{"id":1614,"date":"2014-06-01T15:30:08","date_gmt":"2014-06-01T15:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/history\/?p=1614"},"modified":"2022-03-03T21:42:19","modified_gmt":"2022-03-03T21:42:19","slug":"history-of-hrc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/history\/2014\/06\/history-of-hrc\/","title":{"rendered":"History of HRC"},"content":{"rendered":"

HISTORY OF ESA\u2019S HISTORICAL RECORDS COMMITTEE
\n<\/strong>by Dennis H. Knight and Douglas G. Sprugel
\nPDF as published ESA Bulletin, Vol 96(1):32-40<\/a>, January 2015
\nAt ESA\u2019s 21st annual meeting in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1936, the members in attendance passed a motion by Charles C. Adams calling for the formation of a committee to find a suitable location for archiving historic documents.* The appointed members, dubbed the Committee on Repository for Historical Records of the Ecological Society of America, were C. C. Adams (chair), George D. Fuller, and Robert F. Griggs.
\nThe need for an archive was as clear then as it is now: There were concerns about losing papers that documented the history of both ESA and ecology, especially those in the files of aging members. C. C. Adams wrote, \u201cAs chairman of the Committee, I would be pleased to hear from all former officers of the Society regarding the amount and condition of the official files in their possession\u2026\u201d Some ESA members\u2014those with an appreciation for the history of their developing profession\u2014had boxes of material to donate. The committee was urged to find a repository that was centrally located, presumably to minimize shipping costs.
\nFive years later, in 1941, World War II provided an additional incentive for a central location. The American Antiquarian Society urged that professional organizations locate their documents away from population and industrial centers, to avoid losses in the event warfare occurred in North America. Since the Repository Committee was still without an archive to recommend, it suggested that members safeguard their papers, possibly sending them to less populated locations. ESA delayed shipments of Ecology, Ecological Monographs<\/em>, and the Bulletin <\/em>to European libraries, storing them until the war ended.
\nAfter six years of searching, the Repository Committee reached an agreement in 1943 with the University of Cincinnati, centrally located and a choice likely influenced by the fact that two of ESA\u2019s leaders were on the faculty there\u2014William A. Dreyer, ESA\u2019s secretary at the time, and charter member E. Lucy Braun. The Council\u2019s approval of this arrangement, also in 1943, was made by mail because the annual meeting that year was cancelled at the request of the U.S. Department of Defense Transportation, to minimize the use of national transportation facilities. A year later the Repository Committee issued its final report, recommending that it be dissolved and replaced by a new \u201cCommittee on Historical Records.\u201d This recommendation was approved and the following committee was appointed: ESA\u2019s secretary (William A. Dreyer), the University of Cincinnati Librarian (Edward A. Henry, ex officio), and one elected ESA member (Theodore Just, University of Notre Dame). The committee was officially established with the passage of Bylaw 13, published in the December 1946 issue of the Bulletin<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Bylaw 13. The historical records of the Society shall be deposited in the University of Cincinnati Library. These records shall include complete sets of the periodicals, important documents, and appropriate memorabilia. A Committee on Historical Records, which shall be a Standing Committee, composed of the Librarian of the University of Cincinnati, the Secretary of the Society, and a member elected by the Society, shall supervise the collection and preservation of these records. The Secretary of the Society shall be the Chairman of this committee.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"William

William Albert Dreyer (1904-1979); President 1957<\/p><\/div>\n

William Dreyer, ESA secretary at the time, willingly served as the committee\u2019s first chair. This arrangement seemed logical because many documents passed through his hands. However, Dreyer\u2019s successor, William A. Castle, wrote that having the secretary be the chair appears \u201cunwise since it places an added demand for time on an individual who is already called upon for a large share of service to the Society.\u201d Castle recommended that the bylaws be amended \u201cin such a way that the responsibility for continuance of the historical records will be placed on some other interested member of the Society.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"Table

Table 1.
Chairs (in bold) and known members of the Committee on Historical Records. An asterisk designates staff or others who have served in an ex officio capacity. (Bulletin, Vol 96(1).<\/p><\/div>\n

Based on Castle\u2019s recommendation, William Dreyer proposed an amendment to Bylaw 13 that would make the chair a separate office elected by the Society as a whole. The amendment passed and, presumably to no one\u2019s surprise, Dreyer was elected. Four years later the bylaw was amended again so that the chair was elected by the ESA Council, with a three-year term, rather than by the Society as a whole. William Dreyer was elected once again. He was chair until 1975, serving for 23 years (26 counting his years as ESA secretary). Subsequent chairs have served shorter terms, typically 3\u20136 years (Table 1). In 1985 the bylaw was changed to specify that the chair and other committee members would be appointed by the president, rather than being elected, but in 1995 that responsibility was given to the secretary (with another change to the bylaw). The committee eventually became known as the Historical Records Committee (HRC).
\nDuring Dreyer\u2019s tenure as HRC chair, the committee usually consisted of two or three members who served for long periods. The committee was relatively passive, devoting itself primarily to archiving issues of the Society\u2019s journals and occasionally accepting donations of documents and correspondence from ecologists who had retired or died. Of course, from the time of ESA\u2019s founding in 1915, the minutes of business meetings along with reports and announcements were routinely published, first primarily in Ecology and later, beginning in 1946, in the Bulletin<\/em>. Indexed as \u201cProceedings,\u201d these documents are easily found using online databases and provide a wealth of historical information.
\nThe three chairs after Dreyer\u2014Robert McIntosh, Robert Burgess, and Emily Russell\u2014were enthusiastic students of ecological history. They increased the size of the committee (Table 1), became more involved in the management of the archives, and organized symposia of a historical nature to celebrate anniversaries (as described below). But as Burgess wrote in his 1986 report, \u201cthe Committee is not (and has never been) active as a committee, [although] individuals have contributed to the continuing interest in the history of ecology, and will assist in the understanding and assimilation of materials pertaining to the development of our science.\u201d Recently, with heightened interest in ESA\u2019s centennial celebration, and a desire to provide easy access to historical information on the history pages of ESA\u2019s web site (https:\/\/esa.org\/history\/<\/a>), the Committee as a whole broadened its focus and became more involved. Growing to 14 members in 2014, it now has three subcommittees: Archives (Alan Covich, chair), Program (Juliana Mulroy, chair), and Web site (Sally White, chair). Its mission is to encourage members to conserve documents and photos pertinent to the history of ESA and ecology, and to assist in making such records available through the ESA History web site and other communications.
\nThe Archives<\/strong>
\nInitially, the only function of the Historical Records Committee was to manage the ESA archives. The documents remained at the University of Cincinnati while William Dreyer was HRC chair; but when he retired in 1975, a decision was made to move them to the University of Georgia, home of then-President Frank Golley. They were transferred to the University of Georgia Libraries (UGAL) in 1977, where they are now part of the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
\nThe kind of documents that should be archived has long been a matter of debate. The Committee on a Repository for Historical Records expressed the hope that \u201cformer officers of the Society and members who have documents worthy of preservation, including pertinent individual photographs of officers and members and outstanding memorabilia, will send such material to the Secretary to be included in the Repository.\u201d According to the 1944 Secretary\u2019s report, the archived documents consisted of the following:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n