Dates: 1941-1949.
Deputy Director, Foreign Funds Control, Department of the Treasury, 1941-1944; Director, Office of Surplus Property, 1945; Deputy Director, Finance Division, Military Government for Germany, 1945-1946.
The papers of Abijah U. Fox contain correspondence, printed materials, minutes of meetings, reports, and other documents relating to Fox’s service with the Treasury Department’s Foreign Funds Control office, the Office of Surplus Property, and the Military Government for Germany during and after World War II.
Size: 3.2 linear feet (about 6,400 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: The donor gave to the U.S. Government all of his copyright interest in these materials and in any other materials received by the U.S. Government and maintained at the Harry S. Truman Library. Documents created by employees of the U.S. Government in the course of their official duties are in the public domain. Copyright interest in other documents in the collection presumably belongs to the creators of those documents, or their heirs.
Processed by: Dennis E. Bilger (1973); Randy Sowell (2025).
[ Top of the page | Administrative Information | Biographical Note | Collection Description | Series Descriptions | Folder Title List ]
Abijah Upson Fox was born in Brooklyn, New York on January 20, 1905. After graduating from Rutgers University in 1926, he spent much of the next fifteen years in the Far East, working as an accountant and manager for the National City Bank of Tokyo and as a partner in Swan, Culbertson, and Fritz, a firm of investment bankers and brokers with offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Manila. In 1941, Fox joined the Foreign Funds Control office of the U.S. Treasury Department, serving as the office’s Deputy Director and as head of its Licensing Division. In 1945, he served briefly as Director of the Office of Surplus Property. From 1945 to 1946, Fox was Deputy Director of the Finance Division of the Office of Military Government in occupied Germany. He left government service in 1946 and thereafter worked as an executive with the Mathiesen Chemical Corporation, the American Thread Company, and the investment firm of Hayden, Stone and Company. In 1968, he was elected to the Connecticut General Assembly as a member of the House of Representatives. Fox died in Greenwich, Connecticut in September 1980.
COLLECTION DESCRIPTION
The papers of Abijah U. Fox contain correspondence, printed materials, minutes of meetings, reports, and other documents relating to Fox’s service with the Treasury Department’s Foreign Funds Control office, the Office of Surplus Property, and the Military Government of Germany during and after World War II.
The papers are arranged in two series. The first series, the Foreign Funds Control File, includes letters and memoranda concerning Fox’s work as Deputy Director of the Foreign Funds Control office and as head of the office’s Licensing Division. The series also contains printed government documents providing information about rules and precedents used by Foreign Funds Control officials in regulating trade and other financial transactions with foreign nationals during the war. Other printed materials, reports, minutes of meetings, and lectures about the history and operations of the Foreign Funds Control office are also included in the series.
The second series, the Subject File, is mostly comprised of correspondence, a diary, reports, and other documents relating to Fox’s work as Deputy Director of the Finance Division of the Military Government for Germany. Much of the correspondence concerns the recruitment of personnel for the Finance Division, which Fox supervised in the United States. Other materials in the series pertain to German banks, currency reform, and economic development. The Subject File also contains correspondence and other documents relating to Fox’s brief tenure as Director of the Office of Surplus Property.
More information about the Foreign Funds Control office of the Treasury Department can be found at the Truman Library in the papers of Bernard Bernstein, John W. Snyder, and Edward H. Foley, Jr.
