PITT CHOSEN TO HOUSE FRICK FAMILY ARCHIVES RELATED TO WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA

PITTSBURGH, Mar. 5 -- Under an agreement reached by the Office of the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the Helen Clay Frick Foundation, the University of Pittsburgh has been selected as the preferred access site for portions of the Frick Family Archives that will include Henry Clay Frick's business papers and other items of interest related to Western Pennsylvania.

"I am very pleased that the University of Pittsburgh has been selected as the preferred access site for the materials from the Frick Family Archives that have such special significance for our home region," said Pitt Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg. "We are honored by this decision, and we look forward to working with the professionals from the Frick Collection in implementing this agreement. We believe that the skills they bring to processing the collection, coupled with the University's demonstrated strength as an accessible repository of other important archival materials, will ensure that the materials are made available to scholars interested in this important part of the history of Western Pennsylvania."

Rush Miller, director of the University Library System and Hillman University Librarian, added that the decision is a positive outcome for the city, the region, and the scholarly community. "It is particularly appropriate that preferred access for the Frick Archives be located at Pitt, home to the Archives of Industrial Society. Henry Clay Frick is one of the most important individuals in the history of the industrialization of America, and these papers will complement the hundreds of internationally important archival collections at the University related to Pittsburgh's industrial history. The information to be made available from the work of the access site will be important to the understanding of the development of Pittsburgh and the region, and will be of inestimable value to scholars," Miller said.

Pitt's Archives of Industrial Society, established in 1963, is home to more than 650 collections of historical records, personal papers, photographs, and related resources that document the development of one of the nation's paramount industrial societies here in Western Pennsylvania. Among the archives' collections are records from the Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation, the Monongahela Inclined Plane Company, USX Corporation's Duquesne and National Works, the Bethlehem Mines Corporation, the NAACP, the Pittsburgh Symphony Society, and the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers Union.

The archives also contain several outstanding photographic collections, including the Spencer Family Collection, comprising photographs taken by Charles Hart Spencer, who worked for Henry Clay Frick at the time.

"This almost forty-year tradition of preserving and making accessible the rich documentary heritage of the diverse communities, organizations, and personages of Pittsburgh provides a fitting setting for the unique historical resource represented by the Frick Family Archives related to Western Pennsylvania," Nordenberg said.

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