The University of Chicago Library > The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center > Finding Aids > Guide to the LeRoy T. Carlson Papers 1927-2012
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| Title: | Carlson, LeRoy T. Papers |
|---|---|
| Dates: | 1927-2012 |
| Size: | 14 linear feet (7 boxes) |
| Repository: |
Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center |
| Abstract: | LeRoy T. Carlson (1916- ) graduated from the College at the University of Chicago in 1938, going on to earn his M.B.A. from Harvard University in 1941. He served with the Persian Gulf Command during World War II, helping secure supply lines to Russia in Iran. From 1942 to 1943, he worked as an assistant treasurer at the General Motors plant in Calcutta, India. Carlson founded Telephone and Data Systems in 1970, a Fortune 500 company, and has maintained a relationship with the University of Chicago, sponsoring the LeRoy T. and Margaret Deffenbaugh Carlson University Professorship. The bulk of his collection contains materials from his time spent abroad during the years 1942 to 1944. |
This collection is open for research.
When quoting material from this collection, the preferred citation is: Carlson, LeRoy T. Papers, [Box #, Folder #], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.
LeRoy T. Carlson was born in Chicago in 1916. He attended Chicago's Morgan Park Junior College (an extension of the Morgan Park Academy founded by William Rainey Harper) from 1933 to 1935, going on to earn his B.S. from the College at the University of Chicago in 1938 and his M.B.A. from Harvard in 1941.
Carlson served in the U.S. Army Ordnance Department from 1941 to 1943, leaving the United States in 1942 for stations in Accra, Gold Coast (now Ghana) and Cairo, Egypt. In January 1943, Carlson went to Iran with the Persian Gulf Service Command as part of the Ordnance's Iran mission to secure supply lines to Russia. Carlson was stationed at a truck assembly plant in Andimeshk (TAP One), in western Iran. These truck assembly plants were operated by General Motors Overseas Operations until 1 July 1943, at which point they were taken over by Ordnance-run companies, utilizing native labor. Carlson arrived in India in August of 1943 (Box 6, Folder 4), staying in that country to work as the assistant treasurer for the General Motors plant in Calcutta (now Kolkata), where he would stay until October of 1944 (Box 3, Folder 10). He served in the U.S. Navy from 1945 to 1946.
Carlson worked at the Merchandise Mart from 1946 to 1949 and then at the Acme Steel Company until 1951. He subsequently held positions at a series of telephone companies, eventually incorporating Telephone and Data Systems (TDS) in Chicago in 1968 after acquiring ten small rural phone companies in Wisconsin. Today, TDS is a Fortune 500 company, serving over six million customers across the country with its subsidiaries US Cellular, TDS Telecom, OneNeck IT Solutions, and Baja Broadband. He was CEO of TDS until 1986, chairman until 2002, and is now chairman emeritus. His son, LeRoy T. Carlson, Jr., is the current CEO of the company.
The bulk of this collection contains materials from the period 1942 to 1944, encompassing Carlson's time in the military service in what was then Africa's Gold Coast, Egypt, and Iran from 1942 to 1943 and his time working at the General Motors plant in Calcutta, India from 1943 to 1944. The collection contains, in varying conditions, a rich array of photographs, newspapers and newspaper clippings, and other memorabilia from these travels as well as an extensive amount of documentation related to the management and operation of the treasury department in the GM plant in Calcutta.
The LeRoy T. Carlson Papers are organized into five series: Series I, Ephemera; Series II, Calcutta; Series III, University of Chicago; Series IV, Audio-Visual; and Series V, Oversize.
Series I, Ephemera, contains items of personal interest prior to 1942, including souvenir pamphlets, brochures, and bulletins related to the Chicago World's Fair and the production and history of the Chicago Tribune. A second folder contains a government-issued pamphlet outlining the 1939 revision of the Industrial Mobilization Plan and some charts illustrating chains of command related to national defense. This series is arranged chronologically.