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Container Nos. |
Series |
|
|
1-6 |
FOREIGN FUNDS CONTROL FILE, 1941-1945 Correspondence, printed materials, reports, minutes of meetings, and other documents. Arranged alphabetically by folder title. |
|
| 7-8 | SUBJECT FILE, 1945-1949 Correspondence, reports, a diary, and other documents. Arranged alphabetically by folder title. |
FOREIGN FUNDS CONTROL FILE, 1941-1945
Box 1
- Correspondence, 1941-1944
- Documents: Ad Hoc Blocking of Assets
- Documents: Administrative Procedure
- Documents: Business Enterprise
- Documents: Census Reports
- Documents: General Interest
- Documents: Generally Licensed Nationals
- Documents: Import Control
- Documents: Individual Expenditures and Other Material
- Documents: Miscellaneous
- Documents: Patents
- Documents: Proclaimed List
- Documents: Remittance
- Documents: Securities
Box 2
- Documents: Trade
- Documents: Trading with the Enemy
- Documents: Trusts and Estates, with Auxiliary Index
- Interdepartmental Meetings, 1941
- Licensing Division: Lectures to Foreign Funds Control Personnel, 1943
- Licensing Division: Monthly Reports, 1942-1943
- Licensing Division: Monthly Reports, 1943-1944
- Licensing Division: Summary of Activities, 1942-1944
- Memoranda: Abijah U. Fox, 1941-1942
- Memoranda: Abijah U. Fox, 1942
- Memoranda: Abijah U. Fox, 1942-1943
Box 3
- Memoranda: Abijah U. Fox, 1943
- Memoranda: Abijah U. Fox, 1943-1944
- Memoranda: Abijah U. Fox, 1944
- Memoranda: Inter-Office, Licensing Division
- Memoranda: J. W. Pehle, 1942
- Memoranda: J. W. Pehle, 1942-1943
- Memoranda: Legal Division, 1941-1942
- Memoranda: Legal Division, 1942-1943
- Memoranda: Legal Division, 1943
- Memoranda: Legal Division, 1944
Box 4
- Memoranda: Miscellaneous, 1941-1942
- Memoranda: Miscellaneous, 1942
- Memoranda: Miscellaneous, 1942-1943
- Memoranda: Miscellaneous, 1943
- Memoranda: Miscellaneous, 1943-1944
- Memoranda: Miscellaneous, 1944-1945
- Printed Materials: Administration of the Wartime Financial and Property Controls of the United States Government, 1942
Box 5
- Printed Materials: Discussion of Documents and Other Materials Pertaining to Foreign Funds Control, 1944
- Printed Materials: Documents Relating to Wartime Financial and Property Controls of the United States Government, 1942
Box 6
- Subcommittee on Foreign Funds Control: Minutes of Meetings [1 of 6]
- Subcommittee on Foreign Funds Control: Minutes of Meetings [2 of 6]
- Subcommittee on Foreign Funds Control: Minutes of Meetings [3 of 6]
- Subcommittee on Foreign Funds Control: Minutes of Meetings [4 of 6]
- Subcommittee on Foreign Funds Control: Minutes of Meetings [5 of 6]
- Subcommittee on Foreign Funds Control: Minutes of Meetings [6 of 6]
SUBJECT FILE, 1945-1949
Box 7
- General Correspondence, 1945
- Military Government for Germany: Correspondence, 1945-46 [1 of 4]
- Military Government for Germany: Correspondence, 1945-46 [2 of 4]
- Military Government for Germany: Correspondence, 1945-46 [3 of 4]
- Military Government for Germany: Correspondence, 1945-46 [4 of 4]
- Military Government for Germany: Diary, 1945-46 [1 of 2]
- Military Government for Germany: Diary, 1945-46 [2 of 2]
- Military Government for Germany: Dodge, Joseph M.
- Military Government for Germany: Finance Division and German Banks
- Military Government for Germany: Finance Division’s Anti-Inflation Program and Other Accomplishments
- Military Government for Germany: International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation
- Military Government for Germany: National City Bank of New York
- Military Government for Germany: "Notes on Military Government in Germany"
Box 8
- Military Government for Germany: Pending Memoranda and Reports, [1 of 2]
- Military Government for Germany: Pending Memoranda and Reports, [2 of 2]
- Military Government for Germany: Personnel
- Military Government for Germany: Plan for Liquidation of War Finance and Financial Rehabilitation of Germany [1 of 2]
- Military Government for Germany: Plan for Liquidation of War Finance and Financial Rehabilitation of Germany [2 of 2]
- Military Government for Germany: Speech, October 1945
- Military Government for Germany: Travel Authorizations
- Office of Surplus Property: Miscellaneous Memoranda and Other Documents
- Office of Surplus Property: Policy Letters Circulated to Regional Directors
- Office of Surplus Property: Staff Meetings, March-May, 1945