Waldo Gifford Leland and the Origins of the American Archival Profession

The professional accomplishments of Waldo Gifford Leland (1879-1966) are legendary: historian, surveyor of archival repositories in America and in France, father of the American Historical Association's Conference of Archivists, archival theorist, J. Franklin Jameson's key lieutenant in the battle for the establishment of the National Archives, second president of the Society of American Archivists, and long time head of the American Council of Learned Societies. This splendid classic brings together Leland's most significant writings concerning archives and archival methods, concentrating on the period from 1908 to 1920, when Leland was most involved in helping to create the American archives profession.