COLLECTION FINDING AID



PRESIDENTIAL HANDWRITING FILE

Documents Annotated by the President, 1974-77

Staff Secretary's Office



CONTENTS

Summary Description | Introduction | Series Descriptions | Container List

View digital copies of documents in the Chronological File

SUMMARY DESCRIPTION

This file contains occasional documents in President Ford's handwriting along with numerous memoranda, briefing papers, and reports submitted to the President and bearing his annotations (rarely extensive), signature, or initials.

QUANTITY
 41.4 linear feet (ca. 82,800 pages)

DONOR
 Gerald R. Ford (accession number 77-120)

ACCESS
 Open. Some items are temporarily restricted under terms of the donor's deed of gift, a copy of which is available on request, or under National Archives and Records Administration general restrictions (36 CFR 1256).

COPYRIGHT
 Gerald R. Ford donated to the United States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to remain with them. Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public domain.

Prepared by William McNitt, June 1988
[s:\bin\findaid\president's handwriting file.doc]

INTRODUCTION

History of the Presidential Handwriting File
President Lyndon Johnson's staff started the practice of maintaining a separate handwriting file. Gertrude Fry copied the practices of the Johnson White House when she joined the Nixon staff and continued to be responsible for the file under President Ford.

Ms. Fry and her staff filed the documents chronologically by the date of the latest item in the document case. In the early months of the Ford administration, Ms. Fry indexed most handwriting items by creating subject and name cross references which she kept in her office. For most documents she also made a different type of cross reference sheet which she sent to Central Files.

In a June 1975 reorganization of the Staff Secretary's Office, Ms. Fry's duties changed, her staff was cut, Special Files was discontinued, and all indexing of handwriting items ended. She nonetheless continued to add materials to the Handwriting File during the remainder of the administration, including scattered items which bore no handwriting yet which she apparently considered too sensitive for Central Files (items which might have been filed in Special Files had it not been discontinued).

When received by the Ford Library, the Presidential Handwriting File consisted of the chronologically arranged originals and the subject and name index covering only the early months of the administration. During archival processing of the White House Central Files Subject File, many photocopies of handwriting documents were made and attached to their Central Files cross reference sheets. Since as many as two-thirds of the documents were never cross referenced into Central Files, however, the Ford Library staff later photocopied the entire Handwriting File and arranged the photocopies by subject in 1987-88.

Related Materials (June 1988)
This collection relates in some manner to most other collections in the Library, especially the White House Central Files. The Presidential Paperwork Logs, also maintained by Ms. Fry and her staff, record the date and time that documents were submitted to the President, the time returned to the outbox, and the subsequent disposition of the items. The records of the Special Files Unit contain a series on Special Files administration which describes another aspect of Ms. Fry's work. Scattered materials on her work may also appear in the files of her supervisor James Connor, the Staff Secretary and Secretary to the Cabinet.

SERIES DESCRIPTIONS

Subject File, 1974-77.  (Boxes 1-52, 20.8 linear feet)
Photocopies of the original handwriting documents (see next series). Ford Library staff made the copies and arranged them by subject. Memoranda, correspondence, briefing papers and reports on most Ford administration topics. Major topics include: aircraft noise control, economics, energy, environmental protection, Federal agencies and departments, federal budget, foreign aid, intelligence investigations, New York City financial crisis, political affairs, the 1976 presidential campaign, presidential speeches, taxation, trade, transportation, and uranium enrichment.

Arranged by subject using White House Central Files Subject File categories.

View container list for this series

Chronological File, 1974-77.  (Boxes C1-C48, 18.8 linear feet)
Originals of the photocopied documents in the Subject File.

Arranged chronologically.

View container list for this series and digitized documents

Index File - Subjects, 1974-75.  (Boxes I1-I3, 1.0 linear feet)
Cross reference sheets prepared by Gertrude Fry and her staff describing most, but not all, handwriting items to June 1975. The creation of the Subject File by Ford Library staff largely replaces this incomplete index.

Arranged by White House Central Files alpha-numeric codes.

View container list for this series

Index File - Names, 1974-75. (Boxes I3-I4, 0.6 linear feet)
Cross reference sheets prepared by Gertrude Fry and her staff describing selected handwriting items to June 1975.

Arranged alphabetically by name of the individual or organization. White House staff are not indexed.

View container list for this series

CONTAINER LIST

Box 1 - Subject File

Box 2 - Subject File

Box 3 - Subject File

Box 4 - Subject File

Box 5 - Subject File

Box 6 - Subject File

Box 7 - Subject File

Box 8 - Subject File

Box 9 - Subject File

Box 10 - Subject File

Box 11 - Subject File

Box 12 - Subject File

Box 13 - Subject File

Box 14 - Subject File

Box 15 - Subject File

Box 16 - Subject File

Box 17 - Subject File

Box 18 - Subject File

Box 19 - Subject File

Box 20 - Subject File

Box 21 - Subject File

Box 22 - Subject File

Box 23 - Subject File

Box 24 - Subject File

Box 25 - Subject File

Box 26 - Subject File

Box 27 - Subject File

Box 28 - Subject File

Box 29 - Subject File

Box 30 - Subject File

Box 31 - Subject File

Box 32 - Subject File

Box 33 - Subject File

Box 34 - Subject File

Box 35 - Subject File

Box 36 - Subject File

Box 37 - Subject File

Box 38 - Subject File

Box 39 - Subject File

Box 40 - Subject File

Box 41 - Subject File

Box 42 - Subject File

Box 43 - Subject File

Box 44 - Subject File

Box 45 - Subject File

Box 46 - Subject File

Box 47 - Subject File

Box 48 - Subject File

Box 49 - Subject File

Box 50 - Subject File

Box 51 - Subject File

Box 52 - Subject File

Please click on the titles below to access listings of the documents in each box along with links to view them.

Box C1 - Chronological File

Box C2 - Chronological File

Box C3 - Chronological File

Box C4 - Chronological File

Box C5 - Chronological File

Box C6 - Chronological File

Box C7 - Chronological File

Box C8 - Chronological File

Box C9 - Chronological File

Box C10 - Chronological File

Box C11 - Chronological File

Box C12 - Chronological File

Box C13 - Chronological File

Box C14 - Chronological File

Box C15 - Chronological File

Box C16 - Chronological File

Box C17 - Chronological File

Box C18 - Chronological File

Box C19 - Chronological File

Box C20 - Chronological File

Box C21 - Chronological File

Box C22 - Chronological File

Box C23 - Chronological File

Box C24 - Chronological File

Box C25 - Chronological File

Box C26 - Chronological File

Box C27 - Chronological File

Box C28 - Chronological File

Box C29 - Chronological File

Box C30 - Chronological File

Box C31 - Chronological File

Box C32 - Chronological File

Box C33 - Chronological File

Box C34 - Chronological File

Box C35 - Chronological File

Box C36 - Chronological File

Box C37 - Chronological File

Box C38 - Chronological File

Box C39 - Chronological File

Box C40 - Chronological File

Box C41 - Chronological File

Box C42 - Chronological File

Box C43 - Chronological File

Box C44 - Chronological File

Box C45 - Chronological File

Box C46 - Chronological File

Box C47 - Chronological File

Box C48 - Chronological File

Box C49 - Chronological File

Box C50 - Chronological File

Box C51 - Chronological File

Box C52 - Chronological File

Box C53 - Chronological File

Box C54 - Chronological File

Box I1 - Index File - Subjects

Box I2 - Index File - Subjects

Box I3 - Index File - Subjects

Box I3 (Continued) - Index File - Names

Box I4 - Index File - Names