Abstract:

The Chamber of Commerce of the United States is the world’s largest business organization representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions. This collection contains photographs, negatives, slides, digital images, sound recordings, videos, and films that document the history of the Chamber from its founding to the twenty-first century. The materials provide a record not only of the activities of the Chamber but also of the political landscape surrounding key issues related to business. The collection focuses on the legislation, regulations, and litigation impacting the economy, immigration reform, pensions, health care, trade, Social Security, air quality, global warming, workplace safety, and taxes, as well as major industries such as energy, aviation, automobiles, agriculture, transportation,mining, shipping, and technology.

Abstract:

The Collection of Philadelphia merchants records comprises the papers of major and minor merchant houses in Philadelphia throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and primarily documents trade with major port cities in Western Europe and the West Indies. Included are the papers of merchants Andrew Clow & Co., Dutilh & Wachsmuth, Manuel Eyre, and George Louis de Stockar, along with records of other miscellaneous merchants from the Philadelphia area. The records include correspondence, accounts, bills, orders, invoices and other material that give insight into the rise of capitalism in the Early Republic.

Abstract:

Edward Graham Jefferson (1921-2006) was a research chemist and chief executive officer of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. Jefferson's papers consist of his "personal" business files, and do not include his official correspondence as CEO of the DuPont Company. The papers primarily reflect Jefferson's "Head of State" role at DuPont and his membership on the boards of numerous business, trade, and educational organizations. The papers have been arranged in three series: DuPont Company and personal activities, Outside board memberships, and Speeches.

Abstract:

Ernest Munster (1885-1965) was an attorney and organized Lawyers International Corporation in 1930, with its office in New York City. Munster, the company's president, continued his association with the company through at least the mid-1940s. The Ernest Munster papers reflect his work which necessitated his familiarity with international trade and incorporation laws and taxation policies. The collection primarily consists of records Munster maintained during his years as president of Lawyers International Corporation, with some papers dating back to his employment with International Corporation Company in the late 1930s.

Scope and Contents: The International Economic Affairs Department was responsible for NAM activities related to international trade, international investment and finance, and later technology. The materials are arranged into four subseries: Staff; Committees, subcommittees, and task forces; Conferences and meetings; and Subject files. This series should be used in conjunction with the Trade and Technology Department, as the department changed names in 1994.The Staff subcommittee contains the papers of several NAM staff members within the department including Kitty Brims (1963-), associate director of International Trade; Stephen Cooney (1946-), director of International Investment and Finance; Jerry Jasinowski (1939-), NAM president; Howard Lewis (1948-), vice president of the department; Marino Marcich (1964-), Cooney’s successor as director of International Investment Finance; and Robert “Judge” Morris (1944-), director of International Trade. Cooney’s files contain numerous records related to the European Commission (EC) and the formation of the European Union, as well as material concerning South African apartheid. The Jasinowski files, it is important to note, are not his personal files but rather materials related to international economic affairs issues produced under Jasinowski’s signature. The files include numerous letters to members of Congress and several to President Bill Clinton, many concerning NAM’s campaign in support of NAFTA in 1993. Morris was responsible for organizing the long-running Trade Forum discussion series and his files contain extensive correspondence related to its organization. In each person’s case, the bulk of the records are made up of correspondence, memoranda, and mailings covering the day-to-day activities of the department.The Committees, subcommittees, and task forces subseries includes mailings, meeting material, member lists, minutes, and agendas from the various committees and subcommittees that fell under the purview of the department. The material is arranged by committee or subcommittee, and then chronologically. One of the committees is the Technology Policy Committee (formerly the Council on High Technology, which is also included). Within these files are those from William Morin (1954-), who organized the Council and led its efforts, as well as meeting records of the two main groups within the committee: the Intellectual Property Task Force and the Technology Policy Task Force.The...

Scope and Contents:

The Ivan F. Baker papers describe his overseas work with Westinghouse and his postwar activities promoting economic development and international trade. There are numerous engineering reports, memoranda, handbooks for trade fairs, conference proceedings, tear sheets, Westinghouse corporate publications, and Baker’s speeches and writings. The materials are arranged chronologically. Some items are in Japanese, Indonesian, and Spanish.

Among the few items on pre-war Japan are booklets and letters describing the Kant (Tokyo) Earthquake of 1923, articles on the Japanese electrical industry, and the text of a 1940 speech by M. Wakabayashi of the Mitsubishi Electric Company to the Tokyo English Speaking Society describing his impressions of the U.S.

The bulk of the papers deal with postwar reconstruction and the economic aspects of the Cold War. Notable items include a diary of A. L. Nadai describing a tour of Moscow and Leningrad when attending the 220th anniversary of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1945; a Westinghouse plan for Brazil (1945); the proceedings of the first international meeting of the Westinghouse Treasury Dept. (1946); a report on Baker’s trip to India (1948); a history of Westinghouse International’s war activities; a transcript of a written message of Emperor Hirohito with translator’s notes by the journalist Compton Pakenham, a pre-war friend of the Emperor’s, urging a modification of occupation policies (1950); and a Westinghouse International sales manual (1952).

Files and reports on trade fairs and conferences include the India-America Conference (1949); the Colgate University Conferences on American Foreign Policy; the Tokyo International Trade Fair (1955); and the Indonesian International Fair (1955). Other organizations represented are the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Council on Japan, and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Other items of note include an illustrated brochure of the Imperial Hotel at Tokyo (Teikoku Hoteru); a large promotional book by Ercole Marelli & C., an electrical manufacturing company of Milan, for which Baker was U.S. representative; an anti-American article by Yoshio Tsujimoto from the Bungei Shunju (1955); and the proceedings of a 1955 arbitration between Saudi Arabia and the Arabian American Oil Company over a rival oil tanker concession granted to Aristotle Onassis.

