Historic Documents and Memorabilia

Historic Documents and Memorabilia

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Unpublished Conference Documents

The PDF files below contain photographs of documents circulated at the Bretton Woods conference, from daily news bulletins to the telephone directory at the Mount Washington Hotel. These documents were not published in the 1948 conference proceedings because they were considered to be of low interest. We found many but not all of the unpublished conference documents. Many of the PDF files are very large and not easily viewed with slow Internet connections.

Questions and Answers on the Bank for Reconstruction and Development (June 10) New!
   - Also available in a more readable format as a CFS paper New!
Document 20 Provisional Telephone Directory (July 1)
Document 33 Secretariat Notice (July 1; Numbering Duplication)
Document 39 Secretariat Notice (July 1?; Maplewood-Mount Washington Bus Schedule)
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Memorabilia

July 1, 1944 Bretton Woods Conference
Source: United Nations

More Photos

The Bretton Woods Project at the CFS offers many photographs of historic figures at this iconic conference. Similarly, the Project seeks to build a living library of images and recordings from the conference or from those who were directly impacted by the conference. If you have images that we can digitize and share with the public, please contact Kurt Schuler,kschuler@the-cfs.org.

The Original Transcripts

The PDF files below contain photographs of the typewritten transcripts of meetings at the Bretton Woods conference. The transcripts are keyed to the corresponding chapters in the book. Many of the PDF files are very large and not easily viewed with slow Internet connections.

Commission I: International Monetary Fund
	Chapter 2 First Meeting	July 3, 1944	Transcript
	Chapter 3 Second Meeting	July 5	Transcript
	Chapter 4 Third Meeting	July 10	Transcript
	Chapter 5 Fourth Meeting	July 13	Transcript
	Chapter 6 Fifth Meeting	July 14	Transcript
	Chapter 7 Sixth Meeting	July 15 Afternoon	Transcript
	Chapter 8 Seventh Meeting	July 15 Evening	Transcript
	Chapter 9 Eighth Meeting	July 18	Transcript
	Chapter 10 Ninth (Final) Meeting	July 19	Transcript

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Proceedings and Documents of the Bretton Woods Conference In 1948 the U.S. Department of State issued a two-volume set of proceedings from the Bretton Woods conference. The proceedings contain minutes of all major and most minor committee meetings. The ground rules of the conference, however, stated that minutes would generally avoid telling who said what. Minutes are accordingly much shorter than the corresponding transcripts, usually only describing the outcome of debates and smoothing over controversies rather than giving the full flavor of what transpired. Our Table of Contents Volume 1 (external link, very large PDF file) Volume 2 (external link, very large PDF file)

Further Material

• Excel file showing the evolution of the IMF and World Bank agreements. The file shows four stages of the IMF agreement, from the pre-Bretton Woods “Joint Statement” to the final agreement, and the initial draft and final version of the World Bank agreement.
• “Planning for Postwar Economic Cooperation: The U.S. Treasury, the Soviet Union, and Bretton Woods (1933-1946)” (Ph.D. dissertation, St. Louis University, 2000, copyrighted by Peter Acsay and reproduced with his permission; click here for his Web site)
• “Bretton Woods Agreements: A Bibliography, April 1943-December 1945” Library of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Detailed; compiled 1946. Very large PDF file.
• Archives of the International Monetary Fund (see “Bretton Woods Conference Collection”)
• FRASER (Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research)

http://www.centerforfinancialstability.org/brettonwoods_docs.php

http://www.centerforfinancialstability.org/images/bretton_cover.pdf

http://www.centerforfinancialstability.org/bw/Proceedings_TOC.pdf