Series II, Calcutta, contains materials from Carlson's time in Calcutta, India working at the General Motors plant there. This series is organized into two subseries: Subseries I, General Motors, contains documentation and materials related to the design and organization of the plant as well as the operation of the treasury department; Subseries II, General, contains materials more generally related to Carlson's time living in Calcutta, including travel and informational guides and ephemera. Materials are organized chronologically within each subseries.
Series III, University of Chicago, contains materials related to Carlson's relations with the University as an alumnus and donor to the business school, including correspondences, directories of other donors, and materials from a fiftieth reunion in 1988. Two folders are dedicated to alumni relations, followed by one folder with materials from the fiftieth reunion.
Series IV, Audio-Visual, contains an extensive collection of photographs from Carlson's time in Calcutta, containing photographs of colleagues, coworkers, and friends in addition to observational and sight-seeing photographs of India. Some include handwritten notes. Eight folders are dedicated to small snapshots, followed by an unlabeled group photo presumed to be of Carlson and some of his coworkers at the factory and a framed group photo of the treasury department and collectively signed note marking Carlson's departure from the plant.
Series V, Oversize, is the largest series in the collection and is arranged as follows. Boxes 4 and 5 contain a disassembled scrapbook containing materials (photographs, newspapers, magazines booklets, and ephemera) from Carlson's travels in northern Africa, Iran, and India from 1942 to 1944. Box 6 contains scrapbooks of newspaper clippings related to the U.S. economy, elections, and the World's Fair, all from 1933, a 1934 issue of a bulletin entitled The New Deal, and an issue of the The Command Post from 1944. Box 7 contains loose newspaper clippings and an issue of the Egyptian Mail from 1944. Finally, there is an Oversize Folder containing a blueprint "T.U.P. Assembly Plant Map of Employees" from the General Motors plant in Calcutta where Carlson worked, dating from 1943.
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Series I: Ephemera |
| Box 1 Folder 1 | Early Personal Ephemera, 1932-1934 |
| Box 1 Folder 2 | "Industrial Mobilization Plan Revision of 1939" and National Defense Charts, 1939-1941 |
Series II: Calcutta |
Subseries 1: General Motors |
| Box 1 Folder 3 | Notes on Proposed Calcutta Plant, 1943 |
| Box 1 Folder 4 | Factory Payroll, 1943-1944 |
| Box 1 Folder 5 | Employment, Overtime, Termination of Service and Leave Procedure, 1943-1944 |
| Box 1 Folder 6 | Accounting Procedure Forms, 1943-1944 |
| Box 1 Folder 7 | Treasury Department Progress Chart, 1943-1944 |
| Box 1 Folder 8 | Treasury, Supply, and Long Office Building Staff Layout, 1943-1944 |
| Box 1 Folder 9 | Treasury Department Forms, 1943-1944 |
| Box 1 Folder 10 | Treasury Department Procedure Guidelines, 1943-1944 |
| Box 1 Folder 11 | General Motors World, vol. 23, no. 1, 3, 6, 1944 |
Subseries 2: General |
| Box 1 Folder 12 | The Visitor's Guide to Calcutta + Newspaper Clippings, circa 1927-1931 |
| Box 2 Folder 1 | Wonderful India and Three of Her Beautiful Neighbors, circa 1938-1943 |
