Politics and Public Affairs

News and public affairs recordings: c. 220 phonograph records, audiotapes, audiocassettes, videotapes, and videocassettes of newscasts, interviews, public affairs documentaries, and historical surveys of public events from the 1930s to the early 1980s. Sample subjects: the energy crisis of the 1970s, the Army McCarthy hearings, the forcible repatriation of Russians after World War II, the career of poet Carl Sandburg, Watergate.

Politicians--recordings: c. 300 reel-to-reel tapes, videotapes, and videocassettes of politicians before the media. Speeches, interviews, newscasts, debates, radio talks, messages to the nation, national party conventions. Ample resource for study of political communication styles and techniques; many important speeches included. Representative speakers: Dwight Eisenhower, Adlai Stevenson, Lyndon Johnson, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon. Rep. Caldwell Butler, Ezra Taft Benson, Spiro Agnew.

Political "spot" advertisements: c. 110 films, cassette tapes, reel-to-reel tapes, records, and videocassettes of short radio and television campaign advertisements for politicians of all stripes. Range from comic to maudlin, vicious to eulogistic. Drawn from local, congressional, state, and presidential campaigns across the country from the 1950s to the early 1980s. Sample candidates: Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, Charles "Mac" Mathias, Richard Nixon, local candidates in Oklahoma, John Kennedy, Spiro Agnew.

Polemics and patriotism: 15 phonograph records of monologues, readings, and music intended to rouse the spirit. Themes range from nostalgia for old Britain to imprecations against bureaucrats and minorities. Sample sources: George Wallace, Everett Dirksen, Lester Maddox, Ronald Reagan.

Political memorabilia: 7 boxes of artifacts related to American political campaigns, primarily 1956 to 1980. Sample items: flags, buttons, handbooks, signs, bumper stickers, posters, directmail appeals. This set complements the library's older Winslow collection of political memorabilia.

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