tee; minutes, correspondence, and other records of the American Refiners Committee and of the International Sugar Committee; records of the Joint Com mission on West Indies Transportation; records concerning claim settlements; and reports and correspondence on liquidation of the Board. RECORDS OF THE WAR FINANCE CORPORATION The War Finance Corporation was created by an act of April 5, 1918, to give financial support to industries essential to the war effort and to banking institutions that aided such industries. After the Armistice the Corporation's activities were extended to assist in the transition to peacetime. In the spring of 1919 it financed railroads still under Government control and made loans to American exporters; in 1921 it made advances for agricultural purposes to financial institutions and to cooperative marketing associations. To facilitate the handling of agricultural loans, it established agricultural loan agencies in farming areas and cooperated with several livestock loan companies. The Corporation began terminating its activities on January 1, 1925, and an act of March 1, 1929, assigned to the Secretary of the Treasury the liquidation of its assets. The Corporation was abolished on July 1, 1939, with the termination of its business to be completed by December 31, 1939. Duplicate copies of minutes of the Corporation, 1921-31, are in the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University. Correspondence of the Secretary of the Treas ury with or concerning the Corporation, 1918-32, is among records of the Department of the Treasury (see RG 56). See Secretary of the Treasury, Liquidation of the War Finance Corporation (1943); and Woodbury Willoughby, The Capital Issues Committee and War Finance Corporation (Baltimore, 1934). There are 627 cubic feet of records dated between 1918 and 1939 in this record group. RECORDS. 1918-39. 752 lin. ft. Headquarters records consist chiefly of minutes of the Board of Directors and of the Liquidation Committee, 1918-34, with related indexes; administrative records and correspondence, 1918-39, including sample completed loan applications of banks, trust companies, railroads, public utilities, livestock loan companies, exporters, and agricultural cooperatives; correspondence with agricultural loan agencies and Federal Reserve banks, relating to the purchase and sale of liberty and other bonds; and ledgers and cash accounts, 1918-31. Also a few field records of agricultural loan agencies at Atlanta, Boise, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Helena, Minneapolis, Omaha, and Santa Fe, consisting chiefly of minutes and fiscal records, 1918-31. RECORDS OF THE WAR INDUSTRIES BOARD The War Industries Board was established by the Council of National Defense on July 28, 1917, to act as a clearinghouse for the war industry needs of the Government. The Council's committees on industries and materials were reorganized and made subordinate to the Board, and at various times other units of the Council were attached to the Board. On March 4, 1918, the President enlarged the functions of the Board and appointed Bernard M. Baruch as its Chairman. It became an independent agency by Executive order on May 28, 1918. The Board analyzed the industrial requirements and capabilities of the United States and of the Allies, issued "clearances" on Government orders before they were placed with contractors, determined priorities in production and delivery of commodities, arranged price-fixing agreements for certain raw materials, encouraged conservation of existing facilities and resources and the development of new ones, and supervised Allied purchasing in the United States. The complex organization of the Board included a Price-Fixing Committee, a variety of divisions, and a large number of "commodity sections" that gathered information and performed other duties regarding specific commodities and industries. An Executive order of December 31, 1918, provided for dissolution of the Board; liquidation was completed July 22, 1919, and most of the Board's records were placed in the custody of the Council of National Defense. In 1921 these records were transferred to the War Department. Records of the Board's Domestic Wool Section are among records of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics (see RG 83). See War Industries Board, Outline of the Board's Origin, Functions, and Organization (1918). There are 872 cubic feet of records (in WNRC) dated between 1917 and 1919, with a few dated as early as 1916 and as late as 1933, in this record group. RECORDS. 1917-19. 