Emmett Joseph Leahy (December 24, 1910 – June 23, 1964) was an American archivist and entrepreneur. He was a pioneer in the discipline of
records management. After working in the
National Archives and then during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
in the
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
, he entered private business as a consultant in records management and as a records storage provider. He also participated in the two
Hoover Commission
The Hoover Commission, officially named the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, was a body appointed by President Harry S. Truman in 1947 to recommend administrative changes in the Federal Government of the Unit ...
s in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of government.
Early years (1910–1934)
Emmett Joseph Leahy was born on December 24, 1910, in
Washington, D.C.
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His parents were immigrants from southern Ireland.
In 1928 he became a probationer in a
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
teaching order, the
Brothers of the Christian Schools
french: Frères des Écoles Chrétiennes
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.
He attended
La Salle College
La Salle College (LSC) (, Demonym: Lasallian) is a boys' secondary school in Hong Kong. It was established in 1932 by the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, a Roman Catholic religious teaching order founded by St. John Ba ...
in Pennsylvania, obtained a bachelor's degree from
Catholic University of America, and studied at the gradate level at Catholic University and the
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...
.
He left the Brothers of the Christian Schools order in 1934.
Later he studied at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
and the
American University.
National archives (1934–1941)
Leahy worked for a short time with the
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction ov ...
.
He then joined the National Archives in July 1935.
He was assigned to a committee to examine records that had been submitted to the archivist but had no permanent value or historical interest.
The committee soon came to the conclusion that the federal agencies needed to manage their records more systematically, and segregate temporary records from those with more permanent value.
Leahy did much to create a program to define the
records life-cycle
Records life-cycle in records management refers to the following stages of a records "life span": from its creation to its preservation (in an archives) or disposal. While various models of the records life-cycle exist, they all feature creation ...
from creation and use through eventual destruction or archiving.
He also studied the great numbers of useless or duplicate records in many federal agencies.
In 1938 Leahy spent nine months in Europe studying how governments there reduced the volume of archival material.
His article on ''Reduction of Public Records'' summarized his findings from analysis of archives and registry administrations in Europe and Egypt, and the ways in which they eliminated valueless public records.
He rejected the view of Sir
Hilary Jenkinson
Sir Charles Hilary Jenkinson (1 November 1882 – 5 March 1961)Johnson and Brodie 2008. was a British archivist and archival theorist, regarded as the figure most responsible for bringing continental European concepts of archival theory to the ...
of the United Kingdom that archivists should not be involved in this process because they would no longer be seen as impartial.
He described processes for defining classes of valueless records, storing them and defining standard times when they would be destroyed, with records of their destruction.
Leahy became a leader of the effort to introduce records management in the federal government.
He was chairman of the Committee on Reduction of Archival Material of the
Society of American Archivists
The Society of American Archivists is the oldest and largest archivist association in North America, serving the educational and informational needs of more than 5,000 individual archivist and institutional members. Established in 1936, the or ...
, which later became later the Committee on Records Administration.
In 1941 Leahy made the case to the
Bureau of the Budget for establishing records officers in the main federal departments and agencies, with a Council of Records Administration based in the Bureau of the Budget.
The
United States Civil Service Commission
The United States Civil Service Commission was a government agency of the federal government of the United States and was created to select employees of federal government on merit rather than relationships. In 1979, it was dissolved as part of t ...
established the Interdepartmental Committee on Records Administration later in 1941.
Leahy was a member of the steering committee, and represented first the National Archives and then the Navy Department on this committee.
United States Navy (1941–1945)
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
(1939–1945) Leahy transferred to the
United States Department of the Navy
The United States Department of the Navy (DoN) is one of the three military departments within the Department of Defense of the United States of America. It was established by an Act of Congress on 30 April 1798, at the urging of Secretary o ...
in September 1941 as director of records coordination.
In October 1942 he was made a lieutenant commander in the
United States Navy Reserve
The United States Navy Reserve (USNR), known as the United States Naval Reserve from 1915 to 2005, is the Reserve Component (RC) of the United States Navy. Members of the Navy Reserve, called Reservists, are categorized as being in either the Se ...
