New insight into the life and legacy of the late Senator Robert C. Byrd has just been released.
Archivists at the Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies in Shepherdstown recently completed indexing Byrd’s Congressional papers.
“This represents the bulk of the papers. We’re looking at 1,800 boxes. So it’s approaching 2-million pages,” according to Center Archivist Marc Levitt.
It took nearly two years to complete the review, categorize and index public documents from Byrd’s years in the U.S. House and Senate.
“We processed the papers we like to call his ‘Congress Series,’ which is basically his Legislative files, personal papers that have to do with thank you’s, requests and invitations and also his travel itineraries while he was in office during those particular Congresses,” Levitt said.
The archivist says what he found most interesting was the difference in Byrd’s opinion on war from the time he took office in the U.S. House in 1953 to his death in June 2010.
“Because it covers 57-years of his public service, you really see how he went from a hawk in Vietnam to one of the only dissenters against the war in Iraq,” Levitt said.
The indexing system is available to the public by appointment. Levitt says it’s a gold mine for political scientists, Congressional scholars and students who want to learn more about not just Byrd but the political process as a whole.
“Because Byrd was there so long, I think people can get a really good feel of how things have changed in Congress, what things have stayed the same and really see how the representatives interact with their constituents.”
Work on archiving Byrd’s legacy had already gotten underway before the Senator’s death. And there’s still work to be done. There are approximately 1,000 boxes Levitt refers to as the ‘Project Series.’ Those documents have to do with the appropriations Byrd made to projects in West Virginia over his five-plus decades in office.