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Mike Lowry congressional papers, 1978-1988

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Lowry, Mike
Title
Mike Lowry congressional papers
Dates
1978-1988 (inclusive)
Quantity
59.64 cubic feet, including textual materials, audiocassettes and videocassettes (63 boxes)
Collection Number
3993 (Accession No. 3993-001)
Summary
Congressional papers of Mike Lowry, King County councilman, Washington State legislator, U.S. congressman, and Washington State governor
Repository
University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections
Special Collections
University of Washington Libraries
Box 352900
Seattle, WA
98195-2900
Telephone: 2065431929
Fax: 2065431931
speccoll@uw.edu
Access Restrictions

The bulk of the collection is open to all users, but access to portions of the papers is restricted. Contact the Special Collections division, University of Washington Libraries for details.

The papers are stored off site. Advance notice is required for use.

Request at UW

Additional Reference Guides

Further information about the Mike Lowry Photograph Collection is available in the Special Collections division, University of Washington Libraries.

Languages
English
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Biographical Note

Michael E. Lowry, commonly known as Mike, served in local, state, and national government during his public career.

Born in 1939 in Eastern Washington, Lowry attended public schools in Endicott and graduated from Washington State University in 1962. After working as the chief fiscal analyst and staff director for the Washington State Legislature’s Senate Ways and Means Committee in 1969-1973, Lowry was the governmental affairs director for the Puget Sound Group Health Cooperative in1974-1975 and served on the King County Council in 1975-1978, chairing it in 1977.

In 1978 he won a seat in Congress over conservative incumbent Republican Jack Cunningham in the overwhelmingly Democratic 7th Congressional District, which includes the city of Seattle and its southern suburbs. The 7th District's population was mainly Caucasian but also included Seattle’s African American and Japanese American communities, as well as a growing population of Asian immigrants.

After Senator Henry M. Jackson’s sudden death in 1983, Lowry defeated the former mayor of Seattle, Charles Royer, in the Democratic primary for senator. Although he was unsuccessful in the general election against former governor Daniel Evans, who had been appointed to fill Jackson’s vacant seat, Lowry did win 45% of the vote.

Lowry opposed many policies of the Reagan administration, as cuts in social programs adversely affected many of his constituents in the central area of Seattle. He was an ardent opponent of aid to the Contras in Nicaragua and other aspects of Reagan’s Latin America policy. He championed reparations for Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II and environmental measures, such as the Washington Wilderness bill. Lowry’s voting record reflected his activist and liberal stance in the House.

Lowry served on the House Budget Committee, and by his last year in Congress was the third-ranking Democrat. On the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, he chaired the Panama Canal and Outer Shelf Subcommittee, and the Oceanography Subcommittee.

Re-elected four times to Congress, Lowry made another run for the U.S. Senate in 1988. He defeated Washington State Senator Jim McDermott in the primary but lost in the general election to former State Attorney General Slade Gorton. In 1992 Lowry was elected governor of Washington State and served through 1996. Records documenting his years as governor are held by the Washington State Archives, Olympia, Washington.

In his retirement from public life, Lowry taught at Seattle University’s Institute for Public Service and joined with his former opponent Dan Evans to promote the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition. He also ran two nonprofit foundations that encouraged citizen participation in government and addressed needs of the working poor.

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Content Description

Lowry’s congressional papers document his activities, such as his service on the Oceanography Subcommittee of the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, and reflect his major interests and concerns, such as energy, defense, the environment, health, and American Indian affairs. VIP correspondence contains the views of Lowry and other members of Congress on the Reagan administration's policy on Central America as well as other issues. Also included in the papers are constituent and outgoing letters, campaigns records from Lowry's run for the Senate in 1983 and 1988, mass mailings (including newsletters), news releases, clippings, and audio and videocassettes.

Much of Lowry's outgoing correspondence to constituents is in the form of Robos. Robos were automated responses to large volumes of constituent mail. The Robos are filed by number. Lowry’s office created two different Robo numbering schemes during his tenure, one for 1979-1983 and the other for 1983-1988. A numeric index is filed at the beginning of each scheme. Attached to each Robo is an automated report showing when the Robo was created, last updated, and last used, along with any related constituent mail topic codes. In some cases, it is possible to connect incoming letters to particular Robos via the topic codes for incoming constituent mail.

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Use of the Collection

Restrictions on Use

The creator's literary rights were transferred to the University of Washington Libraries.

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Administrative Information

Arrangement

The papers are arranged into two components:

  • Washington D.C. Office records; these make up the bulk of the collection
  • District Office records

Preservation Note

The papers are stored off site. Advance notice is required for use.

Acquisition Information

Gift of Mike Lowry, January 1989.

Processing Note

Processing was completed in December 2004 by Karyl Winn, Megan Carlisle, Chris Carlin, Kathleen Crosman, and Leslie Steinman. In order to make the papers accessible within a relatively short time, scattered files were brought together but not always re-alphabetized. Rather, folder headings were clarified as necessary and left in the order in which they were found. Several boxes of additional files were found among constituent mail after processing to file folder level . This additonal material was placed as close to corresponding series as was possible at that point.

The collection was also appraised to remove duplicate, redundant, routine, or nonsubstantive records. Lowry’s schedules were kept but invitations were destroyed. Because mail from constituents was both voluminous and homogeneous, staff sought to preserve representative examples. Consituent mail was almost always sampled by date if its bulk exceeded one inch. A record of the action is recorded inside the sampled file. Approximately 50 cubic feet of uncoded incoming letters were not retained. Routine administrative mail was generally discarded, although exceptional items were retained (requests for assistance that were not casework but were handled in the same way, letters from VIPs, unique items, etc.). Issue files and correspondence files on topics thought highly important to Lowry’s service or to the 7th Congressional District were retained intact.

Photographs, negatives, and slides were relocated to the Mike Lowry Photograph Collection, Photo Accession No. 2005-040, in the repository in 2005.

Related Materials

Records documenting Mike Lowry's administration as governor of the state of Washington are held by the Washington State Archives , Olympia, Washington.

For additional records related to Lowry's efforts on behalf of wilderness protection during the period 1980-1984, see the papers of Lowry legislative assistant M. Lynne Corn , accession no. 3825-3, also held in Special Collections, University of Washington Libraries.

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Detailed Description of the Collection

 

The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in the collection.


2006 (Last modified: 11/28/2017)

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