1,046 lin. ft. Included are minutes, rulings, reports, studies, memorandums, questionnaires, compilations and statistical tabulations of data, forms, charts, printed and processed publications, press releases, cablegrams, photographs, and indexes. Some of the records are arranged by organizational unit, including those of the offices of the Chairman and Vice Chairman, the Price-Fixing Committee, and certain divisions and sections. During the years 1919-23, however, most of the records were reorganized into consolidated files. These include administrative records and a large volume of technical or commodity records arranged alphabetically by subject. Records concerning particular subjects were assembled in other consolidated files for the use of Senate committees, the Department of Justice, and the Army Industrial College. See the Council of National Defense, Fourth Annual Report (1920), pp. 74-91; and Preliminary Inventory of the War Industries Board Records, PI 1 (1941). RECORDS OF THE WAR LABOR POLICIES BOARD (RECORD GROUP 1) In January 1918 the President appointed the Secretary of Labor as War Labor Administrator, and the Secretary in turn appointed an Advisory Council to help deal with labor problems involving war production. On the recommendation of the Council, the War Labor Policies Board was established May 13, 1918, by the War Labor Administrator to standardize labor policies of Government agencies. The agencies represent ed on the Board were the Departments of Labor, War, Navy, and Agriculture; the War Industries and U.S. Shipping Boards; the Emergency Fleet Corporation; the Railroad, Food, and Fuel Administrations; and the Committee on Public Information. The Board formulated uniform policies for war labor administration, promoted better housing conditions for warworkers, and, after the Armistice, considered proposals for canceling Government contracts and for demobilization. It also made studies of domestic and foreign wartime labor conditions. and of labor policies relating to immediate postwar conditions in the United States. The Board was discontinued in March 1919. There are 12 cubic feet of records dated between 1918 and 1919 in this record group. RECORDS. 1918-19. 14 lin. ft. Minutes of the Board and its committees, 1918-19; correspondence of the Chairman and the Executive Secretary, 1918-19; correspondence of business and reconstruction advisers, June-December 1918; correspondence with Governors and State labor officials, 1918-19; and bulletins, newspaper clippings, and daily digests of articles and editorials concerning war labor policies and Board activities, 1918-19. See Mary Walton Livingston and Leo Pascal, comps., Preliminary Inventory of the War Labor Policies Board Records, PI 4 (1943). n RECORDS OF THE WAR TRADE BOARD The War Trade Board, established by Executive order on October 12, 1917, replaced the Exports Council and the Division of Export Licenses of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, both established June 22, 1917, and the Exports Administrative Board, established August 21, 1917, as successor to the Export Licenses Division. The War Trade Board licensed exports and imports, rationed supplies to neutrals, and conserved commodities and shipping facilities for American and Allied use. It sought to keep strategic goods out of enemy hands and prevent the use of enemy credit and financial holdings in the United States. Agencies represented on the Board were the State, Treasury, Agriculture, and Commerce Departments and the Food Administration, Shipping Board, and War Industries Board. The War Trade Board worked through an Executive Office, an Information Division, a Contraband Committee, and the Bureaus of Administration, Branches and Customs, Enemy Trade, Exports, Foreign Agents and Reports, Imports, Research and Statistics, Transportation, and War Trade Intelligence. A subsidiary corporation known as the Russian Bureau, Inc., was formed in November 1918. The Board began relaxing its controls after the end of the war, and on June 30, 1919, its remaining functions were transferred to the War Trade Board Section of the Department of State, which continued a limited operation until May 27, 1921. See War Trade Board, Report (1920). There are 722 cubic feet of records (all in WNRC except for one motion picture) dated between 1917 and 1921, with some dated as late as 1935, in this record group. RECORDS. 1917-21. 1,530 lin. ft. Records are those of the War Trade Board and its predecessors, 1917-19, the Russian Bureau, Inc., 1918-20, and the War Trade Board Section of the Department of State, 1917-21 (with a few dated as late as 1935). They include minutes, resolutions, rules and regulations, instructions, correspondence, cablegrams, memorandums, reports and studies, trade agreements, export lists, license applications, copies of licenses, statistical tables and charts, indexes and digest record cards, appropriation ledgers, and a motion picture of the War Trade Board Building, Board members, and Board employees. There are also minutes of the Superior Blockade and Supreme Economic Councils; Supreme Blockade, Allied Blockade, and British Contraband Committees; and various interallied trade committees. See Alexander P. Mavro, comp., Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the War Trade Board, PI 100 (1957). From 1933 to 1950 RECORDS OF THE AMERICAN COMMISSION FOR THE PROTECTION AND SALVAGE OF ARTISTIC AND HISTORIC MONUMENTS IN WAR AREAS (RECORD GROUP 239) Establishment of the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas was approved