The bulk of McNary's congressional and personal papers are held by the Library of Congress.
Charles Linza McNary was born on a farm near Salem, Oregon on June 12, 1874 and attended Oregon public schools and Leland Stanford Junior University. He graduated from Stanford University and returned to Salem to begin a law career. McNary served as a deputy district attorney from 1906 to 1913, as dean of the Willamette University Law School from 1908 to 1913, and as an Oregon Supreme Court associate justice from 1913 to 1915.
Following the death of Harry Lane in 1917, McNary was appointed as a Republican to the U.S. Senate. McNary advocated for farm and reclamation legislation including the McNary-Haugen farm bill of 1927. He served as minority leader from 1933 to 1944 and supported a much of the New Deal legislation, although he opposed the reciprocal trade agreements and President Roosevelt's proposals for Supreme Court reform. McNary served on the Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation of Arid Lands and the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. In 1933, McNary was the original and principal sponsor of the Bonneville Dam. He ran unsuccessfully for vice president with Wendell Wilkie in 1940 against the Roosevelt ticket.
McNary died in office in 1944. He was later honored when McNary Dam on the Columbia River and McNary High School in Keizer were named for him.
Source: Oregon Blue Book website: http://bluebook.state.or.us/notable/notmcnary.htm
Source: Online Biographical Directory of the US Congress: http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=m000583
The collection contains records from McNary's years as Senator that deal with Oregon concerns including correspondence, bills, briefs, and research material about internal improvements, such as rivers and harbors, bridges, state parks railroads, roads, and airports, as well as agriculture, trade, veteran hospitals and a few personal papers and photographs.
Of McNary's senatorial records, Oregon related material came to the University of Oregon while the bulk of his papers are housed in the Library of Congress.
Oregon material is alphabetically organized by subject title. Folders include correspondence, reports, bills, briefs, and other research documents concerning a certain topic. The largest section of materials concerns Oregon's rivers and harbors.
McNary's personal papers include correspondence (1922-1929; 1937-1943), correspondence regarding McNary's estate, McNary genealogy, and mementos.
Photographs contain personal and family prints, as well as photographs from McNary's work and travel as a congressional representative.
Property rights reside with Special Collections & University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries. Copyright resides with the creators of the documents or their heirs. All requests for permission to publish collection materials must be submitted to Special Collections and University Archives. The reader must also obtain permission of the copyright holder.
Archival records many contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal and/or state right to privacy laws and other regulations.
Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g. a cause of action for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of Oregon assumes no responsibility.
If a researcher finds sensitive personal information in a collection, please bring it to the attention of the reading room staff.
[Identification of item], Charles Linza McNary papers, Ax 049, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, Oregon.
Collection is organized into the following series: Subject files, Personal Materials, and Photographs.
Material within this collection is minimally arranged. Any arrangement is either derived from the records' creators or custodians or from staff at the time of initial processing. It may be necessary to look in multiple places for the same types of materials.
Collection processed by staff.
This finding aid may be updated periodically to account for new acquisitions to the collection and/or revisions in arrangement and description.
This collection received a basic level of processing including minimal organization and rehousing.
Description information is drawn in part from information supplied with the collection and initial surveys of the contents.
[Identification of item], Charles Linza McNary papers, Ax 049, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, Oregon.
Paper finding aid with additional information is available in Special Collections & University Archives.