About the Birch Bayh Congressional Papers: Overview of the Collection, 1963-1980
An Overview Guide to his Papers in the Modern Political Papers Collections
of the Indiana University Libraries
Finding aid prepared by Kate Cruikshank, Political
Papers Specialist
Summary Information
Repository
Modern Political Papers Collection, Indiana University
Libraries
Herman B Wells Library E460
1320 East Tenth Street
Bloomington, IN 47405-7000
Phone: 812-856-4601
Email: congpprs@indiana.edu
https://libraries.iub.edu/modern-political-papers
Creator
Bayh, Birch, 1928-2019
TitleAbout the Birch Bayh Congressional
Papers: Overview of the Collection, 1963-1980
Collection No.
MPP 1
Extent
est. 1200 linear feet
Language
Materials are in English.
Abstract
The collection consists of papers
generated and received by the office of Senator Birch Bayh during his three terms
(1963-1980) in the United States Senate representing the state of Indiana, including
extensive papers from his legislative work, his chairmanship of the Judiciary
Committee's Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments, his other Judiciary Committee
work, his Senate and Presidential campaigns, and his extensive involvement in
economic development in Indiana.
Access Restrictions
The collection is currently in the final stages of detailed processing. Materials for
which there is not yet an online finding aid may possibly be made available for
research by advance arrangement.
Usage Restrictions
Copyright restrictions may apply.
Constituent correspondence may be used only after signing an agreement to protect
correspondent privacy.
Photocopying and scanning are possible with permission.
Biographical Note
Birch Evans Bayh was born January 22, 1928 in Terre Haute, Indiana. He attended
public schools in Indiana; served in the United States Army in Germany from
1946-1948, and after Army service attended Purdue University, graduating with a B.S.
in 1951. Following graduation he took over management of his maternal grandparents'
farm near Terre Haute. In 1954 he was elected for the first of three terms to the
Indiana General Assembly. He entered the Indiana University School of Law in
Bloomington in 1957, served as Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives in
1959 while completing his law studies, and received his J.D. with distinction in
1960. In 1962 Bayh ran as a Democrat for the office of United States Senator,
narrowly defeating long-time incumbent Republican Senator Homer Capehart.
During his eighteen years in the Senate, Bayh served on the Judiciary Committee, for
seventeen of those years as chairman of the Subcommittee on Constitutional
Amendments. As such he was a prime mover in the drafting of three amendments to the
United States Constitution. The Twenty-Fifth Amendment, concerning presidential and
vice-presidential succession and disability (documented in his book,
One Heartbeat Away), and the Twenty-Sixth Amendment,
which set the voting age at eighteen rather than the previous twenty-one, were
ratified. The third, the Equal Rights Amendment, passed Congress but narrowly failed
of ratification by the states. He also introduced in every Congress a constitutional
amendment to abolish the electoral college and allow direct popular election of the
President, a cause he continued to pursue after leaving the Senate.
As chair of the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile
Delinquency, Bayh was heavily involved in investigation of drug abuse and the drug
industry, gun violence, and the abuse of incarcerated juveniles and was a chief
architect of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974
establishing a separate juvenile justice system. He was closely involved in the
efforts seeking District of Columbia representation in Congress and undertook major
efforts to dismantle the monopoly of the oil industry and encourage alternative
energy development, including establishment of and leadership in the National
Alternative Fuels Commission, which promoted the development of ethanol. His service
on the Public Works Committee for a decade and then on corresponding subcommittees
on the Appropriations Committee led to important work on federal criteria for clean
air and clean water regulations and comprehensive legislation for disaster relief
preparation before disasters. He provided leadership within Congress in forming
programs for the assistance of disabled citizens and the mentally ill. Throughout
his professional career he championed causes relating to senior citizens, the
handicapped, women, and all minorities. He worked strenuously to increase cancer
research and served as chairman of the AIDS Action Council. He served on the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence from 1977 through 1980, chairing its Subcommittee
on Intelligence and the Rights of Americans in 1977-1978 and the full committee in
1979-1980.
