Fred Rogers Fairchild papers

The Fred Rogers Fairchild Papers consist of correspondence, writings, notes, research files, and printed material which document Fairchild's career as an economist, consultant, and author. The papers document Fairchild's work as a tax adviser to the state of Connecticut, the territory of Hawaii, and Santo Domingo. Studies of finance and taxation in the Northeastern states, the insurance and forestry industries, and post World War I Europe are also included. Fairchild's activities as a teacher of economics and member of the Yale faculty are less fully illustrated. Many files concern Fairchild's activities after his retirement from Yale (1945), including his authorship of a textbook for high school students, Understanding Our Free Economy, and his interests in conservative causes.

Fred Fairchild and his wife donated the papers to the Yale University Library between 1956 and 1966. The gradebooks (1912-1945) in boxes 10 and 11 are an anonymous gift received in 1969. They are restricted for seventy-five years from the date of the student's graduation. The papers are arranged in files by topic or record type and they are listed alphabetically by folder title. For any particular topic the files may include correspondence, speeches, articles, interviews, press releases, printed matter, brochures, pamphlets, charts, notes, memoranda, and reports.

The most voluminous files are those relating to Fairchild's textbook, Understanding Our Free Economy. The book, which Fairchild first contemplated writing in the late 1940s, was to be directed to high school students with the intent to teach economic principles without socialistic bias. The files include correspondence with Fairchild's collaborator Thomas Shelly; with officials of the Foundation for Economic Education such as Richard Cornuelle, Dean Russell, and Leonard E. Read; and with E.M. Crane and Stanton Whitney at D. Van Nostrand Company. The files contain discussions of the book's reception among school book selection committees and proposals for revisions based on criticisms ranging from biased treatment of the Tennessee Valley Authority to accusations that the text advocated birth control. Topical files for J.W. Clise; Lucille Craine, who edited The Educational Reviewer; America's Future Inc.; and the Mel Gablers also relate to efforts to review and in some cases denounce textbooks intended for public school students.

Fairchild's interests in conservative causes are documented in the files for Americans for Constitutional Action, the Committee for Constitutional Government, Congress of Freedom, Inc., Intercollegiate Society for Individualists, National Committee for Economic Freedom, and National Committee to Preserve the Integrity of the Constitution. Fairchild's views on domestic and foreign policy issues are also included in correspondence with Connecticut Senator Thomas J. Dodd.