The papers of Benjamin Orig Gerig (1894-1976) span the years 1927-1974, with the bulk of the items concentrated in the period 1930-1968. The collection contains correspondence, reports, memoranda, printed matter, and other material documenting Gerig's service with the League of Nations, 1930-1940; the Department of State in a number of positions relating to international organizations and the administration of the trust territories, 1942-1961; and with the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations, 1947-1953. Gerig was deeply involved in preparations for the formation of the United Nations and served as an advisor to United States delegations to conferences at Dumbarton Oaks and San Francisco, 1944-1945, the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations in London, and the first session of the General Assembly in 1946. The Gerig Papers are arranged by general correspondence, speeches and writings, subject files, and classified material.

General correspondence, 1930-1974, contains personal and professional correspondence between Gerig and friends, family, and associates, predominantly those connected with the League of Nations and the State Department. Correspondents include Isaiah Bowman, Ralph J. Bunche, Andrew W. Cordier, John Foster Dulles, J. W. T. van Erp, Noel Haviland Field, Philip C. Jessup, Sean Lester, Henry Cabot Lodge, P. W. Martin, Felix M. Morley, Bertram Pickard, John D. Tomlinson, and F. P. Walters. Letters of appreciation and recommendation for Gerig were written by Warren R. Austin, Archibald MacLeish, Mike Mansfield, Leo Pasvolsky, Dean Rusk, Edward R. Stettinius, and Adlai E. Stevenson. Additional correspondence, particularly with League officials, is found in the subject file. Letters that Gerig wrote on the versos of committee reports commenting on his work on the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations in London are located in the subject file with other Preparatory Commission material.

The largest group of general correspondence is between Gerig and his first wife Mary and second wife Pearl and longtime friend and colleague Arthur Sweetser and his wife Ruth Gregory Sweetser, with whom the Gerigs shared a summer home in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. A letter from Gerig to Sweetser, dated from Geneva, January 1, 1950, comments on the Alger Hiss conviction and John Foster Dulles's testimony. Much of the correspondence was written after Gerig's retirement from the State Department in 1961. Arrangement of the general correspondence is alphabetical by name and chronological therein.

Among the speeches and writings, 1930-1969, are drafts and notes as well as published speeches and articles. The speeches include remarks given on League of Nations Day, 1939; an address on dependent peoples delivered as deputy United States representative on the United Nations Trusteeship Council, 1948; an address on the role of the United Nations in African developments, 1960; and outlines of remarks on the colonial question and the United Nations, international organizations, and sovereignty. Writings include publications by the Geneva Research Information Committee in Geneva Special Studies, 1930-1931; a statement on progress in the French Cameroons in the State Department Bulletin, 1956; and typescripts on the United States and the colonial question, 1955-1956. Arrangement is alphabetical by type of material and chronological therein.

The subject file, 1927-1969, consists of correspondence, telegrams, memoranda, reports, press releases, and printed matter dealing with Gerig's activities with the League of Nations, his work in planning for a new international organization and transferring to it League of Nations assets, and dependent area affairs and colonial policy, especially as it related to African nations, in the State Department and the United Nations Trusteeship Council. Arrangement is alphabetical by name of person or organization, topic, or type of material, and chronological therein.

Much of the material in the subject file, especially that on the origins of the United Nations, is security classified. Material in the classified portion has been arranged according to the organization of the unclassified Gerig Papers. Notices in the unclassified portion alert researchers that sensitive matter has been removed. Folder titles given in the container list for the classified segment duplicate the pertinent folder titles from the unclassified portion.

Material documenting Gerig's tenure with the League of Nations is almost exclusively connected with his assignment as commissioner-general of the pavilion at the New York World's Fair in 1939 and 1940; correspondence with League officials predominantly concerns pavilion business and arrangements for Gerig's move from Geneva to New York. The files contain documents concerning building arrangements and contracts, insurance and shipping, and correspondence regarding exhibits, including correspondence with Paul Manship concerning his sculpture for the pavilion and damage suffered during its display.

Gerig was employed by the State Department in 1943 as an expert on trusteeship and colonial questions and served as advisor to United States delegations to Dumbarton Oaks and San Francisco conferences. In 1943, he chaired a group that wrote an early draft charter for the United Nations. Numerous early drafts are found in the State Department portion of the subject file. Files of the Office of Special Political Affairs include proposals regarding a new court of international justice, considerations regarding the location of the international organization, and papers prepared and initialed by State Department consultant Quincy Wright on the legal foundations of the postwar order, representation and voting, international policing and military sanctions, and trust territories.

In 1943, Gerig served as advisor to the United States delegation to the Dumbarton Oaks conference of four "great powers;" the full United Nations Conference on International Organization at San Francisco, April-June 1945; and the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations, London, England, September-November 1945. Much of the material in the files generated at these conferences concerns the transfer of the League of Nations and its assets to the United Nations. Correspondents include Alger Hiss, director of the Office of Special Political Affairs. Gerig prepared a memorandum at Senator Arthur Vandenberg's request explaining the points at which the Dumbarton Oaks proposals were an improvement over the League of Nations Covenant in terms of security, economic and social cooperation, and general organization. San Francisco Conference documents include comments and proposed amendments concerning the Dumbarton Oaks proposals submitted by national delegations to the conference, drafts and suggested changes to article five of the chapter relative to trusteeship, and reports.

Gerig served as deputy United States representative on the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations and travelled in Africa as chairman of the United Nations Visiting Mission to Trust Territories in West Africa in 1958. Files related to West Africa contain reports and correspondence relevant to the mission and letters and writings on West Africa, especially Cameroon. Gerig was offered an ambassadorship to West Cameroon which he declined because of his wife's failing health. He was also named to delegations celebrating the independence of both Cameroon and Togo. As chief of the Division of Dependent Area Affairs, his files contain memoranda and correspondence regarding colonial policy, foreign service dispatches, and reports, speeches, publications and clippings on dependent area affairs.

Material in the United Nations file includes working papers and press releases on the operations of the mandate system under the League of Nations, on non-self-governing territories, race relations and the territories, press releases of statements by Gerig on Ruanda-Urundi (present-day Rwanda and Burundi), Cameroon, and Togo, nuclear tests in trust territories, the growth of Soviet colonialism, and Trusteeship Council verbatim records pertaining to Ruanda-Urundi, trust territories, and General Assembly resolutions. Also included are draft articles on international trusteeship, telegrams, and memoranda regarding trusteeship questions.

The subject file also includes correspondence with Felix Morley and others at Haverford College and the University of Pennsylvania concerning academic appointments, 1942, and an honorary doctorate awarded by Haverford College in 1961; a pamphlet by Jacob B. Meyer on conscientious objectors in World War I, including Gerig; and State Department personnel records, such as letters of appointment, some signed by Presidents Truman and Eisenhower, travel orders, efficiency and performance ratings, certificates, press releases, and the superior service award Gerig received in 1960. Biographical material concerns the deaths of Arthur and Ruth Sweetser as well as correspondence and material gathered by Sweetser at the time of Gerig's heart attack and Mary Gerig's death in 1961.

Some photographs, including portraits of Gerig, have been retained in the subject file. Photographs of the League of Nations, 1931, of the League of Nations Pavilion, 1939, of Trusteeship Council representatives, 1960, and of the United Nations visiting mission to West Africa in 1949 have been transferred to the Library's Prints and Photographs Division.