Scope and Content Note
The papers of James Aloysius Farley (1888-1976) span the years 1790-1976, with the bulk of the items concentrated in the period 1918-1976. The collection includes General Correspondence, Presidential File, Private File, Subject File, Speeches and Writings, and Miscellany series. The focus is on Farley's political career and connections, although a great deal of the material after 1940 also concerns his public relations activity on behalf of the Coca-Cola Export Corporation and his involvement with commercial and service organizations, Irish-American societies, the Catholic Church, professional sports, and the world leaders he met socially in the course of many foreign travels.
A major portion of the Farley Papers reflect his role as Franklin D. Roosevelt's campaign manager and as postmaster general of the United States. Documented in every series of the collection, his relation to Roosevelt and the New Deal is especially evident in the Presidential File and in the Private File of confidential logs or memoranda Farley dictated to himself as a record of important events. The Presidential File includes letters with Eleanor Roosevelt, whom Farley often consulted on political matters, and correspondence with members of the Roosevelt family and staff. The Private File, begun sporadically in 1918, swells in volume and significance after 1932 and lessens after Farley's break with Roosevelt on the issue of the third term. In addition to containing descriptions of cabinet meetings, the Private File offers day-to-day evaluations of Roosevelt's political standing during critical phases of the New Deal. It includes occasional assessments of other cabinet officers and advisers and gives firsthand accounts of major patronage issues, personality conflicts, and Farley's private visits with the president.
The General Correspondence series features letters from prominent acquaintances through several decades, including politicians, judges, cabinet officers, diplomats, legislators, actors, boxers, baseball players, newspaper reporters, businessmen, and socialites. There is considerable correspondence with officials of the Catholic Church, including several cardinals and Pope Pius XII, and with foreign heads of state such as Winston Churchill; Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia; May-ling Soong Chiang (Madame Chiang Kai-shek); General Francisco Franco; and Anastasio Somoza.
The Subject File includes a variety of personal, financial, and genealogical material, but is strongest in its documentation of Democratic Party politics. Included in the files for the presidential campaign of 1936, for instance, are transcripts of ad hoc discussions regarding local and regional election conditions, transcripts of Farley's press conferences, and a campaign book detailing state reports as they were received by the Democratic National Committee prior to elections. Other topics include New York state politics; Louisiana Senator Huey Long, a political opponent; and the Eighteenth Amendment, which Farley opposed and helped to repeal.
The Speeches and Writings series and Miscellany cover the full range of Farley's career and activities. Partially indexed, the speech file is notable as a record of his talks as postmaster general. The Miscellany is notable for the comprehensive scrapbooks which Farley and his family or staff compiled from about 1923 until his death in 1976.
Farley corresponded with every president and most of their wives from Herbert Hoover to Gerald Ford. Among the more frequent of the presidential correspondents were Hoover, Harry S. Truman and Bess Wallace Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson. Other correspondents include Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle (1896-1961), Claude Gernade Bowers, Homer S. Cummings, Éamon De Valera, Denis J. Dougherty, John Nance Garner, Carter Glass, Louis M. Howe, Cordell Hull, Harold L. Ickes, Breckinridge Long, Sean T. O'Kelly, Alfred Emanuel Smith, William H. Woodin, and Harry Hines Woodring.