Scope and Content Note
The papers of Otto Sternoff Beyer (1886-1948) consist of personal and professional correspondence, memoranda, reports, speeches and articles, charts, and other papers, as well as scrapbooks of clippings relating mainly to his professional career. The papers span the years 1905-1951, but bulk largest from 1929 to 1941. The collection is organized into eleven series: General Correspondence, Subject File, General Railroad File, Canadian National Railways, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, Tennessee Valley Authority, Bonneville Power Administration, Speech and Article File, Scrapbooks, Addition, and Oversize.
During Beyer's military service in World War I, he developed a program of union-management cooperation in army arsenals. Thereafter, he served as consulting engineer to unions and management in various industrial concerns and in railway systems such as the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company and the Canadian National Railways, acquiring a reputation as a leader in the improvement of labor-management relations. From 1933 to 1948, Beyer held a number of posts in the federal government. His papers document his widespread activities in considerable detail, including labor-management cooperation in the field of railway transportation, his connection with federal agencies, and work in the area of labor relations, unions, wages, strikes, and unemployment.
An Addition series contains biographical material and letters of condolence from Harry S. Truman, James Tobin, and others government officials. The article file in the Addition contains Beyer's notes on a projected history of railroad personnel, in which he was encouraged by Professor Sumner Slichter of Harvard. The subject file contains background material on his various positions with railroads, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the National Mediation Board during World War II. There is also material pertaining to Clara M. Beyer consisting of family correspondence and photographs, White House invitations, and material pertaining to her own position in the Labor Department.
Correspondents in the Addition include Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, David E. Lilienthal, Frances Perkins and William Green of the American Federation of Labor.