2024 Volume 24 Pages 129-152
This study reviews a common-sense view on preservation of business archives in the United States, namely, the view that “the main core of the business records preservation is corporate archives”. First, by reconstructing the literatures written by business archivists and/or historians （primarily in The American Archivist）, this study grasps a brief history on the preservation movement of business archives in the United States. Second, using the “Directory of Business Archives in the United States and Canada” and “ArchiveGrid”, the article examines the state of preservation of historical business records on the largest 100 US companies in 1917 and 1948, the CBOE 100 companies in 1985 and the S＆P 100 companies in 2023. This historical survey reveals that the nature of business archives keeping in the United State was oriented by the capacity of public facilities the 1930s and 1940s, when the preservation movement of business archives firstly gained momentum. In addition, the repositories’ survey clarifies the significant role of collecting archives （e. g. university archives, institutions owned by local historical societies） for protecting the historical documents of U. S. leading corporations. Nevertheless, the spontaneous-featured collection policy could generate a bias in the types and scopes of corporate records preserved, highlighting the importance of discussion and coordination at the national level.
