Converted to EAD3 : Encoded Archival Description (EAD), Version 3 : Release: 1.1.1 : Release Date: 2019-12-16. Validating against latest version of schema.
Contact information: https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mss.contact
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm81036921
Collection material in English
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the LC Catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically.
The papers of Henry F. Pringle, journalist, historian, and government official, were given to the Library of Congress between 1943 and 1966 by Pringle, his wife, Katharine D. Pringle, and his secretary, Hester O’Neill.
The papers of Henry F. Pringle were arranged and described in 1982. The finding aid was revised in 2011. The finding aid was updated in 2023 by Maria Farmer as part of a division-wide remediation project by the Inclusive Description Working Group.
The status of copyright in the unpublished writings of Henry F. Pringle is governed by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S.C.).
The papers of Henry F. Pringle are open to research. Researchers are advised to contact the Manuscript Reading Room prior to visiting. Many collections are stored off-site and advance notice is needed to retrieve these items for research use.
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container number, Henry F. Pringle Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The papers of Henry Fowler Pringle (1917-1958) span the years 1932-1957, with the bulk of the items concentrated in the period 1939-1946. Consisting of personal and official correspondence, reports, minutes, lists, research data, and print and near-print material, the collection focuses on government morale work during World War II and Pringle’s biography of William H. Taft. The papers are organized into Correspondence and Subject File series.
A journalist and historian best known for his books on Taft and Theodore Roosevelt, Pringle kept most of the records from these and other writing projects separate from this collection. The major exception is a small amount of correspondence and research material pertaining to the Taft biography. Included are typed copies of original Taft correspondence, letters to and from Val R. Lorwin, Pringle’s researcher at the Library of Congress, plus noteworthy responses from the former president’s associates to the final manuscript or published edition of
The rest of the papers deal almost solely with the Office of War Information and its predecessor agency, the Office of Facts and Figures, or with the research data Pringle collected while working as consultant to the Personal Narratives Section of the Army Air Force. The OFF-OWI materials are the official letters, memoranda, minutes, reports, and manuscripts that Pringle donated to the Library after he and a large part of his staff resigned from the information office in July 1943. Appointed chief of the Bureau of Production of the OFF in early 1942, Pringle left in a dispute over whether the emphasis in government news reporting should be on its accuracy as truth or its value as propaganda. Both the official correspondence and the subject files treat this phase of his work as well as sketching in considerable detail the plans and goals with which the OFF-OWI, under the leadership of Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish, carried out their programs. Also in the Subject File are the research and writing materials from many of the OWI projects. Important topics include a controversial report on the war and African Americans, inflation, drinking in the services, and the readiness of the navy. Another set of themes involves Axis atrocity stories and the postwar aims of the United National alliance. Sensitive to the rhetoric used by propagandists to justify World War I, Pringle and his aides aimed to document as carefully as they could the goals and aims of fascist dictatorships.
Included among the many writers and journalists who worked with Pringle in the Washington office or on special assignment were Chandler Owen, W. E. B. Du Bois, E. B. White, Arthur Schlesinger (1917-2001), Martin Sommers, Milton MacKaye, and Philip Hamburger. Other names that appear in thes papers are Henry Steele Commager, Allan Nevins, Stephen Vincent Benét, Robert Shaplen, Paul Palmer, John Farrar, and William D. Hassett. The OWI worked closely with the Writers’ Board, and files on the relationship can be found interspersed in the Subject File and in the official correspondence.
Following his mid-war resignation, Pringle spent 1945-1946 as special consultant to the air force and the secretary of war. Retained in the collection are declassified items regarding Allied bombing operations and the experiences of fliers in the European theatre. Labeled “Air Force Study,” this portion of the Subject File contains transcripts of Strategic Bombing Survey interviews with captured German Chief of Staff Franz Halder. Pringle’s assignment was to participate in a special mission to gather and preserve individual narratives about the army air force “in connection w/Human Interest History.” He completed the assignment, and he wrote a memoir of the experience with observations and anecdotes about military brass such as Dwight D. Eisenhower and George S. Patton.
A subject heading titled Office of Scientific Research and Development concerns background material for a paper by Pringle on Vannever Bush and government-sponsored scientific research.
This collection is arranged in two series:
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm81036921
Letters sent and received by Pringle, including enclosed material such as clippings, reports, and manuscripts. An initial file of personal correspondence contains disparate items of personal material on a variety of subjects. Official correspondence relates exclusively to the Office of Facts and Figures and successor information agencies.
The official correspondence is arranged alphabetically by name of correspondent.
Letters, memoranda, reports, minutes, and lists; typed, printed, and near-printed manuscripts; galley proofs and charts; research data and copies of correspondence from the original papers of William H. Taft; plus miscellaneous papers mostly regarding the Office of Facts and Figures, the Office of War Information, or Pringle’s biography of Taft.
Arranged alphabetically by type of material or topic.