Scope and Content Note
The papers of Julius Albert Krug (1907-1970) span the years 1936-1950, with the bulk of the items concentrated in the period of his service in the federal government, 1941-1949. The collection is comprised of five series: Correspondence , Subject File , Speech and Article File , Miscellany , and Classified .
The greater part of the Correspondence series consists of letters sent and received during the years 1946-1949 when Krug was secretary of the interior. There is a slightly smaller group of letters for the period when he served with the War Production Board, 1941-1945, directing the nation's output of munitions and during the early part of 1946 while supervising the conversion of wartime industry to the production of civilian commodities. Among the correspondents are Clinton Presba Anderson, Chester Bowles, James Boyd, Oscar L. Chapman, Tom C. Clark, James Forrestal, W. Averell Harriman, Estes Kefauver, David Eli Lilienthal, George C. Marshall, Charles Sawyer, Lewis B. Schwellenbach, John Roy Steelman, Edward R. Stettinius (1900-1949), Herbert Bayard Swope, Stuart Symington (1901-1988), and Harry S. Truman.
The bulk of the collection consists of a Subject File containing papers relating to some of Krug's major interests and activities from 1940 to 1953. The Interior Department file predominates and presents a detailed record of the operation of the department during the first half of the Truman administration. Typed notes, 1941-1949, summarize the subject matter of Krug's telephone calls. The Subject File also includes material relating to Congressional hearings involving the Interior Department, such as, correspondence and statements made by Krug and other officials before Congressional committees. Appointment schedules and records of trips by Krug cover his daily activities. Another segment of papers within the Subject File concerns his work in 1941 as chief power consultant to the Office of Production Management and as vice chairman when the agency was reconstituted as the War Production Board in 1942. Papers are missing for the few months in 1944 when Krug served as a lieutenant commander in the navy. They resume when he was recalled to Washington to act as chairman of the War Production Board.
Also in the collection are a number of Krug's speeches and articles and miscellaneous items such as invitations, photographs, and newspaper clippings.