Harry S. Truman Collection

The Harry S. Truman Collection contains materials relating to the life and times of President Harry S. Truman that were given to Mr. Truman or to the Truman Library by various persons or organizations. The collection includes correspondence, printed materials, financial records, legal documents, handwritten notes, scrapbooks, and other materials.

Size: 10 linear feet (approximately 20,000 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: No donation of copyright was received with these papers. Documents written by U.S. Government officials in the course of their duties are in the public domain. The copyright in other documents in the collection presumably belongs to the creators of the documents or their legal heirs.
Processed by: Randy Sowell (2022-24).

A more detailed timeline of Harry S. Truman's life and Presidency is available on the Truman Trivia Page.

The Harry S. Truman Collection contains materials relating to the life and times of President Harry S. Truman that were given to Mr. Truman or to the Truman Library by various persons or organizations. Most of the materials in the collection were originally opened for research as part of the Miscellaneous Historical Documents Collection (MHDC) or the General Historical Documents Collection (GHDC). These two collections were arranged numerically in the order in which the donations were received by the Truman Library. Each folder title in this finding aid includes the original MHDC or GHDC number (if applicable). Also included is the name of the donor, if the identity of the donor is known, and if the donor was not the person under whose name the materials are filed.

The Harry S. Truman Collection is composed of two series, a Subject File and a Scrapbook File. The Subject File is arranged alphabetically by folder title and includes correspondence, printed materials, financial records, legal documents, handwritten notes, and other materials concerning Mr. Truman and the events of his Presidency. Related topics that are documented in the series include the Truman family (especially the President’s grandfather, Solomon Young, his father, John Anderson Truman, and his sister, Mary Jane Truman), and the Harry S. Truman Library.

Letters from Mr. Truman (handwritten or typewritten with his signature) make up a large part of the Subject File. These include original documents as well as photocopies. Also included are letters to Truman, and correspondence concerning his life and Presidency, as well as messages to the Truman Library from people who encountered Truman at various times in his life and wanted to share their memories of him. The printed materials in the Subject File include press clippings and programs for public events, as well as rare or unusual publications. Financial records and legal documents in the series mostly pertain to Truman’s family or his business activities. Handwritten notes by Truman on a variety of topics can also be found in the series.

The second series in the collection, the Scrapbook File, consists mostly of photocopies of newspaper and magazine articles relating to Truman’s political career and post-Presidential activities. These articles were collected in scrapbooks that were given to Mr. Truman or to the Truman Library and that have not been retained. Also included are original scrapbooks, some of which were given to Mr. Truman during his Presidency. The Scrapbook File is arranged in chronological order.

Autographs of famous persons and other historic documents that were given to Mr. Truman can be found in both the Subject File and the Scrapbook File.

Several other collections at the Truman Library also contain materials from the MHDC and GHDC. These include the Bess Truman Collection, the Atomic Bomb Collection, the World War I Collection, the World War II Collection, and the Korean War Collection.