Scope and Content Note
The correspondence and reports of Edward Tracy Clark (1878-1935) cover his political and business activities during the years between 1923 and 1935, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1929-1935. When Coolidge came to Washington, D.C., as vice president, Clark, a fellow alumnus of Amherst College, accompanied him as his secretary. Tracy remained in his secretarial position in the White House until 1929 when Coolidge chose not to run for reelection. The collection includes Clark's personal papers for a few years after he left the political world and entered business.
The Clark correspondence is most numerous for the years following 1929, when he served as a consultant on legislative, customs, and tariff matters for various business concerns. His activities as the president's secretary are reflected in Coolidge's letters to Clark and in carbon copies of his replies on a variety of subjects, including the Permanent Court of International Justice, Massachusetts politics, patronage, the McNary-Haugen Farm Bill, Mexican confiscation, and also tickets to Army-Navy football games, class reunions at Amherst College, and shirts for the president.
The correspondence contains numerous letters to Clark from Coolidge written after he left the White House. There are also letters from Coolidge's wife, Grace Goodhue Coolidge, and his sons, John Coolidge and Calvin Coolidge (1908-1924). Other correspondents include Bruce Barton, William M. Butler, Chauncey M. Depew, William J. Donovan, Alfred M. Landon, David Lawrence, Louis Liggett, Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924), Andrew W. Mellon, Ogden Livingston Mills, Dwight W. Morrow, David I. Walsh, and Roy Owen West.