Add MS 89316

The Fulbright Program was established on 1st August 1946 under legislation introduced by Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. The Fulbright Program was established to 'increase the mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries' as well as nurture ‘joint ventures for mutually constructive and beneficial purposes’.

The Fulbright Programme in the UK was established on 22nd September 1948, it was one of the first treaties to be signed under the program. The treaty between the UK and the US was signed by Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin and Chargé d’Affaires Don Bliss, in the presence of Senator Fulbright and became known as The US-UK Fulbright Commission. In 1961 Wayne L. Hays, former Congressman of Ohio, brought amendments to the US Fulbright Act- Public Law 87-256 ‘The Fulbright-Hays Act’ which broadened the range of awards offered through the Program such as; arts, the professions, administration, librarianship, business and industry. This collection contains the archive of the organisation from the initial stages of the agreement to the present day.

The US-UK Fulbright Commission is composed of a Company Level and Commission Level, the Company is the sole Commissioner and a Board of Directors are responsible for the management of the funds of the Commission. The Commission is governed by 14 Commissioners appointed by the US, UK and Scottish governments, the Chair alternates between British and American Commissioners every three years. The selection of grantees is overseen by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board which is a twelve-member board of educational and public leaders appointed by the President of the United States.

The collection contains two sub-fonds relating to records held by the Commission about other organisations, these include The Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs United Kingdom Programme Papers, and The Fulbright Foundation Papers. The Commission oversaw the administration of the Humphrey Institute’s UK Programme from 1988 and the material within the collection reflects this agreement. The Fulbright Foundation is the Charity entity for the US-UK Fulbright Commission Company separate from the US-UK Fulbright Commission but administered by the same staff.

The collection also contains the papers of the British Fulbright Scholars Association which was an autonomous registered charity run by Fulbright Alumni in the UK as a means to connect ‘Fulbrighters’ professionally and socially in the UK and abroad. The Association was established in 1982 and taken over by the Commission entirely in March 2012, the Association’s archive material therefore sits within the Commission’s archive to reflect the intrinsic connection.

The US-UK Fulbright Commission archive consists of paper based material such as application files, account books, minute books, correspondence, photographs, notes, news cuttings, leaflets, pamphlets, and printouts. It also includes born-digital material extracted from 26 CD-ROMs which include digital photographs, document files, excel files, databases, and an Application. There are also digitised records in the collection, scans of the record cards and application files of Fulbrighters have been made into PDF-As. Digital content from the archive is available for viewing in the British Library’s Manuscripts Reading Room, in PDF-A and JPEG formats.

Abbreviations used in the catalogue include:

• AGM (Annual General Meeting)

• AP (Application)

• BFSA (British Fulbright Scholars Association)

• RC (Record Card)

• RP (Report)

• The Commission (The US-UK Fulbright Commission)