The legislative accomplishment for which Bayh is perhaps best known was his
co-authorship of Title IX of the Higher Education Act amendments of 1972, mandating
equal opportunity for women in all academics and activities, including sports, in
educational institutions that receive federal funding. Formulated in the face of
apparently immovable conservative opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, the
brief statement of Title IX revolutionized the world of opportunity for America's
young women. Less visible but also revolutionary for higher education was the
University and Small Business Patent Procedures Act of 1980, often referred to as
the Bayh-Dole Act, which culminated years of efforts by Bayh to reform patent law so
that the products of federally funded research could be brought to market.
Bayh ran for reelection in 1980 but was unexpectedly defeated by the Republican
candidate Dan Quayle. Following the election he helped form a law firm in
Washington, D.C., served as Chairman of the Institute Against Prejudice and Violence
from 1984 through 1994, and was appointed to the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board
by President Clinton in 1995. He practiced law in Washington with the firm Venable,
LLC until 2010, when he retired to Easton, Maryland, continuing his efforts in
support of direct election of the President and engaging students at Washington
College in Chestertown, Maryland in discussions of public policy issues and the
importance of public service. He died on March 14, 2019.
Scope and Content Note
Contained in the collection are legislative and issue mail; files of legislative and
office assistants; Bayh’s roll call votes and voting records; campaign files for all
three senatorial elections as well as for his campaigns for the Democratic
presidential nomination in 1972 and 1976; press files including copies of Bayhlines
(newsletter), press releases and speeches; committee files including the Judiciary
Committee and its Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments and the Appropriations
Committee; and audio visual materials including photographs, audio and video tapes,
and films. Also present are drafts, research notes and page proofs for
One Heartbeat Away, published by Bobbs-Merrill in 1968,
and other writing projects; awards; and files relating to Marvella Bayh.
Arrangement
The collection contains the following series, for which finding aids will be
available as they are completed:
Committees:
Committee on Appropriations
Committees:
Committee on Public Works
Committees:
Committee on the Judiciary
Committees:
Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments/Subcommittee on the
Constitution
Committees:
Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency
Indiana Department Office Files
Indiana Department Special Project Files
Indiana Working Files
Legislative Activity and Administration
Legislative Mail
Legislative Working Files
Marvella Bayh
Office Management Files
Photographs (in Media Collections Online)
Political Files
Press Department
Scrapbooks
Speeches and Writings
Separated Material
Digital images of photos received with the Birch Bayh Congressional Papers are
accessible online in the
Birch Bayh Collection in Image Collections Online at Indiana
University.
Related Material
Additional information about Birch Bayh and his senatorial career is available in the "Related Pages" of the
Modern Political Papers website.
Preferred Citation
[item and date], [folder], [Subseries, if any], [Series], Birch Bayh Congressional
Papers, Modern Political Papers Collection, Indiana University Libraries,
Bloomington, Indiana
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Indexing Terms
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The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
IUCAT, the IU Libraries'
online catalog. Materials about related topics, persons or places can be found by
searching the catalog using these terms.
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Names
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United States
--Politics and government --1945-1989
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Bayh, Birch, 1928-2019
--Archives
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Bayh, Birch, 1928-2019
--Correspondence
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Bayh,
Marvella
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Conrad, Larry Allyn,
1935-1990
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Topics
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Legislators --Indiana
--Archives.
Administrative Information
Acquisition Information
Gift, 1980-1981, 2006, 2011, 2018.
Processing InformationThe collection as received credited certain sequences of files to particular
staff members, some of whom remained with Bayh for an extended time and
performed multiple functions within his office. While the basic arrangement of
the collection is functional, staff members' initials in brackets after folder
titles allow for some degree of reconstruction of individual
responsibilities.
Early processing efforts integrated all mail into single alphabetical sequences
by letter-writer for each year, ignoring office notations on carbon copies that
indicated legislative mail, general mail, political or press mail, etc. A major
emphasis of processing was to restore the original order as indicated by those
notations and to integrate mail without notations into that restored scheme. The
majority of this effort was made possible by a grant from the National
Historical Publications and Records Commission.