Form letters, 1966 - 1978
Scope and Contents
Pre-generated responses (form letters) were used by Inouye's staff to answer high-volume constituent mail about legislation, events and specific concerns. These letters provide an insight into the concerns of the people of Hawaii and as well as tracking the voice of popular opinion in high-profile cases such as Watergate. Outgoing correspondence records Inouye's stance on many of these issues including prominent topics such as vitamin regulation, labor reform, Watergate, Nixon’s impeachment, and the protection of marine mammals.
Dates
- Creation: 1966 - 1978
Conditions Governing Access
Access restrictions apply to certain records in the papers that have been determined to contain sensitive personal or government information. Series assessed to contain sensitive information will remain closed until 2028 with the exception of Constituent Services Case Work, which contains high levels of personal identifiable information. Constituent Services Case Work will be available to requesting individuals upon review and approval of the archivist or librarian managing the Property. Individual files or records assessed to contain sensitive information may also carry restrictions. Series assessed with medium risk may be made available to the researcher after the files are reviewed for sensitive information or formats. Series assessed to be of low risk of disclosing sensitive information may be open and available to researchers.
Low risk: The following series pose little risk of revealing sensitive information and could be made available to the public with little harm: Administrative Files, Campaign Files, Constituent Services(Correspondence and Projects), House Records, Kaho’olawe, Native Hawaiian Issues, Japanese Latin American Internment, Personal, Political Affairs, Speeches, Scheduling Files, Medal of Honor, Legislative Files, Photographs, Public Relations, Books, and Subject Files.
Medium risk: ABSCAM, Staff Files, Born-Digital (format-based), Microfilm.
Series with sensitive information: Constituent Services (Case Work), Watergate, Iran-Contra, and subseries containing records related to military and defense appropriations.
This collection may be accessed in the John Troup Moir Jr. and Gertrude M.F. Moir Archives Reading Room on the fifth floor of the Hamilton Library addition. Reading room hours and policies can be found on the archives website: https://manoa.hawaii.edu/library/research/collections/archives/visiting-us/. If you have questions, please contact the archives by email: archives@hawaii.edu or phone: (808) 956-6047.
Arrangement
The Form letters subseries is organized in two parts, ‘Incoming correspondence’ sent from constituents to the senator and ‘Outgoing correspondence,’ letters representing the Senator’s position sent by his office. This subseries is the amalgamation of correspondence placed in banker boxes with the descriptive listings of ‘Robos’ and ‘Form Letters.’ Examination of these boxes proved their content overlapped and the terminology used interchangeably by staff members. Many of these boxes contained envelopes with markers identifying the content within. Early boxes (those marked 1962-1963) were filled with loose papers. Close examination of these paper revealed that subject tags had been written on the upper left corner of most papers. In the interest of maintaining original order, these papers were arranged topically according to the subject assigned to it by the staff. Items without designations were placed in the miscellaneous file or if a substantial volume of similar letters were collated a new sub-series was created. Various filing systems were used during Inoyue's tenure which is also reflected in the arrangement.
Physical Location
HL, A650, Section: A-19-4 (CS3-17)
Repository Details
Part of the University of Hawaii at Manoa Libraries Repository