major conferences of members and experts in various fields, which are well-documented in the collection. Especially interesting are the records showing how and why the meeting was arranged, including papers from preliminary formal and informal meetings. Examples of such conferences are “Our People and Their Cities” and its preliminary round tables on transportation, leisure, and the work place, 1966; and the Emergency Convocation of August 24, 1967 and the preliminary meetings of spring and summer 1967, which culminated in the creation of the Urban Coalition.
The 1965 merger of Urban America and ACTION is represented by papers which show the step-by-step negotiations involved -- merger proposals, copies of by-laws and background material from each organization, legal files and correspondence, personnel records, and correspondence with the boards of trustees, National Action Councils and members concerned in the matter. Objectives, strategies, and plans of Urban America are located in a separate folder, and reveal the process of formulation and revision of the organization's objectives in 1969.
Two major subsections of the Urban America series are the projects, and the reports and publications files. The projects segment, although fragmentary, consists of proposals and planning papers from educational, design, and urban renewal efforts that Urban America initiated or worked with. Also interesting are folders about projects under consideration and those considered and rejected; together the files show the types of projects encouraged by Urban America, and their mechanisms for determining which to support. Urban America reports and publications date primarily from the mid- and latter-1960s, when the organization sponsored many research and demonstration programs. Similar files of printed and near-print proposals, prospectuses, and publications are present in the Non-profit Housing Center files, and reveal Urban America's focus on research and planning with states and local communities.
Urban America's other centers also are represented in the collection by printed and near-print proposals, prospectuses, reports, and publications regarding various projects. Included are the Business and Development Center, Center City Transportation Project, Nonprofit Housing Center, Urban Design Center, Urban Information Center, Urban Policy Center, Urban Redevelopment Division, and Urban Transportation Center. Of these, records are most numerous for the Nonprofit Housing Center and the Urban Information Center, composed mainly of publications and publicity materials, and the Center City Transportation Project and Urban Design Center, which include files of correspondence similar to the Urban America “read files.”
Records of the NATIONAL URBAN COALITION also primarily consist of printed and near-print items, with NUC's programs and projects, and reports and publications most heavily represented in the collection. There are several folders of papers and transcripts of conferences and meetings regarding national budget priorities and urban government and employment, and with Americans for Indian Opportunity and Hispanic groups, which reveal the differences in orientation between NUC and its predecessor organizations. NUC financial records include a 1970 budget, a list of contributions to NUC (1969), a report on national budget priorities, and several folders about foundation gifts and solicitations. Correspondence is relatively meager, as are minutes and papers of the steering committee and Action Council.
