Scope and Content Note
The papers of Robert Worth Bingham (1871-1937) span the period 1856-1939 with the bulk of the material concentrated in the years 1933-1937, when Bingham served as United States ambassador to Great Britain. The collection is organized into eight series: Diaries , Family Correspondence , General Correspondence , Subject File , Financial Records , Speech File , Miscellany , Addition , and Oversize .
The Diaries document Bingham's official and unofficial activities as ambassador. Issues that appear in the four volumes include the tariff questions that confronted the American delegation to the Monetary and Economic Conference, London, Eng., in 1933, monetary stabilization and debt liquidation, negotiations for a new naval treaty that led to the London Naval Conference, 1935-1936, disarmament, and the invasion of Ethiopia. The diaries also record his social activities as ambassador.
The Family Correspondence consists chiefly of letters and telegrams exchanged between Bingham and his second son, Barry Bingham, who assumed the management of the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Louisville Times after Bingham went to England. While these letters and the other family correspondence discuss personal and family matters, much of the correspondence between father and son deals with the policies and management of the newspapers and with Kentucky politics.
The General Correspondence displays Bingham's wide range of interests. The file begins with Bingham's acquisition of the Courier-Journal and the Louisville Times. Accordingly, a large volume of the correspondence relates to the operation and policies of the two newspapers, which can be seen in Bingham's correspondence with Mark Etheridge, Emanuel Levi, and Tom Wallace. Bingham used the newspapers to criticize the state government and to advocate for better government in Kentucky. State politics are a frequent topic in this series. Bingham was also concerned about the conditions of several state institutions, particularly the penal and charitable institutions and the state school system. Bingham opposed a bond issue for building new state roads, fearing that the expenditures would not be controlled and would be used for purposes other than road construction. Bingham's other business interests also appear in this file.
The focus of the correspondence changes when Bingham became ambassador. National politics supplant state politics as a major subject. Invitations to speak at or attend various functions and letters of introduction form a large part of the correspondence after 1933. Bingham retained his interest in the newspaper business and corresponded with British journalists discussing the issues of the day and commenting on stories appearing in the newspapers.
One of Bingham's major concerns was the economic advancement of farmers. In the early 1920s Bingham became a proponent of the Sapiro or California marketing plan as a solution for the farmers' economic plight. In both the General Correspondence and Subject File Bingham advocates the need to form farmers' associations for marketing farm products by commodity. Bingham provided financial assistance for organizing many of these associations. Prominent topics in the Subject File include the two local associations in which Bingham served on the executive committee: the Burley Tobacco Growers' Co-operative Association, 1921-1926, and the Dark Tobacco Growers' Co-operative Association, 1922-1926. In 1926 Bingham became a member of the Business Men's Commission on Agriculture, which sought to study the agricultural situation from a businessman's standpoint in the hope of finding an outline for a national policy for agriculture. The file on the subject consists chiefly of transcripts of hearings held throughout the country in 1927. Other subject files include Bingham's efforts to keep Inter-Southern Life Insurance Company in Louisville, the management of Bingham's Pineland Plantation, sympathy letters during his wife, Aleen Muldoon Bingham's, illness in 1935, and congratulatory messages on the English crown's jubilee.
The Financial Records series is limited to correspondence about stock purchases and sales, bank note renewals, and company financial statements. There are a few bank statements, but the file does not provide a clear picture of Bingham's personal financial transactions from 1918 to 1937.
The Speech File contains speeches by Bingham while ambassador as well as speeches by others. Included in the Miscellany are appointment books, publications, clippings, business reports, and other printed matter, from his tenure as ambassador.
The Addition includes correspondence, memoranda, speeches, and miscellany. Bingham's nomination as minister to Great Britain as well as his day-to-day activities in London are documented through general correspondence, job requests, speeches, photographs, and printed matter. Correspondence represents the bulk of this series. Significant correspondents include Ray Atherton, Norman H. Davis, Edward Mandell House, Cordell Hull, Breckinridge Long, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. While there is some discussion of local Kentucky politics and President Roosevelt's political position in the United States, Bingham's correspondence focuses on assessments of political leaders including Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Neville Chamberlain, and analysis of foreign governments and their policies including Japan's rising influence, Great Britain-United States relations, war debt negotiations, the London Naval Conference of 1935, the gold standard, and monetary stabilization.
The Oversize series consists of ten scrapbooks. Eight volumes contain American and British news clippings documenting reactions to the ambassador at home and abroad. The remaining two scrapbooks contain invitations, programs, dance cards, and menus and document Bingham's social obligations.
Prominent correspondents in the collection include John Jacob Astor, Ray Atherton, Stanley Baldwin, Earl Baldwin, Alben William Barkley, Bernard Baruch, John Crepps Wickliffe Beckham, Ulric Bell, Carrie Chapman Catt, Calvin Coolidge, Josephus Daniels, Norman H. Davis, Anthony Eden, Earl of Avon, James A. Farley, Credo Fitch Harris, Roland Hayes, Herbert Hoover, Edward Mandell House, Louis McHenry Howe, Cordell Hull, Joseph P. Kennedy, Arthur Krock, Charles A. Lindbergh, David Lloyd George, Breckinridge Long, Henry Robinson Luce, James Ramsay MacDonald, Lincoln MacVeagh, Jan Masaryk, Eugene Meyer, Margaret Mitchell, Henry Morgenthau (1856-1946), Adolph S. Ochs, John D. Rockefeller (1874-1960), Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Daniel C. Roper, Cornelius Vanderbilt (1898-1974), Henry A. Wallace, Thomas John Watson, Henry Watterson, and Woodrow Wilson.