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Alexander Vincent Dye (1876-1956) was educated at William Jewell College, Liberty, Missouri, and the University of Leipzig.
He entered the U.S. foreign service in 1909, and served as consul in Nogales, Mexico, 1909-1913. From 1913 to 1916 he worked for Phelps, Dodge and Co. in New Mexico, and then rejoined the consular service.
He was representative of the War Trade Board in Norway, 1917-1919, commercial attache in Mexico City, 1923-1926, and in Buenos Aires, 1926-1936. From 1936 to 1939 he was director of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, and in 1939-1940 commercial attache in London. Dye retired in 1940.
The collection contains professional and personal correspondence, reports on commercial and political affairs, trip summaries and memoranda, manuscript material, biographical information, mementos and a scrapbook.
Personal and business correspondence (and reports) are mixed together and arranged chronologically, 1897-1941. There are about 528 letters.
Reports include information on commercial and political affairs. While an employee of Phelps, Dodge and Co., Dye continued to report on the Mexican border arms traffic to William Jennings Bryan.
One section of correspondence, 1929-1930, deals with the purchase of the American embassy building in Buenos Aires. Major correspondents include his son, Russell Dye, Thomas D. Bowman, Fred M. Dearing, and James R. Sheffield.
There are also articles, mementos, a scrapbook, and an autobiography in manuscript form among the papers.