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Robert M. Morgenthau (1919-2019) served as the District Attorney for New York County (the borough of Manhattan) for 35 years (1974-2009) and made a reputation for prosecuting white-collar crime. In this regard, the Papers hold many research files covering such aspects of white-collar crime as money laundering, offshore banking and tax havens. Morgenthau rarely handled a case himself. He delegated prosecutions to key aides in his office of 500 lawyers. Although not comprehensive, the Papers do contain a few files of assignment sheets covering the period (1938-2008). These sheets indicate which bureau each Assistant District Attorney was assigned to each month. The Papers, in turn, do not have any employment information about individual lawyers or the specific cases they worked on while employed in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office under Morgenthau. However, researchers should review "Series VI: Press Releases" and "Series VIII: Statements and Testimonies before Local, State and National Governmental Bodies," in order to gain an understanding of the issues handled by the Manhattan DA office during Robert Morgenthau's tenure.

Minutes, correspondence, annual reports, press releases, financial records, photographs, memorabilia, audiovisual, digital and printed materials document the philanthropic activities and administration of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The collection is actively growing, primarily through regular document transfers from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Andrew Carnegie's biographical information and personal philanthropic activity can be found in Series VII. In addition, his pre-1911 gifts, most notably his donations for libraries and church organs, can be found on microfilm (Series II), in the Home Trust Company Records (VI.A), and Financial Record Books (I.C.1). Grant files (Series III.A), which comprise the bulk of the collection) provide information on projects and institutions founded, endowed or supported by the Corporation. The Special Initiatives series (Series IV) contains the records of task forces, commissions and councils, formed by the Corporation mostly during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s to address specific issues. The Corporation's records include those of other Carnegie philanthropic organizations (Series VI), including the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Home Trust Company, both of which shared staff, officers, and office space with the Corporation for a period of time.

The Corporation awards grants to nonprofit organizations and institutions for projects that are broadly educational in nature and that show promise of having national or international impact. Certain appropriations are made for activities, such as Corporation-led initiatives that are administered by the foundation's officers. The trustees set the overall policies of the foundation and have final authority to approve all grants above $50,000 recommended by the program staff. Grants of $25,000 or less, called discretionary grants, are made upon the approval of the president and are reported to the board; larger discretionary grants, those between $25,000 and $50,000, are also reviewed by a Corporation-wide group, which makes recommendations to the president. (from Program Guidelines 2003-2004 (http://www.carnegie.org/sub/program/areas.html))

The Ellsworth papers are an important complement to the AIUSA archives at Columbia, and will be especially valuable for the study of the early years and genesis of AIUSA's organizational and operational structures. This accession fills our collecting objective of acquiring personal papers of human rights advocates that align closely with the organizational archives in the CHRDR collections.