Innovating Archival Storage
As the Library & Archives continues to grow, so will the need for exploring the role of emerging technologies in our work. The preservation of collections and their sustained accessibility are two areas with innovative potential. This year, the Library & Archives launched a pilot project on the use of synthetic DNA as a storage medium for archival material. The famous “Hoover telegram” that established the Institution was the first digitized item stored using this method. DNA data storage technology, while in its early stages, may unlock exciting possibilities for the Library & Archives to encode and decode digital data and historic records.
In partnership with Twist Bioscience, the Library & Archives stored a copy of the Hoover telegram in a DNA capsule.
Photo: Patrick Beaudouin, 2024
New Collections
Curators at the Library & Archives travel across their respective geographic regions of expertise to foster meaningful relationships and acquire new collections. The following excerpts provide curators’ perspectives on a few of the most interesting collections brought in over the last year.
Gerd Heidemann Collection
Klaus Barbie and Gerd Heidemann in Bolivia.
Photo: Gerd Heidemann collection, Hoover Institution Library & Archives
The Gerd Heidemann collection is the most comprehensive private archive collected after 1945 in Germany. It includes tens of thousands of original documents drawn mainly from the personal entourage of Adolf Hitler and the SS leadership and from Heidemann’s own journalism. The most historically significant portion consists of audio interviews with former high-ranking Nazi Party officials and their associates from the 1970s and 1980s. Among them are Bruno Streckenbach, head of the administration and the personnel department of the Reich Security Main Office, who was responsible for thousands of murders committed by Nazi mobile killing squads; and Klaus Barbie, an SS officer and head of the Gestapo in Lyon, who was responsible for the implementation of the Holocaust in France. Heidemann’s interviews reveal the perpetrators of the Holocaust unapologetically taking responsibility for their monstrous crimes.
—Katharina Friedla, Taube Family Curator for the Europe Collections and Research Fellow
Xu Wenli Papers
The Xu Wenli collection not only bears witness to the prominent Chinese political activist and dissident’s personal hardship and struggle, but it also documents the uneasy path for China’s democratization and liberation over the past century. A veteran of the People’s Liberation Army Naval Air Force, Xu became a key organizer and eventual cofounder of the Democracy Party of China. He championed the political route of transparency, rationality, peace, and nonviolence, and the establishment of an opposition force with political dissidents from across the nation. Xu’s papers include writings on China’s democratization, written while he was in jail, and other correspondence. Xu’s release from prison to the United States was enabled by President George W. Bush and his national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice.
—Hsiao-ting Lin, Curator for the Modern China and Taiwan Collections and Research Fellow
Xu Wenli (far left) with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter.
Photo: Xu Wenli Papers, Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Viktor Porfirievich Petrov Papers
Petrov’s Mongolia: A Profile (New York: Praeger, 1970).
Photo: Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Born in Harbin, China, in 1907, Viktor Porfirievich Petrov was a prolific author, reporter, publisher, and professor. He resided in various regions of China, like many Russian refugees fleeing conflict and Communism after the Russian Revolution, until moving to the United States in 1940. This collection reflects aspects of Petrov’s life and career and includes material related to research with colleagues and historians in the Russian Federation and beyond. An important portion of the correspondence comprises letters exchanged with Russian friends he knew in China, relating their trials and tribulations, reminiscing about Harbin, and discussing the fate of others who emigrated abroad or disappeared altogether. Another subset outlines the activities of the Congress of Russian Americans, which Petrov led for many years, and its attempts to influence US-Soviet relations in the 1970s and 1980s.
—Anatol Shmelev, Robert Conquest Curator for the Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia Collections and Research Fellow
Royal Leonard Papers
Barry S. Martin, Forgotten Aviator: The Adventures of Royal Leonard (Dog Ear Publishing, 2011).
Photo: Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Pioneering American aviator Royal Leonard was best known as the pilot for Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek before World War II. In the 1930s, Leonard worked for the Chinese warlord Chang Hsueh-liang, known as the “Young Marshal,” who kidnapped and imprisoned Chiang until he agreed to join Chinese communists in a united front against the Japanese invaders. During the war, American air commander Claire Chennault chose Leonard to lead the Flying Tigers bomber group. Leonard also helped Colonel Jimmy Doolittle locate Chinese landing fields for the Tokyo Raid and survived flying the “Skyway to Hell” over the “Hump” (the pathway across the Himalayas) for China National Aviation Corporation. The letters and photographs in the collection reveal the life story of one of aviation's most daring trailblazers.
—Jean McElwee Cannon, Curator for the North America Collections and Research Fellow
Tommy Ishibashi Papers
The Tommy Ishibashi papers are a unique and historically significant collection of calligraphy messages written by the twenty-five defendants of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, which took place in 1946–47. This tribunal was convened to try the top political and military leaders of the empire of Japan. Born in San Mateo, California, Ishibashi was a Japanese American provost sergeant stationed at Tokyo’s Sugamo Prison from 1946 to 1951, where the defendants were held. He was well versed in Japanese culture, language, and values. The defendants gave the calligraphy to Ishibashi in gratitude for his kindness and consideration for the prisoners’ welfare. The war criminals, including prime minister Hideki Tōjō, used these calligraphy messages to express thoughts and share reflections while awaiting the trial's verdict. Ultimately, seven defendants were sentenced to death, and four died in prison.
—Kaoru (Kay) Ueda, Curator of the Japanese Diaspora Collection and Research Fellow
Digital Collections
An ambitious digitization program has transformed the way researchers and the public access materials at the Library & Archives. With an emphasis on digitizing complete collections and in collaboration with partnering institutions, staff continue their commitment to make digital materials available. The following are among our recent additions.
