The Arthur Frank Burns Papers cover the years 1911 through 2005. The bulk of the material was created from 1940 to 1987 and pertains to Burns's career as an economic advisor, particularly to Republican administrations, as the chair of the Federal Reserve, and as ambassador to Germany. The collection is arranged into seven series: Correspondence, Honors and Awards, Journals, Personal Papers, Photographs, Print Materials, and Research and Teaching. There are also oversize materials housed at the end of the collection. Topics of interest in this collection include but are not limited to: the United States economic system and fiscal policies; the Federal Reserve Board and related committees; recessions, unemployment, and inflation; the world economy and finance; the U.S. presidency during the time period; the Nixon presidency in particular, including the Watergate affair; presidential campaigns and elections; and diplomacy. There is a small amount of research and teaching material, chiefly from the 1920s-1930s. The most significant component of the collection is the correspondence between Arthur Burns and Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, Kennedy, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, as well as substantial exchanges with economists Milton Friedman and Wesley Clair Mitchell.
The most substantial and notable papers are found in the Correspondence Series, which contains letters and memoranda written from 1911-1997 both to and from Burns and/or his wife, Helen. The series is organized into three subseries, Correspondence by Individual, Correspondence by Topic, and Correspondence to Mrs. Helen Burns. The majority of the exchanges in the first subseries are letters written to or by presidents or vice presidents (Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Spiro Agnew, Hubert Humphrey, and Nelson Rockefeller). Burns's correspondence with presidents Eisenhower and Nixon is particularly extensive and reveals the making of crucial policy decisions. Also included is Burns's correspondence with economists Wesley Clair Mitchell, Milton Friedman, and George Stigler. This subseries is organized alphabetically by correspondent and then chronologically.
The Correspondence by Topic subseries contains letters and attachments primarily related to Burns's work in academia, politics, and the private sector. Finally, the Correspondence to Mrs. Helen Burns subseries contains letters written by prominent figures such as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Mamie Eisenhower to Burns's wife, Helen, both during his life and after his death.
High-value correspondence, including originals signed by presidents and some other notable correspondents, are separately stored and restricted to use except under direct staff supervision. Photocopies of these original manuscripts have been made for researcher use. Other letters signed by mechanical means have not been photocopied, but they are filed with the photocopies of original letters.
The other series house papers and memorabilia documenting Burns' career, including photocopies of two handwritten journals (1969-1974) kept by Burns during the Nixon Administration; several folders of early research and teaching materials; honors and awards received by Burns; personal correspondence, clippings, and other materials; lectures, speeches, and articles from Burns's career as economist and ambassador; photographs of Burns, his wife Helen, and political figures and celebrities attending events; publicity items such as news clippings, interviews, and articles about Burns; and program materials for the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship, an exchange program for German and U.S. media professionals. Further description available at the series level in this collection guide.
The great majority of the Burns papers are in English, but there are roughly ten items in German and a few items in French and Russian (Cyrillic script).
Arthur Frank Burns, economist, policy maker and diplomat, was born into an Austro-Hungarian Jewish family in Stanislau, Galicia (now part of Ukraine) in 1904. His family immigrated to the United States in 1914 and settled in New Jersey. In 1925 Burns received A.B. and A.M. degrees in economics from Columbia University. He worked under renowned economist Wesley Clair Mitchell and received his Ph.D. in economics from Columbia in 1934. Between 1926 and 1944 he taught at Columbia and Rutgers. He was named full professor at Rutgers University in 1943. Burns's economic thought was inspired by Keynes, yet he believed that the Keynesian model was simplistic and totalistic as, according to Burns, each industry had its own cycle, hence government intervention should be taken selectively and upon detailed statistical analysis. Burns joined the National Bureau of Economics as Research Associate in 1930; in later years he served as the Director of Research (1945-1953), President (1957-1967), and Chairman (1967-1968) of this institution.
Burns's political involvement with the Republican Party began with his support for Eisenhower in the 1952 election. Burns acted as the Chairman of the Council of Advisors to the President (1953-1956), Chairman of the Cabinet Committee on Small Business (1956), and as member of U.S. Advisory Council on Social Security Financing (1957-1958).
Burns was also an economic advisor to Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign and acted as the White House economic advisor from 1969-1970. He was appointed Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve on Jan. 31, 1970, and held the position until March 1978. Meanwhile, he also served as the Head of the Committee on Interest and Dividends (1971-1974), a committee founded as part of Nixon's Economic Stabilization Program; as the U.S. Alternate Governor to the International Monetary Fund (1973-1978); and as a member of Emergency Loan Guarantee Board (1971-1978). The Nixon administration took over an economy in crisis, and Burns proposed a recovery program, which in the early days seemed to be effective. This period and Burns's reactions to its crises are well-documented in the correspondence and personal journals found in this collection. Between 1977-1981 and 1985-1987, Burns served as a distinguished scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy, where he taught and wrote. In 1981, Ronald Reagan appointed him U.S. Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany, a position he held until May 16, 1985. Burns passed away on June 26, 1987 in Baltimore, Maryland. Burns's theories have inspired many economists, including his renowned student Milton Friedman.
Selected Publications:
| Date |
Event |
| 1934 | Production Trends in the United States Since 1870. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research |
| 1946 | Measuring Business Cycles. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, with Wesley Mitchell |
| 1952 | Wesley Clair Mitchell: the Economic Scientist. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research |
| 1957 | Frontiers of Economic Knowledge. Princeton: University of Princeton Press Prosperity without Inflation. Buffalo: Smith, Keynes & Marshall |
| 1967 | Full Employment: Guideposts and Economic Stability. Washington D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, with Paul Samuelson |
| 1969 | Business Cycle in a Changing World. New York: Columbia University Press |
| 1978 | Reflections of an Economic Policy Maker: Speeches and Congressional Statements, 1969-1978. Washington D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research |
Processed by Yektan Turkyilmaz, December 2009; Elizabeth Shesko, December 2010.
Encoded by Yektan Turkyilmaz and Paula Jeannet, December 2009, and Elizabeth Shesko, December 2010
2011 addition interfiled by Alice Poffinberger. 2012 addition processed and encoded by Levi Crews. Finding aid updates and edits by Paula Jeannet, October 2013.
Digital materials were processed by Hyeeyoung Kim, September 2017.
Accessions 2006-0050, 2007-0027, 2007-0144, 2008-0013, 2008-0031, 2008-0096, 2009-0004, 2009-0171, 2010-0210, 2011-0116, and 2012-0261 were merged into one collection, described in this finding aid.
