James Francis Byrnes Papers
Collection
Identifier: Mss-0090
The James F. Byrnes Papers consists of advertisements, architectural drawings, articles, artifacts, audio-visual materials, campaign materials, certificates, clippings, correspondence, editorials, executive orders, galley proofs, journals, laws and legal documents, legislative bills, lists, maps, minutes, petitions, political cartoons, postcards, photographs, publications, reports, scrapbooks, speeches, telegrams, transcripts, and other material.
Materials in this collection cover the period 1831-2007, with the bulk of the material covering the period midway through his first term as U.S. Senator in 1933 to his death in 1972.
This collection was reorganized in 2000-2008. Folder numbers in square brackets ("[ ]") in the folder titles indicate folder numbers in the previous arrangement of the collection. They are provided for checking citations made previous to the current arrangement.
The James F. Byrnes Papers document his career as a U.S. Senator, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Director of the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion (OWMR; previously known as the Office of Economic Stabilization and then the Office of War Mobilization) during World War II, U.S. Secretary of State, and Governor of South Carolina. There is also material relating to his personal life; to his business affairs, including serving on the board of directors of the Newmont Mining Corporation; to his service on the Clemson College Board of Trustees; to the founding of the James F. Byrnes Foundation, which gives scholarships to South Carolina orphans; and to the writing of his two autobiographies, Speaking Frankly and All In One Lifetime.
The papers provide evidence of his close relationship with President Franklin D. Roosevelt as Byrnes helps him pass New Deal legislation during the Depression and then coordinates the homefront economy during the World War II. They also document Byrnes’ role in the immediate post-war peace process and the beginning of the Cold War, especially concerning U.S. policy on the reconstruction of Germany and its reintegration into world affairs. Finally, the collection has material concerning his growing disenchantment with the Democratic Party over civil rights, his support for Dwight Eisenhower in the 1952 presidential campaign, and his continuing disagreement over Supreme Court decisions against segregation, especially school segregation.
Items of particular interest include the shorthand notes Byrnes took at the 1945 Yalta Conference; “W. B.’s Book,” which are excerpts from the journal Walter Brown kept while accompanying Byrnes to the Potsdam Conference in 1945; and Edwin W. Pauley’s journal describing the trip of the U.S. Reparations Mission to what would become North Korea in 1946 and photographs from the Mission’s visit to Manchuria that same year. There is also a great deal of material relating to the creation and the progress of the Santee-Cooper Power and Navigation Project from 1933-1941, including of photographs of historic homes in the inundation area, and minutes of the Potsdam Conference, Paris Peace Conference, and meetings of the Council of Foreign Ministers from 1945-1946.
Other topics of interest include agriculture during the Depression; Byrnes’ relationship with the War Production Board while head of OWMR; the Democratic National Conventions of 1940 and 1944 when Byrnes was a potential vice presidential candidate; the United Nations; and U.S. economic policy. There is also material relating to Byrnes’ election to Senate in 1930 and his inauguration as Governor in 1951; his employee Willie Byrd; the presidential elections of 1936, 1940, 1944, 1956, 1960, 1964, and 1968; and to Alger Hiss, Henry Wallace, and Harry Dexter White.
Major correspondents or other authors include businessmen Bernard Baruch, Charles Daniel, B. M. Edwards, James H. Hammond, and Roger Peace; lawyers Christie Benet, Frank Hogan (also Byrnes’ cousin), and C. C. Wyche; cartoonist Jim Berryman; South Carolina legislators Sol Blatt and Edgar Brown; Office of War Mobilization colleagues Walter Brown, Benjamin Cohen, Donald Russell and Fred Searls; literary agent George Bye; British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill; Generals Lucius D. Clay and George C. Marshall; R. M. Cooper, Director of the South Carolina Public Service Authority; Leo Crowley, Director of the Foreign Economic Administration; Robert C. Edwards and Robert F. Poole, President of Clemson University; Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gerald R. Ford, John F. Kennedy, Richard M. Nixon, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Woodrow Wilson; James Farley, Chairman of the Democratic Party National Committee; Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter; journalists Wilton E. Hall, Ruth Jones, Porter McKeever, and Herbert Bayard Swope; Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes; Joseph P. Kennedy, U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain; U.S. Senators Burnet Maybank and Arthur Vandenberg; Foreign Minister V.M. Molotov of the Soviet Union; Lawrence M. Pinckney, Works Progress Administration State Administrator for South Carolina; Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin; and South Carolina politician Strom Thurmond. There is also correspondence with members of the Byrnes, Busch, Fuller, and Miner families, especially his wife Maude Busch Byrnes and his sister Leonore Byrnes Fuller as well as his long-time secretary Cassie Connor.