| Box 2 Folder 2 | Introduction to India, 1943 |
| Box 2 Folder 3 | Ephemera – Recreation and Holidays in Calcutta, 1942-1944 |
| Box 2 Folder 4 | "Black Hole of Calcutta" printout, 2012 |
Series III: University of Chicago |
| Box 2 Folder 5 | U of C Alumni Correspondence, Brochures, Pamphlets, Donor Materials [1/2], 1983-1997 |
| Box 2 Folder 6 | U of C Alumni Correspondence, Brochures, Pamphlets, Donor Materials [2/2], 1989-1993 |
| Box 2 Folder 7 | Class of 1938 Fiftieth Reunion Materials, 1988 |
Series IV: Audio-Visual |
| Box 3 Folder 1 | Calcutta Photographs [1/8], 1943-1944 |
| Box 3 Folder 2 | Calcutta Photographs [2/8], 1943-1944 |
| Box 3 Folder 3 | Calcutta Photographs [3/8], 1943-1944 |
| Box 3 Folder 4 | Calcutta Photographs [4/8], 1943-1944 |
| Box 3 Folder 5 | Calcutta Photographs [5/8], 1943-1944 |
| Box 3 Folder 6 | Calcutta Photographs [6/8], 1943-1944 |
| Box 3 Folder 7 | Calcutta Photographs [7/8], 1943-1944 |
| Box 3 Folder 8 | Calcutta Photographs [8/8], 1943-1944 |
| Box 3 Folder 9 | GM Calcutta Plant – Group Photo, circa 1943-1944 |
| Box 3 Folder 10 | Farewell Ceremony for Mr. L.T. Carlson – Group Photo, 1944 |
Series V: Oversize |
| Box 4 Folder 1 | Scrapbook (Part 1) – Covers, circa 1942-1944 |
| Box 4 Folder 2 | Scrapbook (Part 1) – Leaves 1-3, 1942 |
| Box 4 Folder 3 | Scrapbook (Part 1) – Leaves 4-6, circa 1942-1944 |
| Box 4 Folder 4 | Scrapbook (Part 1) – Leaves 7-9, circa 1942 |
| Box 4 Folder 5 | Scrapbook (Part 1) – Leaves 10-12, 1942 |
| Box 4 Folder 6 | Scrapbook (Part 1) – Leaves 13-15, 1942-1943 |
| Box 4 Folder 7 | Scrapbook (Part 1) – Leaves 16-17, 1942-1943 |
| Box 5 Folder 1 | Scrapbook (Part 2) – Leaves 18-20, 1943 |
| Box 5 Folder 2 | Scrapbook (Part 2) – Leaves 21-23, 1943 |
| Box 5 Folder 3 | Scrapbook (Part 2) – Leaves 24-26, 1943 |
| Box 5 Folder 4 | Scrapbook (Part 2) – Leaves 27-29, 1942-1943 |
| Box 5 Folder 5 | Scrapbook (Part 2) – Leaves 30-32, 1943-1944 |
| Box 5 Folder 6 | Scrapbook (Part 2) – Leaves 33-35, circa 1943 |
| Box 5 Folder 7 | Scrapbook (Part 2) – Leaves 36-38, circa 1944 |
| Box 5 Folder 8 | Scrapbook (Part 2) – Leaves 39-41, 1944 |
| Box 5 Folder 9 | Scrapbook (Part 2) – Leaves 42-44, circa 1944 |
| Box 5 Folder 10 | Scrapbook (Part 2) – Leaves 45-47, circa 1943 |
| Box 5 Folder 11 | Scrapbook (Part 2) – Leaves 48-50, 1944 |
| Box 5 Folder 12 | Scrapbook (Part 2) – Leaves 51-53, 1944 |
| Box 5 Folder 13 | Scrapbook (Part 2) – Leaves 54-57, 1944 |
| Box 5 Folder 14 | General Motors Folks vol. 7 no. 2-4, 1944 |
| Box 5 Folder 15 | "U.S. Military Mission" – "TAP 1/5" metal sign, N.D. |
| Box 6 Folder 1 | Scrapbook of Newspaper Clippings: U.S. Economy, 1933 |
| Box 6 Folder 2 | Scrapbook of Newspaper Clippings: Chicago World's Fair, 1933 |
| Box 6 Folder 3 | Scrapbook of Newspaper Clippings: Elections, 1933 |
| Box 6 Folder 4 | The New Deal newspaper, 1934 |
| Box 6 Folder 5 | The Command Post vol. 1 no. 8, 1944 |
| Box 6 Folder 6 | Farewell address presented to L. T. Carlson on the eve of his departure to Bombay by the staff of the Treasury Department, General Motors India Limited, 1944 |
| Box 7 Folder 1 | Loose newspaper clippings, 1933 |
| Box 7 Folder 2 | The Egyptian Mail, November 24, 1944 |
| Box Oversize Folder 1 | General Motors India, Calcutta Branch – T.U.P. Assembly Plant Map of Employees, 1943 |