Abstract:

Lanman & Kemp was a multi-generational family firm of wholesale druggists in New York City. Their records document the operations of the wholesale drug business in the years before the development of modern pharmaceuticals. They also show the importance of New York City as a center for the import, export and re-export business and of London bankers in financing international trade and extending credit.

Scope and Contents: The Law Department is one of the oldest, continuous departments in the organization. The materials in this series include Law Department publications, briefs, opinions, related correspondence, reports, and court documents. The series is divided into four subseries: Court cases, Subject files, Internal files, and Publications.The Court cases subseries includes amicus briefs that NAM filed and paperwork related to them, cases before the National Labor Relations Board, and cases NAM had an interest in or was involved with. The court cases deal with numerous topics and issues. Some of these topics include: Americans with Disabilities Act, anti-trust, Civil Rights Act, discrimination, ergonomics, intellectual property, lobbying, lockout-tagout, North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), occupational exposure, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards, product liability, punitive damages, strikes, and women in the workforce (including maternity and family leave).The Subject files subseries contain files maintained by the Law Department on a wide variety of topics and likely used as reference. Several of the subject files have information that would be relevant to various court cases, but the files do not pertain to a specific case, rather the issue at large. Several subjects are included, with major issues being Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, anti-trust, Civil Rights Act of 1990, ergonomics, exportation, labor law, lobbying, lockout-tagout, Taft-Hartley Act, trade commissions, and various federal agencies and programs. Correspondence with the International Labor Organization describes NAM’s relationship with this international body as well as efforts to align it with conservative non-Communist labor unions.The Internal files subseries includes material created and used internally along with lobbying reports filed as mandated. The files were for internal use and document the daily work of the general counsel’s office. The subseries includes business activity reports (which were used for Board of Directors’ meetings and annual reports), contracts that NAM entered, programs and policies that NAM considered and enacted, and trademarks NAM held, among many other topics.A significant portion of the Internal files are chronological files by name, correspondence sent to the general counsel’s office, and reader or reading files created by lawyers in the Law Department. These are arranged...

Abstract:

Lynch and Stoughton was a New York mercantile firm that traded extensively with Spain, Portugal, Holland, the West Indies, Florida, Ireland, and China, in the coasting trade between Pennsylvania and New England, and with the interior of New York State. The ledger documents the firm's mercantile business between 1783 and 1788. The ledger appears to have later been passed down through several generations of the Stow family of New York and Michigan, who used it as a scrapbook for scrap paper and practicing penmanship.

Abstract:

Masters & Markoe was a mercantile house which operated throughout the early nineteenth century. Most of the records date from the period 1810 to 1814 and document the West Indian trade of Markoe & Masters. The collection consists of the business correspondence and accounts records which shows that the firm was primarily involved with the importation of sugar from Santa Cruz (St. Croix). The company also imported molasses, rum, coffee, mahogany, and logwood. There are also personal papers of the firms co-founder, Thomas Masters (1781-1844) and members of his family.

Abstract:

The National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) was established on May 28, 1914 to coordinate the foreign trade activities of the United States. The convention appointed thirty-five delegates to serve as charter members of the NFTC, with James A. Farrell (1863-1943), then-President of U.S. Steel, the new organization's first chairman. Records chronicle U.S. corporate policy toward the most pressing issues of foreign trade in the twentieth century.

Abstract:

The Phillips family were prominent Philadelphia merchants and manufacturers over four generations. The records consist of four volumes of merchant and importer William Phillips (1771-1845), a daybook from the textile firm of Lewis, Phillips & Co., and an unrelated receipt book of Philadelphia wine merchant Francis Coppinger, dating from 1794 to 1795.

Scope and Contents:

The Trade and Technology Department was formed because of a wider reorganization of NAM’s Policy and Communications Division in 1994. Formerly known as the International Economic Affairs Department, it was responsible for all NAM activities related to technology policy, international trade, and international investment and finance. The materials are arranged into three subseries: Staff, Conferences and meetings, and Subject files. This series should be considered in conjunction with the International Economic Affairs Department.

The Staff subcommittee contains the papers from several NAM staff members within the department including Kitty Brims (1963-), associate director of international trade; Jerry Jasinowski (1939-), NAM president; Howard Lewis (1948-), vice president of the department; Marino Marcich (1964-), director of international investment finance;, and Robert “Judge” Morris (1944-), director of international trade. The Jasinowski files, it is important to note, are not his personal files but rather materials related to international economic affairs issues produced under Jasinowski’s signature. In the case of each individual, the bulk of the records are made up of correspondence, memoranda, and mailings covering the day-to-day activities of the department.

The Conferences and meetings subseries contains materials related to events held by NAM or attended by departmental staff. It includes the Americas, China, and India Issues Working Groups, Intellectual Property Subcommittee, Tax and Budget Policy Committee, and NAM Trade Forum meetings — an informal weekly meeting that brought government officials and trade experts together with NAM members to discuss a variety of issues related to international trade.

The Subject files subseries contains an assortment of records produced and collected by staff. These include internal departmental paperwork, newspaper clippings, Congressional testimony, NAM publications, and relevant policy documents.