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OBERLIN COLLEGE ARCHIVES PUBLISHES GUIDE TO DONALD J. PEASE PAPERS
AUGUST 14, 2003--Well over 200,000 individual documents chronicling the 30-year career of the late Donald J. Pease, U.S. Congressman for Ohio’s 13th district from 1976 through 1992, have been distilled into A Researcher’s Guide to the Donald J. Pease Papers by the Oberlin College Archives.
"The papers are a treasure trove of primary-source materials and an incredible resource for historians and students of national, state, and local policy," says Archivist Roland J. Baumann, who initiated the guide and served as its general editor.
Project assistant Katherine Shilton ’03 found the experience to be invaluable. "I loved the daily chance to work with such primary documents," said Shilton, a history major. "Working with archives is a way of learning history like no other. It is the ultimate in hands-on history.
"In the course of sorting the papers, I discovered not only a first hand account of Pease’s activities as Oberlin's congressman but also fascinating details of his work on the 1978 trade bill, which banned U.S. coffee imports from Uganda to protest the genocidal regime of Idi Amin in the late 1970s; the politics of workers’ compensation legislation here at home; and the daily nitty-gritty of life on Capitol Hill."
The 136-page guide catalogues correspondence, legislative files, reports, legislative bills, clippings, campaign literature, audio-visual material, and other files generated by Pease during more than three decades of public service in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Ohio General Assembly.
"The collection is particularly strong in the areas of environment, human rights, labor, social issues, tax reform, and trade," Baumann states. The guide also lists documents reflecting Pease’s legislative work at state and local levels that affected greater Lorain County, including the communities of Elyria, Lorain, Oberlin, and Wellington.
Pease began placing his papers with the College in 1971 and by 1993 his records totaled more than 5,000 files. Between 1994 and 2001 Pease frequently used the collection as a resource for his work as a visiting distinguished professor of politics at Oberlin. Though the collection had to be pared by more than 50 percent to make it accessible, the methodology used to do so "successfully preserved the documentation of important issues and activities and captured the unique personality of Pease and his congressional office," says Baumann.
A Researcher’s Guide to the Donald J. Pease Papers was made possible through the support of the Community Foundation of Greater Lorain County and the endowed Gertrude F. Jacob Publications Fund of the Oberlin College Archives. Copies are available for $12.95, plus $3.00 for postage and handling, from the Oberlin College Archives, 420 Mudd Center, 148 West College Street, Oberlin, Ohio 44074-1532 (telephone: 440-775-8014).
Media Contact: Betty Gabrielli
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