H. H. Kung Papers
Banker, minister, and politician H. H. Kung was one of the most significant figures in the Nationalist Chinese (KMT) government and in the history of modern China. For over a decade, approximately half the H. H. Kung collection was available to researchers only by microfilm in the Library & Archives Reading Room. Now, with full-text searching enabled in English and Chinese, the entire collection has been digitized and made available for a new era of research for scholars of modern China and Taiwan. Among the most unique and significant material from the collection are rare images of H. H. Kung, as well as material that reveals Kung’s political and financial roles in the early Republic of China, his connections to other KMT leaders, and his influence in international affairs. The digitized collection contains more than 92,000 images across 1,315 digital records.
Photograph of H. H. Kung (Atlantic Photo, Berlin-SW), ca. 1933–37.
Photo: H. H. Kung papers, Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Scholarship & Research
Mary L. Tobin and Col. Michael Arnold, members of the Hoover Bochnowski Family Veteran Fellowship Program, view X-ray images of Adolf Hitler’s skull (William Russell Philp Collection) in June 2024.
Photo: Patrick Beaudouin, 2024
Participants in the Hoover Institution International Seminar review Hoover Library & Archives materials after a presentation by Bertrand Patenaude, instruction and outreach archivist, in June 2024.
Photo: Rod Searcey, 2024
The Library & Archives supports the research of faculty, fellows, graduate and undergraduate students, visitors, and other independent scholars and enables the exploration and incorporation of primary sources in their work. Annual conferences and workshops, together with classes and presentations, leverage the expertise of Hoover curators, fellows, and staff. This year, the Library & Archives welcomed nearly 1,000 visitors to the Library & Archives Reading Room, fielded over 4,000 reference inquiries, and enabled more than 500 publications by providing digitized material to researchers and scholars.
A Stanford course, War, Revolution, and Peace: The View from Hoover Tower, introduced students to the history, collections, and operations of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives. Research Fellow Bertrand M. Patenaude served as course coordinator and Senior Fellow Stephen Kotkin joined to highlight how the Library & Archives enabled his research for writing his monumental multivolume biography of Joseph Stalin.
Engagement & Outreach
The Library & Archives creates and displays exhibitions, hosts special events, and works with students to meaningfully engage those curious about the history of war, revolution, and peace.
Exhibitions
The exhibition Un-Presidented: Watergate and Power in America (February–August 2024) illustrated the historic Watergate scandal from the perspectives of those who uncovered, investigated, and prosecuted it. Drawing on documents, illustrations, books, and photographs from the Library & Archives, the installation in the Hoover Tower galleries and its accompanying online exhibition explored how the foundations of a functioning democracy ensure accountability and allow citizens to fight corruption. A corresponding speaker series brought this exhibition to life.
With the generous support of the Koret Foundation, the exhibition George P. Shultz: Statesman and Humanitarian opened in July in the new Shultz Building. Curated from the personal collection left by Shultz to the Library & Archives, the exhibition highlights the stateman’s effective leadership in pursuit of national civil rights and global human rights.
The number of online Hoover Institution Stories continues to grow, including the new 1956: Hungarian Revolution, part of Voices from the Archives.
Sumayyah Jewell, digitization services archivist, uses the interactive touch table in Un-Presidented: Watergate and Power in America, in February 2024.
Photo: Patrick Beaudouin, 2024
Events
Lou Henry Hoover @ 150
Portrait of Lou Henry Hoover
Photo: SUSAN LOUISE DYER PAPERS, Hoover Institution Library & Archives
On March 29, Stanford celebrated the sesquicentennial birthday of Lou Henry Hoover (1874–1944). A remarkable person and independent woman ahead of her time, Hoover brought her intellect and spirit to her many roles as scientist, author, mother, Girl Scout leader, and First Lady. The Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Stanford Libraries, and the Hoover Institution Library & Archives presented this celebration, which included a Geocorner and Branner Library exhibition, a carillon concert, a lecture by biographer Annette Dunlap, and an online portal about Lou Henry Hoover featuring a student-researched digital story.
Library & Archives Book Talk: “Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative,” by Jennifer Burns
IMAGE: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2023
Research Fellow Jennifer Burns led a talk about one of the most influential economists of the twentieth century, Milton Friedman, in celebration of her recently published book Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2023). Burns’s book is the first biography of Friedman to make extensive use of his papers housed at the Library & Archives. In it, Burns traces Friedman’s collaborations, his interventions in policymaking, and his role in creating a new economic vision and a modern American conservatism.
Reflections Video Series
Launched in December 2023, the video series Reflections from the Hoover Institution Library & Archives features discussions with curators, fellows, and other scholars around selected artifacts and their historical relevance. Videos featuring Director Condoleezza Rice, research fellows Abbas Milani and Jennifer Burns, and curators and research fellows Kaoru (Kay) Ueda, Jean McElwee Cannon, and Anatol Shmelev explore topics including Mikhail Gorbachev’s visit to the Stanford campus, the coining of the term “New Deal,” the 1953 Iran coup, and the Japanese plan for Pearl Harbor.
Reflections videos feature (at center) Director Condoleezza Rice, (clockwise from top left) Research Fellow Anatol Shmelev, Research Fellow Abbas Milani, Research Fellow Jennifer Burns, and Deputy Director Emeritus Charles G. Palm.
Image: Hoover Institution Library & Archives, 2023
