The Modern Political Archive houses several collections that document the activities of Senator Kefauver. The largest of these collections – the Estes Kefauver papers, mpa.144 / ms.0836 – contains 900 linear feet of boxes of correspondence of the late senator from 1935 to August 1963, including personal, constituent, and political correspondence. Also included are political files, speeches, legislative papers, manuscripts, clippings, and audio-visual material.
Estes Kefauver papers, 1925-1967, mpa.144 / ms. 0837. 828 linear feet. Collection location: rows 7 – 8.
Estes Kefauver papers, circa 1955-1956, mpa.182 / ms.1189. Collection location: row 11, box 3.
The Estes Kefauver papers, circa 1955-1956, mpa.218 / ms.2927 contains 0.125 linear feet of ephemera from the presidential race between Adlai Stevenson and Dwight Eisenhower. Collection location: row 11, box 6.
Estes Kefauver federal finance letter, 1963 February 6, mpa.219 / ms.2364. Collection location: row 11, box 24.
Estes Kefauver milk industry letter, 1960 January 12, mpa.220 / ms.2365. Collection location: row 11, box 24.
The Estes Kefauver papers, 1943-1964, mpa.307 / ms.2337 contains 0.2 linear feet of boxes (51 folders) of correspondence between Kefauver and political figures. Many of the letters are thank you notes, opinions on particular bills, and for political appointments. There is also a photograph of Kefauver and Walter Scheel of Germany, as well as two letters that do not pertain to Kefauver, both of which are to Edwin Michael Hoffman of North Carolina. Collection location: row 11, box 7.
Estes Kefauver (1903-1963) was a U.S. House Representative (1939-1949), U.S. Senator (1950-1963), and 1956 Democratic Vice Presidential candidate. He graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1924 and Yale Law School in 1927. In 1935 he married Nancy Piggott, a native of Scotland. During his years in the Senate, he served on the Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, voted for the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, and sponsored the Kefauver-Harris Drug Control Act of 1962. He lost favor among Southerners with his support of the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision to desegregate schools and when he and Albert Gore, Sr., were the only southern senators to refuse to sign the Southern Manifesto, intending to block school integration, in 1956. In 1952, he lost to Adlai Stevenson for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, but in 1956 he was Stevenson’s Vice Presidential running mate.