James Francis Byrnes, one of few men to serve in all three branches of the federal government, was one of South Carolina's most important political figures in the twentieth century. He was born on May 2, 1882, in Charleston, South Carolina, to Elizabeth McSweeney and James Byrnes. His father died suddenly of tuberculosis several months before his birth, and his mother became a dressmaker for the Charleston elite. In 1896, at the age of fourteen, Byrnes quit school for a full-time job in order to help his mother and sister (Leonore, 1879-1947) make ends meet. His mother sent him to a local business college where he studied shorthand, and he secured a position as an office boy with Mordecai, Gadsden, Rutledge, and Hagood, a well-established Charleston law firm. There he began his study of the law, under the tutelage of Judge Benjamin H. Rutledge. In 1900, Byrnes was selected by competitive examination to become the court reporter of the Second Judicial District in Aiken. He studied law and was admitted to practice in 1903, but continued to serve the Second District.
On May 2, 1906, his twenty-fourth birthday, Byrnes married Maude Busch (born October 22, 1883) of Aiken. In 1908, he was elected Court Solicitor of the Second District. It was during this campaign that Byrnes became known to the public as "Jimmy," a man of the people. Byrnes' success as solicitor was just the beginning of what would be a long, prosperous political career. In 1910, Byrnes ran against and defeated Second District Congressman J. O. Patterson on the Democratic ticket, and made the move to Washington, D.C. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives until 1925, during which time he developed many of the friendships and political relationships that would last a lifetime.
In 1924, Byrnes ran an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate against Coleman Blease. He returned to South Carolina where he practiced law in Spartanburg with Samuel J. Nicholls and C. C. Wyche. In 1930, however, Byrnes decided to run for the Senate seat against Blease again. This time he was victorious. While serving in the Senate, Byrnes played a vital role in helping to pass President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal legislation, which helped the country overcome the Great Depression. Byrnes served in the Senate for eleven years, until he left for a position on the United States Supreme Court. He took the judicial oath on July 8, 1941. It was also in 1941 that Byrnes became a Life Trustee of Clemson College.
Byrnes' service on the Supreme Court was short. With World War II underway, Byrnes was anxious to get involved with executive politics. At Roosevelt's request, he willingly gave up his lifetime court appointment on October 3, 1942, to head up the Office of Economic Stabilization (OES). Within six months, Roosevelt promoted Byrnes to Director of the newly established Office of War Mobilization (OWM), which was later renamed the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion (OWMR). As Director, Byrnes had power over all manpower related to war production of both civilian and military supplies. Byrnes was one of the President's closet advisors during the war years, and it was during his tenure with the OWM/OWMR that he became known as the "Assistant President." This close association began to crumble, however, when Roosevelt, almost at the last minute, rejected Byrnes as his vice-presidential running mate in July 1944. Despite the rift, Byrnes continued to serve and accompanied Roosevelt to the Yalta Conference in January 1945. Byrnes eventually decided to leave the White House and resigned from the OWMR on April 2, 1945, ten days before Roosevelt's death.
In the months following his resignation, Byrnes spent time in Washington with new President Harry S. Truman, filling him in on the details and discussing the manufacturing of the atomic bomb. Out of this relationship came Byrnes' appointment as Truman's U.S. Secretary of State on July 3, 1945. As Secretary of State, Byrnes was involved with the post-war peace negotiations and the Conference of Foreign Ministers (CFM) meetings, including the Potsdam conference and the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan. In 1946, he was selected as Time Magazine's Man of the Year. Differences between Byrnes and Truman grew, and Byrnes resigned his post on January 21, 1947.
Set on retiring from political office, Byrnes returned to private practice, splitting his time between Spartanburg and the Washington law firm of Hogan and Harrison. Before the end of 1947, Byrnes published a book entitled Speaking Frankly, recounting his experiences as Secretary of State. Proceeds from the book went to the James F. Byrnes Foundation, established in 1948 to provide a collegiate scholarship fund for South Carolina students who have lost one or both parents.
