New York State War Council Division of Records Local War Council Records Inventory Forms and Correspondence

Alphabetical by city or county name.

In 1945, the War Emergency Act was amended to authorize the War Council to provide a uniform method for the care, custody, control, and disposition of records maintained by the 108 local war councils in New York State during World War II. This was part of a larger survey designed to inventory all War Council records created under the authority of the War Emergency Act.

The purpose of this part of the survey was to inventory local war council records in order to insure the retention of those records deemed to be of permanent historical value, and to determine which of the two or three available local repositories should receive these records for storage. Local war councils were otherwise permitted to include for permanent retention any remaining records they wished to preserve, with the exception of personnel cards and enrollment blanks containing information of a highly personal nature. These were marked for destruction by the War Council. Examples are occasionally included in the folders.

Information on the inventory is provided in "Home Front Records of New York, 1940-1945: The Problem of Disposition," (American Archivist, volume IX, no. 2 : 152-160, April 1946) by Karl Drew Hartzell.

This series contains the correspondence and standardized Inventory of Records forms (Inventory Check Sheets) associated with the New York State War Council's records inventory of the holdings of local war councils.

The Inventory Check Sheets contain the following information: creating agency; subdivison; agency of custody; address of depository; title and brief description of series; and inclusive dates; existence of duplicates, frequency of use, method of filing, records form and size, and container type; persons interviewed; and disposition.

Correspondence files maintained by agencies within the local war councils are listed alphabetically on the back of a appropriate inventory check sheets. Files on individual cities and counties vary greatly in scope and content. Particularly rich folders are those for Buffalo, Corning, Ithaca, Nassau, New Rochelle, Monroe, Rochester, Schenectady, Syracuse, Tompkins, and Westchester.

Container list is available at the repository.

There are no restrictions regarding access to or use of the material.