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Heinz Senate Papers: Arrangement

Due to Senator Heinz sudden death on April 4, 1991, the office staff was forced to vacate his Senate office within 60 days. Although many of the boxes of the senator's papers sent to the Federal Records Center in Suitland, Maryland from 1979 to 1989 contained folder-level inventories and received accession numbers, more recent material did not undergo this treatment. Instead, it appears that boxes were quickly filled with office papers and shipped to Harmarville, PA. This same procedure occurred for the senator's state offices.

During the processing of this collection, the original order of the earlier files was preserved as close as possible unless the arrangement did not facilitate research use. However, much of the more recent material was arranged by the Heinz Archives staff. For the most part, the arrangement of the collection loosely reflects the original filing series of Senator Heinz' office and records management procedures as recommended by the U.S. Edition: Congressional Handbook.

The series are presented in this collection in five artificial subgroups recommended in part by The Documentation of Congress and the Minnesota Historical Society's "Report of Congressional Papers Appraisal Committee" in order to provide thematic structure to the collection. The order of the file folders within most series generally follows an alphabetical sequence by subject and/or folder. There are a few series/subseries arranged chronologically, including Aging Committee Chronological Files, John Heinz Bills, John Heinz Reports, Legislative Activities, Legislative Reference Files, Press Clippings, Press Releases, and VIP Correspondence.

When some of the series contained no significant original order, the contents were arranged either by subject or chronologically in order to facilitate research use. Within a file folder, the material is not arranged in any particular order, but retained in its original state (usually reverse chronological order). However, care was taken to arrange files exclusively containing memoranda, Decision/Action Requests, Dear Colleagues, newsletters, and the like, in chronological order. VIP correspondence is arranged in chronological order by year, then alphabetical order by the sender. When faced with one large, bulky folder during processing, the archives staff divided the original folder into several smaller folders of equal portions and assigned the same name and date span. For example:

Box	Folder Title					 
132	Agriculture	 
		Agricultural Land Preservation 
			Articles 
				1976-1979 [22]
				1976-1979 [23]

Dates placed in brackets ([ ]) indicate bulk dates for a file folder. Two or more file folders with the same title were arranged in chronological order. Folder titles placed in brackets indicate that the folder received a new or modified title during processing. The consecutive numbers in brackets following the year of each folder indicate the file folder number.

Box	Folder Title					 
132	Agriculture 
		Dairy 
			[Issues/Background Material] 
				1978-1979 [36]
				1980-1982 [37]
				1983-1984 [38]

During processing several unique items were removed from the standard collection boxes and moved to a new location. This procedure consisted of filling out a Separation Record sheet which indicated the type of item removed, a brief description of the item, its original location, and its new location. These items generally included oversize items, original pieces of correspondence signed by famous or distinguished VIPs, and photographs. When possible, photocopies were substituted for the original and placed in the folder.

As with any voluminous manuscript collection, researchers using the Heinz Senate Papers will need to plan careful strategies to search particular topics. Material relating to individual subjects -- for example, information about health care for the elderly, an issue of primary concern to Senator Heinz -- was often filed in several series according to the use of the information, the creator of the information, or the filing practices of different staff members. For instance, information on the above cited example may be found in all of the following areas:

Subgroup I.   Legislative Records  
	Series 1.   Committee Files  
		Subseries 1.   Aging Committee  
			Sub-Subseries 1.   Chronological Files 
			Sub-Subseries 2.   General Files 
			Sub-Subseries 3.   Professional Staff Member Files  
		Subseries 6.   Governmental Affairs Committee 
			Sub-Subseries 2.   Second Membership 
	Series 4.   Legislative Assistants' Files 
		Subseries 1.   Barbera, Eileen 
		Subseries 5.   Hedden, Megan 
		Subseries 8.   King, Gwendolyn/Avrakatos, Gus 
		Subseries 14.   Pitts, Bill 
	Series 5.   Legislative Subject Files 
Subgroup II.   Personal/Political Records 
	Series 4.   John Heinz Files  
	Series 5.   John Heinz Reports  
Subgroup III.   Press Office Records  
	Series 6.   Press Secretary