by the President on June 23, 1943, and announced by the Secretary of State on August 20, 1943. Its chairman was Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts. The Commission cooperated with the U.S. Army in protecting cultural treasures, gathered information about war damage to such treasures, and compiled data on cultural property appropriated by the Axis Powers and encouraged its restitution. The Commission was assisted by the private American Defense-Harvard Group and the American Council of Learned Societies' Committee on the Protection of Cultural Treasures in War Areas, which turned over its research files to the Commission. The Commission was terminated June 30, 1946, and its remaining functions, chiefly involving restitution of art objects, were taken over by the Department of State. There are 46 cubic feet of records dated between 1943 and 1946 in this record group. RECORDS. 1943-46. 57 lin. ft. and 23 rolls of microfilm. These consist of minutes; letters of application and recommendation; records of Commissioner Sachs, consisting chiefly of correspondence; general correspondence; fiscal records; lists and handbooks concerning cultural institutions in Europe; Allied military government records, including final reports of the Mediterranean and European Theaters of Operations, drawn from the "Analytical File" (on microfilm); reports of the Art Looting Investigation Unit, including some reports of the Office of Strategic Services and the Strategic Services Unit; and special reports from various sources. CARTOGRAPHIC AND AUDIOVISUAL RECORDS. 1943-46. 1,831 items. A major wartime activity of the Commission was the compilation of maps. showing locations of areas or sites in enemy or enemy-occupied areas that were to be spared destruction, if possible. Base maps of provinces, regions, and sites were acquired; and tissue overlays were made on which numbers were placed indicating such areas or sites. Photocopies were then made of the base maps and accompanying overlays. Lists identifying each site or area shown were also prepared. The records, 1943-46 (1,489 items), consist of a set of instructions for the preparation of maps, lists of maps prepared, and a set of these photoprocessed maps and accompanying identification lists. In a few instances a base map with a manuscript overlay substitutes for a photocopy. The records relate to Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bul garia, Corsica, Czechoslovakia, Dalmatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Indochina, Italy, Japan, Java, Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, the Philippine Islands, Rumania, Sardinia, Sicily, and Yugoslavia, and are arranged by continent, thereunder alphabetically by name of country, and thereunder alphabetically by name of city or province. Audiovisual records consist of photographs, 1943-46 (342 items), of monuments and buildings in Frankfurt, Germany, and aerial photographs of cities in Italy, Spain, and Burma. RECORDS OF THE BOARD OF INVESTIGATION AND The Board of Investigation and Research was established by the Transportation Act of September 18, 1940. The Board was directed to investigate the relative economy and efficiency of carriers in transportation services and the extent to which carriers were aided by public funds and taxed by each level of government. Its conclusions and recommendations were to be reported to the President and the Congress. The Board held its first meeting in August 1941; however, appropriations for a research staff were not made available until December, and work was not begun until 1942. The Board's tenure, originally fixed at 2 years, was extended by Presidential Proclamation 2559 of June 26, 1944, until September 18, 1944. The Board's investigations were conducted through research groups functioning under a secretary in charge of research and later under a research director. The research groups were organized into divisions and further subdivided into sections. Most research was conducted by the Economy and Fitness Research Group. Other groups were concerned with international freight rates, public aids, and taxation. The Board's Legal Division conducted several investigations, notably on transportation and storage activities of Federal agencies and on the legal and administrative aspects of Government control of transportation, in addition to its regular duties. Facilitative functions of the Board were performed by an Administrative Division. The Board also undertook specific studies at the request of war agencies and congressional committees concerned with transportation problems, and coordinated its activities with those of the Office of Defense Transportation. There are 59 cubic feet of records dated between 1941 and 1944 in this record group. RECORDS. 1941-44. 71 lin. ft. These consist of minutes; a central file containing correspondence, memorandums, charts, and reports on the administration, organization, and operation of the Board; files of the Chairman and Board members, including general corre spondence, drafts of studies and reports, |