0.47 linear feet of textual records; 25 photographs

Topics covered in this series include reorganization of the World Bank, procurement review, communications, loan documentation, World Bank Group (Bank Group) studies, the succession of Bank Group presidents, and improving efficiency in the Bank Group.

This series contains various textual records: correspondence (e.g., with Robert S. McNamara, J. Henry Smith, Warren C. Baum, etc.); personnel files (pertaining to Sommers's personal information data, employment history, reappointments, semi-annual summaryof work activities, etc.); copies of transcripts (i.e., Sommers's two oral history interviews in 1961 and 1985 and a conversation between Sommers, John J. McCloy, and Richard Demuth in 1984); speeches (e.g., "Legal Aspects of the International Bank's Structure and Juridical Personality," February 20, 1950; and "Legal Problems Arising in the Bank?s Loan Operations", February 24, 1950;) articles given by and/or written by Sommers (e.g., a description of the World Bank and its operations, presented in Mexico City in February 1950; an address entitled "Early Days of the Bank given to Bank staff in 1960"; and a 1984 article for the Bank/IMF periodical, Finance and Development, to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the Bretton Woods Conference); publications (e.g., a photocopy of Sommers's "The World in Ferment", July-August 1967); newspaper clippings; copies of International Bank Notes; and many more.

This series also contains photographs documenting: World Bank's B building remodeling in the late 1950s,a British-Egyptian negotiation in 1959 (possibly the Suez Canal negotiations; individuals include Sommers, Eugene Black, and an unidentified Egyptian negotiator), the World Bank's twentieth-anniversary luncheon in 1966 (individuals include John J. McCloy, George D. Woods, Eugene Black, Martin Rosen, etc.), and the Pension Finance Committee in 1985 and 1987 (e.g., John Lowe, John Hagler, etc.).

Records in this series are arranged by subject and thereunder chronologically.

Records are subject to the World Bank Policy on Access to Information.

Records are subject to the Copyright Policy of the World Bank Group.

• English

Internal World Bank Group Archives rules based on ISAD(G).

17 October 2022