I. Subject Files,, 1928-1943

The records of the Secretary of the University span the years 1928-1943. Consisting mainly of documents that were created during Carl Woodward's tenure as Secretary, they document the responsibilities of the office. A few items predate 1928 and the documents from the latter part of 1941-1943 became part of the collection during Ernest McMahon term as Acting Secretary and when J. Harold Johnston was named as Woodward's permanent replacement.

The Subject Files document a variety of issues and provide a glimpse as to what the Secretary of the University was responsible for. Focused on the faculty and related issues, (insurance, pension plans), National Defense policies, Alumni activities, enrollment statistics, and appropriations for the University, the documents also illustrate a continual relationship between the Office of the Secretary and political leaders in the State of New Jersey.

Documentation consists of a variety of materials related to Rutgers, the faculty, students, Alumni, national defense and relations with the state of New Jersey and the leading politicians of the era. Statistical information on enrollment, faculty status and appropriations to the school are included for a number of years. Correspondence with a variety of political figures is included as are items pertaining to legislation that would impact Rutgers. Information on personnel in various departments and the individual colleges within Rutgers can be found as well. Minutes of various meetings are included in the records, as are a number of policy outlines relevant to the staff and students at Rutgers.

Since the Secretary of the University had broad oversight of both the internal and external functioning of the University, these files cover a variety of miscellaneous issues in addition to the more specific areas of academic and budget development, relations with alumni, trustees and the state and federal governments. While the bulk of the material spans the years 1936-1943, there is some scattered material dated 1928-1936 and even some material before 1928. Much of the material prior to 1936 consists of routine correspondence and charts compiling various statistics for the University, state and federal governments, including distribution of enrollment, budget and state and federal appropriations to Rutgers University.

Whenever possible, the provenance of the collection was maintained. In instances where the provenance was not maintained for these two boxes, the changes made were documented with the folder description. Documents in each folder were arranged chronologically with the oldest document beginning each folder. The exceptions to this arrangement, since it went against the original reverse-chronological arrangement in each folder, were that materials bound together were not unbound and rearranged, and materials that appeared to belong together, even if not bound together or in strict chronological order, were not separated. All metal paper clips were removed and replaced with plastic paper clips, once again maintaining their original arrangements.

he descriptions in the Container list highlight some of the contents of each folder, usually indicated by the word "includes." While these descriptions are meant to be helpful in identifying the folders' contents, the descriptions are not inclusive, and are not intended to mislead the researcher into assuming there may not be other related material of interest in a particular folder. Some folders did indeed contain only one or two items and in these cases, the contents were fully listed as indicated by the words, "one letter…," "two reports…," etc. Cross-references were added to folder descriptions when appropriate to preserve the original provenance rather than attempting to reorganize the entire collection.