02-05-2025
A first look at ‘The Leahy Papers' at UVM
BURLINGTON, Vt (ABC22/FOX44) – Former Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy represented Vermont in congress for over 45 years. Following his retirement in 2023, he announced he would be donating his personal senate files – ranging from legislative policy to menus at state dinners – to the University of Vermont.
The ultimate goal is to create an 11 part collection that details Leahy's Robust career and legacy.
After two years of work, the first two parts are available to the public.
Shir Bach – congressional papers archivist with UVM – says they received about 2,8000 boxes and 20 terabytes worth of data files.
Bach highlights the collection as a valuable tool for research.
'Patrick Leahy's Tenure spans a lot of change in American politics and Vermont history. It's a really great opportunity to look at how those things have changes over time.'
The project is being funded through a 5 year, $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Senate.
Erica Donnis, another archivist with the project, says the boxes arrived in truckloads from multiple different locations.
'Including D.C., and his offices in Vermont…a lot of this material coming from D.C. was in temporary storage in the national archives,' Donnis explains.
She says the topics included in the papers span from committee records to legislative material and more.
Using an organizational framework created by those involved with the project, archivists have been going through section by section, topic by topic – preparing the papers for research.
'We're looking for preservation issues we may encounter,' Donnis says, 'once the archivists on the team have inventoried the materials, we then pass it off to our wonderful crew of inters who are working on the preservation tasks involved.
In addition to the papers, different forms of office technology are also include within the collection.
'It's kind of a little time capsule of how technology in offices has changed over almost a half century,' Blanchard-O'Brien says.
Items range from cassettes, V-H-S tapes, and multiple different film formats.
Right now, two topics in the 11 part collection are available now to the public – materials from Leahy's first and last campaigns, and a series documenting his overseas travel.
If you're interested in checking out The Leahy Papers, you can set up an in-person appointment by calling the Silver Special Collections Library.
The University also has a finding aid on it's website so you can see what is available ahead of time.
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