.
He was director of the navy's Office of Records Administration until November 1945, when he was released from active duty.
Leahy pioneered the concept of saving space by holding inactive records in high-density storage units in record centers.
The navy's Archival Service established the federal government's first intermediate records centers, releasing floor space and filing cabinets for use in the war effort.
Naval records centers were established by Leahy in Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, California, and Hawaii.
He also introduced procedures to manage active files and correspondence, and to microfilm large and important records, and records for which security back-up was required.
This included millions of microfilm copies of engineering drawings of aircraft, ordnance and ships for use in repairs.
He introduced the "Correspondex" system of standardized letters and paragraphs for routine correspondence, greatly reducing manual effort.
His innovations reduced costs by $21 million in the navy, for which he was awarded the Navy Commendation Ribbon.
Business career (1945–1964)
After leaving the navy in 1945 Leahy joined
Remington Rand
Remington Rand was an early American business machine manufacturer, originally a typewriter manufacturer and in a later incarnation the manufacturer of the UNIVAC line of mainframe computers. Formed in 1927 following a merger, Remington Rand w ...
and worked for two years in the management consultant and microfilming divisions.
He developed the ideas of defining a life cycle for records, and of producing statistics on the costs of keeping records.
In 1948 Leahy obtained funding from the
Rockefeller Foundation to found the non-profit National Records Management Council.
This organization developed educational material concerning records management, and helped private and public organizations improve records management.
Leahy became its executive director.
In 1948 Leahy founded a consultancy, Leahy & Co., to help local governments such as New York City keep control of the size of their records.
From 1949 he acquired corporate customers including
Eastern Air Lines,
DuPont
DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in ...
,
Bethlehem Steel
The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was an American steelmaking company headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. For most of the 20th century, it was one of the world's largest steel producing and shipbuilding companies. At the height of its succe ...
and
Alcoa.
Leahy & Co. reported profits of $100,000 in 1951.
That year he founded Leahy Business Archives, based in New York City, which provided secure facilities for private businesses to store inactive records.
Leahy resigned from the National Records Management Council in 1953 to focus on his private consultancy and records storage business.
The work he had done for the federal government gave great credibility to these enterprises.
In 1953 he founded Leahy Archives Inc., which took over the Business Archives Center.
He was president of Leahy and Co. and Leahy Archives Inc. when he died of a
cerebral thrombosis on 23 June 1964.
Hoover Commissions
From 1947 to 1949 Leahy served on the first Commission on the Organization of the Executive Branch of Government (
Hoover Commission
The Hoover Commission, officially named the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, was a body appointed by President Harry S. Truman in 1947 to recommend administrative changes in the Federal Government of the Unit ...
) chaired by former President
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...
.
On this commission he proposed that records management should be concerned with efficiency and cost-effectiveness, and should be treated separately from historical archiving.
Leahy's October 1948 ''Report on Records Management'' recommended that the National Archives and all other non-current government repositories of records be placed under a newly created Federal Records Administration, which would operate Federal Records Centers. It also recommended a Federal Records Management Act to provide the legal framework for life cycle management of federal government records, and a records officer of each federal department and agency.
The proposal to separate records administration from archives was rejected, but the new
National Archives and Records Administration
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It ...
was placed under the new
General Services Administration
The General Services Administration (GSA) is an independent agency of the United States government established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. GSA supplies products and communications for U.S. gover ...
as Leahy wanted.
The
Federal Records Act
The Federal Records Act of 1950 is a United States federal law that was enacted in 1950. It provides the legal framework for federal records management, including record creation, maintenance, and disposition.Richard J. Cox, ''Closing an Era: Histo ...
was passed in 1950 and ensured that all federal departments and agencies had a program for records management.
In 1953 Leahy was appointed head of the Task Force on Paperwork Management in Government, part of the second Hoover Commission to reduce costs and improve efficiency and service in the federal government.
His task force showed that millions of dollars could be saved annually through government-wide paperwork management processes.
Publications
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Notes
Citations
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:
1910 births
1964 deaths
American archivists
Records management