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Washington State Democratic Committee Records, 1932-1988

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Washington State Democratic Committee
Title
Washington State Democratic Committee Records
Dates
1932-1988 (inclusive)
Quantity
32 containers., (32 linear feet of shelf space.)
Collection Number
Cage 574
Summary
Correspondence, reports, agendas, minutes, caucus reports, and publicity materials of the State Committee of the Democratic Party in Washington. Records relate to both state and national party matters, chiefly during the terms of State Chairmen Robert L. Kull, Dwight Spracher, Neale Chaney, Joseph Murphey, and Karen Marchioro.
Repository
Washington State University Libraries' Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections
Terrell Library Suite 12
Pullman, WA
99164-5610
Telephone: 509-335-6691
mascref@wsu.edu
Access Restrictions

This collection is open for research use.

Languages
English
Sponsor
Funding for encoding this finding aid was provided through a grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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Historical Note

The Democratic Party has been active in Washington since the organization of Washington Territory. The State Committee came into being in the 20th century, conforming to requirements of a statute of 1925 concerning political parties (RCW 29.42). The State Committee's office staff has existed only in recent times, encompassing the party chairmanships of Robert R. Kull to 1969, Dwight Spracher in 1969-1970, Neale Chaney through 1978, and Joseph Murphy from that year into 1981 when Karen Marchioro assumed the office. The various activities that involve the State Committee office range from periodic Committee meetings and local caucuses to state and national conventions, fundraising, and campaign analysis. The office also has a role in assuring compliance with state laws concerning elections and public disclosure of campaign funding. The office is also involved with the diverse activities of individuals within the Democratic Party both is the state of Washington and on the national scene.

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Content Description

Records of the Washington State Democratic Committee office consist of correspondence, reports, minutes, agendas, and other office file materials retained at the Party's central office in Seattle. The main sequence begins about 1967, although a few folders of earlier materials are found among the records.

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Use of the Collection

Preferred Citation

[Item Description]. Cage 574, Washington State Democratic Committee Records. Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.

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Administrative Information

Arrangement

The office of the Democratic Committee is small and uses filing practices that are often informal and sometimes disrupted. The records that it transferred to the Washington State University Libraries were partially unorganized. The Libraries staff accordingly devised a filing arrangement that preserved the practices of the office where possible, within the context of an arrangement that is basically a chronological sequence designed to allow for the accrual of materials transferred in the future.

This arrangement divides the records into two series, the first being files centering around activities of the State Committee and the Democratic Party within the state of Washington, and the second being material focused upon the National Democratic Committee and the National Party. Each of these series is organized in a chronological sequence, and by alphabetically-ordered subject folders thereunder. Within each chronological/alphabetical series, the form of the materials has dictated division into regular, or "letter-size," documents and oversize, or "legal-length," documents. Two anomalies are found in the system of arrangement, the first concerned with chronology exceptions, and the second with alphabetization practices.

A strict chronological arrangement could not be followed because the records include folders that span two or more years. The practice employed to accommodate these folders places them in sequence based on the earliest of their two inclusive dates, following all other folders for that year. For example, the sequence may work as 1976, 1976-78, 1976-80, 1977.

The alphabetization practices used in the records are those commonly called literal alphabetization; for example, "Alan Cranston for President, 1982-1984" is in the sequence with "A" of 1982. Several other instances of similar practice can be found at various points in the records. The arrangement of the materials is moderately complex. Users may wish to scan the following lists with some thoroughness so as to be certain of not overlooking folders that may be relevant to a particular inquiry.

Acquisition Information

Records of the Washington State Democratic Party's State Committee office in Seattle were transferred to the Washington State University Libraries in several installments, following a plan of periodic transfer of records. Transfer began in 1981; specific installments were coded MS81-52, MS84-15, MS87-23, and MS89-03 in Library accession records. Another small accession (MS89-09) has been added to these records, although it is records of a national convention delegate rather than office records

Processing Note

The records were arranged and the descriptive list prepared during 1989 and 1990 by Harvey L. Young.

Related Materials

There are several related accessions of records of the Washington State Democratic Party, Washington State Democratic Central Committee and Washington State Federation of Democratic Women's Clubs: MS.1993.07, MS.1994.08, MS.1995.23, MS.1996.06, MS.1998.35, MS.1999.03, MS.2006.13, MS.2008.25, MS.2012.15.

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Detailed Description of the Collection

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

Finding aid prepared by Harvey L. Young
1990

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