Series - Correspondence, personnel files, speeches, articles, and photographs

Identity area

Reference code

WB IBRD/IDA SOMMERS-5713S

Title

Correspondence, personnel files, speeches, articles, and photographs

Date(s)

  • 1948 - 1987 (Creation)

Level of description

Series

Extent and medium

0.47 linear feet of textual records; 25 photographs

Context area

Name of creator

Archival history

Immediate source of acquisition or transfer

Content and structure area

Scope and content

Topics covered in this series include reorganization of the World Bank, procurement review, communications, loan documentation, World Bank Group (Bank Group) studies, the succession of Bank Group presidents, and improving efficiency in the Bank Group.

This series contains various textual records: correspondence (e.g., with Robert S. McNamara, J. Henry Smith, Warren C. Baum, etc.); personnel files (pertaining to Sommers?s personal information data, employment history, reappointments, semi-annual summaryof work activities, etc.); copies of transcripts (i.e., Sommers?s two oral history interviews in 1961 and 1985 and a conversation between Sommers, John J. McCloy, and Richard Demuth in 1984); speeches (e.g., ?Legal Aspects of the International Bank?s Structure and Juridical Personality,? February 20, 1950; and ?Legal Problems Arising in the Bank?s Loan Operations,? February 24, 1950;) articles given by and/or written by Sommers (e.g., a description of the World Bank and its operations, presented in MexicoCity in February 1950; an address entitled ?Early Days of the Bank given to Bank staff in 1960;? and a 1984 article for the Bank/IMF periodical, Finance and Development, to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the Bretton Woods Conference); publications (e.g., a photocopy of Sommers?s ?The World in Ferment,? July-August 1967); newspaper clippings; copies of International Bank Notes; and many more.

This series also contains photographs documenting: World Bank?s B building remodeling in the late 1950s, a British-Egyptian negotiation in 1959 (possibly the Suez Canal negotiations; individuals include Sommers, Eugene Black, and an unidentified Egyptian negotiator), the World Bank's twentieth-anniversary luncheon in 1966 (individuals include John J. McCloy, George D. Woods, Eugene Black, Martin Rosen, etc.), and the Pension Finance Committee in 1985 and 1987 (e.g., John Lowe, John Hagler, etc.).

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling

Accruals

System of arrangement

Records in this series are arranged by subject and thereunder chronologically.

Conditions of access and use area

Conditions governing access

Records are subject to the World Bank Policy on Access to Information.

Conditions governing reproduction

Records are subject to the Copyright Policy of the World Bank Group.

Language of material

  • English

Script of material

Language and script notes

Physical characteristics and technical requirements

Finding aids

An inventory list is available here.

Allied materials area

Existence and location of originals

Existence and location of copies

Related units of description

Related descriptions

Notes area

Alternative identifier(s)

Access points

Subject access points

Place access points

Name access points

Genre access points

Description control area

Description identifier

Institution identifier

Rules and/or conventions used

Internal World Bank Group Archives rules based on ISAD(G).

Disclosure status

Level of detail

Dates of creation revision deletion

17 October 2022

Language(s)

Script(s)

Sources

Accession area