Guide to the Bert Lord Papers,
1902-1939.

Businessman, politician.

Bert Lord was born in Sanford, Broome County, New York, and attended public schools and the Afton Union School and Academy. He engaged in the mercantile business in Afton, New York, from 1863 to 1918, when he entered the lumber business and operated sawmills; served as supervisor of the Town of Afton, 1905-1915; member of the New York Assembly, 1915-1922 and 1924-1929; served as Commissioner of Motor Vehicles of the State of New York, 1921-1923; member of the state Senate, 1929-1935; was elected as a Republican to the Seventy-fourth, Seventy-fifth, and Seventy-sixth Congress, serving until his death in 1939.

Political business, and personal papers consisting mainly of correspondence, but also including scrapbooks, loose newspaper clippings, pamphlets and other printed or mimeographed material, copies of speeches, legal documents, and accounts. Correspondence for the period when Lord was supervisor of the Town of Afton is concerned mainly with Chenango County politics, road construction, the Chenango County Tuberculosis Hospital, and the operation of the direct primary. Correspondence for the time during which Lord was was a member of the New York Assembly and the state Senate deals with the internal affairs of the legislature and also contains a considerable volume of letters from constituents and colleagues on farm abandonment, the shortage of farm labor, and other agricultural problems; milk quality and prices, oleomargarine production and sale, and other dairy industry issues; teachers' salaries and pensions, nurses' salaries, and veterans' benefits; the gasoline tax, highway construction, and motor vehicle legislation; banking and insurance legislation; forestry and fish and game laws; local option and prohibition; minimum wage and maximum hour, workmen's compensation, and other labor laws; movie regulation and censorship, Sunday observance, boxing regulation, women's prison reform, and public health; the exclusion of the five Socialists from the Assembly (1920); and numerous other matters of public concern.

Correspondence for the two terms Lord served as Congressman from the 34th New York District includes numerous letters from constituents concerning current economic conditions, federal tax policy, the Townsend Plan, the operation of the Wages and Hours Law (1938), Social Security, unemployment compensation, veterans' pensions, and tariff legislation, particularly that affecting imported shoes; the Agricultural Adjustment Act, Civilian Conservation Corps, Farm Security Administration, Home Owners Loan Corporation, Public Works Administration, Railroad Retirement Act, Resettlement Administration, Supreme Court reorganization plan, Tennessee Valley Authority, and various other aspects of the New Deal; United States naval power and other questions of national defense; immigration and naturalization policies, neutrality legislation, the situations in China, Ethiopia, and Spain, and other matters pertaining to American foreign policy. In addition, there are approximately four hundred letter (1914-1938) between Lord and members of the Republican Party organization, in which finances and support given candidates for various offices are discussed.

Lord's business papers (1902-1932) consist of correspondence and accounts of Lord & McHugh, general merchandise store at Afton, and letters concerning his timber land and lumber mill interests, especially the sale of railroad ties and mine props to the Hudson Coal Company and the Delaware & Hudson Railroad Company; personal correspondence concerns family matters and trips made to Europe and Florida. The Lord scrapbooks (8 vols., 1915-1937) contain clippings from newspapers and magazines, photographs, and other items pertaining to Lord's political career and to events on the state and national scene.

Correspondents include William H. Anderson, William G. Andrews, Robert L. Bacon, Frank W. Barnes, Nelson P. Bonney, John Boyle, Jr., Charles L. Carrier, Glenn F. Carter, Nelson W. Cheney, John D. Clarke, Marian W. Clarke, Roland L. Davis, Thomas E. Dewey, John J. Dillon, George R. Dutton, Edward R. Eastman, Melvin C. Eastman, Melvin C. Eaton, George W. Fairchild, George R. Frearon, James D. Flanagan, James F. Forman, Edward B. Furry, Archie D. Gibbs, Charles S. Gibson, John Hamilton, Fred Hammond, Charles A. Harnett, Oswald D. Heck, Charles J. Hewitt, Homer Higley, James P. Hill, William H. Hill, Harold J. Hinman, Harvey DeForest Hinman, W.O. Hintermister, Cordell Hull, Irving M. Ives, George F. Johnson, J. Kennard Johnson, Samuel A. Jones, Carl E. Ladd, Herbert H. Lehman, Alfred A. Lord, Seymour Lowman, Clayton R. Lusk, John T. McNeil, Edmund H. Machold, W. Kingsland Macy, Joseph Martin, Jr., Nathan Miller, Ogden L. Mills, Abbott Low Moffat, Henry Morganthau, Jr., Reuben B. Oldfield, Tom O'Rourke, Daniel A. Reed, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., E.F. Runnells, Alfred E. Smith, Louis W. Stotesbury, Thaddeus C. Sweet, Gage E. Tarbell, James W. Wadsworth, Jr., George F. Warren, Charles Seymour Whitman, and numerous others.

There are also letters from or concerning the New York State Agricultural Advisory Commission, American Defense Society, Anti-Saloon League, Civil Service Reform Association, Dairymen's League, W.H. Dunne Company, Magnolia Petroleum Company, New York Civic League, New York State Association of Real Estate Boards, New York State Women's Relief Corps Home (Oxford), Norwich Pharmacal Company, Otsego Forest Products Cooperative Association, Rock Royal Cooperative, South Coast and Northern Lumber Company, Wayne Lumber Company, and the Women's Christian Temperance Union.