In the beginning of 1950, Byrnes decided to enter the political arena once more, this time as Governor of South Carolina. He was unopposed in the general election and delivered his inaugural address on January 19, 1951. During his single term as governor, Byrnes focused much of his attention on improving public education in the state. In 1953, he served as a delegate to the United Nations with Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower, whom Byrnes had supported in the 1952 presidential election. That support for Eisenhower marked Byrnes' official break with the Democratic Party.
In January 1955, Byrnes retired from public life for the last time, although he remained politically active in an unofficial capacity for several years. He publicly supported the presidential campaigns of Richard M. Nixon in 1960, Barry Goldwater in 1964, and Nixon again in 1968. In 1958, Byrnes published his autobiography and memoirs, All in One Lifetime. He and Maude lived the remainder of their years in Columbia. James F. Byrnes died at his home on April 9, 1972, just one month shy of his ninetieth birthday. Maude Byrnes died on July 23, 1976. They are buried at Trinity Cathedral Cemetery in Columbia, across the street from the State House.
163.3 Cubic Feet ( (3,269 folders, 39 volumes, 1,700 photographs, 28 oversize photographs, 1 film reel, 1 videocassette tape, 37 sound discs, 18 reel-to-reel audio tapes, 10 audio cassette tapes, 9 rolls of microfilm, 266 oversize items, and 76 objects3,269 folders, 39 volumes, 1,700 photographs, 28 oversize photographs, 1 film reel, 1 videocassette tape, 37 sound discs, 18 reel-to-reel audio tapes, 10 audio cassette tapes, 9 rolls of microfilm, 266 oversize items, and 76 objects))
English
The James F. Byrnes Papers document his career as a U.S. Senator, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Director of the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion during World War II, U.S. Secretary of State, and Governor of South Carolina. The papers show his close relationship with President Franklin D. Roosevelt as Byrnes helps him pass New Deal legislation during the Depression and then coordinates the homefront economy during the war, as well as accompanying Roosevelt to the Yalta Conference. They also document Byrnes’ role in the immediate post-war peace process and the beginning of the Cold War, especially concerning U.S. policy towards a defeated Germany. Finally, the collection has material concerning his growing disenchantment with the Democratic Party over civil rights, his support for Dwight Eisenhower in the 1952 presidential campaign, and the writing of his two autobiographies, Speaking Frankly and All In One Lifetime.
This collection is organized into sixteen series, as follows:
Pre-Senatorial, Senatorial, Supreme Court, War Mobilization, State Department, Interim, Gubernatorial, Post-Gubernatorial, Speeches, Book Materials, Posthumous, Photographs, Scrapbooks, Audio-Visual, Oversize, and Memorabilia.
The series are arranged alphabetically by folder title, and correspondence files within the series are usually arranged alphabetically by surname. Photographs and oversize items have been removed to photograph and oversize storage.
James F. Byrnes, 1962-1987. Additional material acquired from Tom Watson Brown, Rich Meyer, South Carolina Political Collections of the University of South Carolina Libraries, Elizabeth D. Navarro, Samuel F. Crews III, John Stucker, Fred C. Butler, and Arthur and Mary Childs in accessions 83-2, 88-45, 89-196, 92-34, 96-22, 96-96, 96-129, 00-55, 03-77, 05-75, and 07-102.
This collection came to Special Collections in multiple accessions in 1962-1981. Among the individuals involved in the original proce4ssing and description of the Papers were Berniece Holt, Mary Stevenson, and Priscilla Sutcliffe. Re-processing, rearrangement, and microfilming of the collection was supervised from 2000-2002 by Melissa Finley. James Cross supervised additional reprocessing, scanning, transcript creation and quality control on the scans and transcripts from 2003-2010. James Cross prepared the register in 2007-2008. Processing assistance was provided by student assistants Elizabeth Bearfield, Michael Bufano, Swati Deo, Nikki Garnto, Jessica Hart, Jennifer Hrabovsky, Jessica Keaton, Venkatesh Seetharam, Amanda Shepard, Brett Sowell, Sowjanya Syamala, Quiesha Wade, and Elizabeth Whitaker.
Part of the Clemson University Libraries Special Collections and Archives Repository