The records of the Directors of Industrial Research are an important collection, primarily because of their documentation of the development of industrial research. These records provide ample opportunity for the study of a powerful elite of corporate researchers, and a close-up view of certain aspects of the relationship between science and big business in the twentieth century.

The minutes span the entire history of the organization and seem to be present for all of the meetings with the exception of a very few of the early ones. The minutes are standard in format, noting the names of members, attending guests, and guest speakers, the subject of the guest speaker's talk, the dates of the preceding and succeeding meetings, and membership changes. Occasionally a yearly report and membership roster from the Analytical Group is included.

The general correspondence covers the lifetime of the organization. During the earliest years of the D.I.R., all subject correspondence was included in the general correspondence, and secretaries frequently saved copies of both letters received and those sent in reply. The separation of correspondence into general and subject-related correspondence was a gradual process beginning in the early 1940s and completed in the mid- and late-1970s. As this separation occurred, both copies of letters were saved less frequently, and the "general correspondence" heading came to be a repository of odds and ends that fit nowhere else.

While subject headings were consistently used to divide correspondence from the early 1960s onward, the divisions do not seem to have been especially strict. Items belonging under one heading occasionally appear in another. Subject headings in use in 1982, the most recent year for which Hagley possesses the records, were: membership lists; meeting attendance lists; duties of the chairman and secretary; D.I.R. Analytical Group; questionnaires; annual outing; and menus.

Clear identification by the secretary of material relating to the Analytical Group is sporadic. Some of the material may be elsewhere, as the annual reports and membership rosters appear occasionally in the D.I.R. minutes, but most is probably lost. The Analytical Group never kept official records like the D.I.R. did. The years for which material relating to the Analytical Group is separated and identified as such are from 1947 to 1952, 1953 to 1957, 1970 to 1971, and 1978. This material includes some correspondence, some information on the group's origins and history, and some membership lists and other information on membership.

The questionnaires were constructed by D.I.R. members and distributed among them exclusively. They were to be employed by the members in evaluating the efficacy of, and comparing notes on, their respective facilities. The questionnaires were concerned with job classifications and qualifications, wages, budget allocations, and the use of patents, among other subjects. Some summaries of members' replies, broken down by company, as well as correspondence containing individual replies, are included. These questionnaires cover the years 1929 to 1946. A complete run of these records is present in the collection. Annual reports, which were primarily budget summaries, exist for most years. Present for every year are bills and receipts for the expenses incurred for the monthly lunches and honorariums for guest speakers. A collection of bank statements, deposit slips, and cancelled checks for the years 1978 to 1980 has also been preserved.

Members:

Abbott Laboratories; Air Reduction Company; Allied Chemical & Dye Corporation; Aluminum Company of America; American Brass Company; American Can Company; American Cyanamid Company; American Smelting and Refining Company; American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T); B.F. Goodrich Company; Bakelite Corporation; Battelle Memorial Institute; Bell Telephone Laboratories; Bendix Corporation; Bethlehem Steel Corporation; Boeing Company; Borden Company; Borg-Warner Corporation; Celanese Research Company; Chesebrough-​Pond's; Chrysler Corporation; Colgate & Company; Colgate-Palmolive-Peet Company; Conoco Inc.; Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc; Continental Can Company; Continental Oil Company; Corning Glass Works; Crucible Steel Company of America; Directors of Industrial Research (U.S.); Dow Chemical Company; E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company; Eastman Kodak Company; Engineering Foundation (U.S.); Esso Research and Engineering Company; Exxon Research and Engineering Company; Ford Motor Company; GAF Corporation; General Electric Company; General Motors Corporation; General Tire & Rubber Co.; Gillette Company; Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company; Grasselli ChemicalCompany; Gulf Research & Development Co.; Hercules Powder Company; Honeywell, Inc.; International Business Machines Corporation; International Nickel Company, Inc.; International Paper Company; International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation; Johns-Manville Corporation; Johnson & Johnson; Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation; Kennecott Copper Corporation; Mellon Institute of Industrial Research; Merck & Co.; Mobil Oil Corporation; Monsanto Company; National Canners Association; National Lead Company; National Research Council (U.S.); New England Industrial Research Foundation, Inc.; New Jersey Zinc Company; Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation; Parke, Davis & Company; Philadelphia Quartz Company; Phillips Petroleum Company; Puritan Chemical Company; R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company; Radio Corporation of America (RCA); RCA, David Sarnoff Research Center; Rohm and Haas Company; Salk Institute of Biological Studies; Schenley Distillers Corporation; Shell Development Company; Sperry Gyroscope Company, Inc.; Standard Brands Incorporated; Standard Oil Development Company; St. Regis Paper Company; Texaco, Inc.; Texas Instruments Incorporated; Uniroyal, Inc.; United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration; United States Industrial Chemicals, Inc.; United States Rubber Company; United States Rubber Products, Inc.; United States Steel Corporation; Upjohn Company; Warner-Lambert Company; and Xerox Corporation.