The October 20, 1950 death of Henry Lewis Stimson marked the end of an extraordinarily long career of public service. A Republican, Stimson served as Secretary of War under William H. Taft (1911-1913), Secretary of State under Herbert Hoover (1929-1933), and Secretary of War under Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman (1940-1945). Stimson, an early proponent of military preparedness, fought in World War I, headed a special electoral mission to Nicaragua in 1927, served as Governor General of the Philippines from 1927-1929, and was an active public commentator and informal advisor on foreign affairs during the building international crisis of the 1930s and after World War II.

Followers of the development of American foreign policy from late nineteenth-century imperialism to the emergence of the U.S. as the world's leading power after World War II will greatly benefit from the history preserved in The Papers of Henry Lewis Stimson.

A description of each series and an explanatory note for each roll have been printed in the accompanying guide. The notes offer a general survey of each reel in the context of Stimson's life.

The collection is divided into the following six series: General Correspondence, reels 1-125; Memoranda, Minutes of Meetings, Notes on Conversations and Interviews, and Miscellaneous Papers, reels 126-128; Speeches, Writings and Other Public Statements, reels 129-136; Special Subjects, reels 137-146; Family Correspondence and Other Family Papers, reels 147-159; Selected Documents of the State Department, 1929-1933, reels 160-166; and Miscellaneous Items, reels 167-169.