Some FTC-related materials may be available at major research libraries. These include, for example:
- FTC decision volumes;
- Reports published by the FTC;
- Congressional hearings at which Commission witnesses testified; and
- Microfilm copies of Presidential papers that include materials relating to Commission appointments and to the White House’s dealings with Commissioners.
Some of these materials may also be available on online subscription services.
Also, here are some places to find FTC-related materials, particularly primary sources.
Online Resources
In recent years, the FTC has posted most publicly available documents online. Additionally, the Commission has published deeper historical collections of the FTC Decisions (dating back to 1949), the agency’s Annual Reports (beginning with the first Annual Report from 1916), and many of the minutes from the FTC’s first decade.
Since 2007, the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association has developed a substantial library of oral histories, including interviews with former FTC Commissioners and senior staff. These interviews are available online in video form.
Many reports from the agency’s earliest first decade are available in full-text form on Google Books.
We also link below in this bibliography to some specific materials that are located online from non-pay sources.
The FTC Library, Washington DC
The Commission’s library houses a wide repository of primary and secondary materials relating to the FTC and trade regulation, ranging from agency decisions and reports to bound volumes of speeches by many Commissioners and internal bulletins.
Presidential Libraries
The National Archives and Records Administration administer Presidential libraries for former Presidents beginning with Herbert Hoover, and NARA’s web page provides links to these libraries. Some of these libraries also house other papers relating to the FTC; most notably, the Truman library has papers from three Commissioners. The University of Virginia’s Miller Center also has information on the locations of Presidential papers.
Some of these materials, including some oral histories, are available online. As noted above, many Presidential papers are also available on microfilm.
The Library of Congress, Washington DC
The Library of Congress holds papers from the Progressive Era Presidents who contributed to the debate about creating the FTC -- Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson -- as well as the papers of Calvin Coolidge. These too are available on microfilm.
The library also holds papers from several Commissioners and some important agency staff, as detailed elsewhere in this index
National Archives, College Park, MD (“Archives II”)
The National Archives in College Park, MD, houses extensive collections of external and internal agency records, and a summary index is available online. These include Commission minutes through 1969, records of adjudicative cases (including many internal memoranda), press releases, and a wide variety of other records generated within, or submitted to, the FTC. The Archives also has index cards that the Commission used as filing systems in the pre-electronic days. For example, one set of index cards serves as a guide to the Commission’s minutes through 1969.
This commemorative bibliography was compiled by Marc Winerman.