Browse the Constituent Correspondence Sub-series collection
The Constituent Correspondence Sub-series contains letters sent to Senator Glenn from a multitude of people writing to express their concerns, comments, and opinions on a wide range of policy issues, congressional legislation, and current topics prevalent from 1975 through 1998. Most of these people were from the State of Ohio, but included are letters sent by people from across the United States. Contained within the sub-series are the original letters from constituents for the years 1975, 1976 and 1978. Letters from these three years are filed per year by the major policy topic discussed within the constituent's letter. Researchers should note that Senator Glenn's staff maintained just a sampling of the constituent letters for these three years. In general, the staff kept one letter in ten within each policy topic. The sub-series contains no letters for the year 1977.
Included in the sub-series are copies of the letters sent out by Senator Glenn in response to the constituent issue mail. Drafted by various members of Glenn's legislative staff, these reply letters were kept in a "letter library" for staff to use in responding to constituent letters on any given policy topic, legislative measure, or current event. During Senator Glenn's four terms in the U.S. Senate his staff compiled three such letter libraries. The first holds letters written prior to 1986, the second dates from 1986 to 1990, and the third dates from 1990 to 1998. Each letter library contains an extensive number of reply letters. There are 1,991 letters dating prior to 1986, 854 letters in the 1986 to 1990 library, and 1,320 letters in the library dating from 1990 to 1998. In addition to the body of text, each reply letter lists the letter's number, the title, the topic and sub-topic, the letter's creation date, the date of any update to the letter, and the initials of the staff member who drafted the letter. The arrangement of each of the three letter libraries is numeric by letter number as originally maintained. A major policy topic index and a numeric listing are available for the library containing letters written prior to 1986. Another topic index dated 1995, with a corresponding numeric listing, is also available. In addition to these two indexes is a series of reply letters sorted and arranged by major policy topic. Reply letters within this series date from 1996 to 1998.
From 1979 through 1998 the Senate Mail Service office routinely microfilmed Senator Glenn's constituent issue mail. The sub-series contains five hundred and four rolls of this microfilm arranged in numeric order by roll number. Additional microfilm rolls within the sub-series contain a name index for the combined years of 1979 and 1980, and separate name indexes for each year from 1981 through October 1995. The index lists the constituent's name and address, the number of the letter from the library of reply letters used in response, the policy topic and sub-topic, the date of the constituent's letter, and a ten-digit document number. This ten-digit document number corresponds to the document numbers located within the issue mail microfilm rolls. Researchers should note that there are no indexes for the issue mail dating from November 1995 through December 1998, nor is a subject index available for the constituent issue mail.
From 1979 through October 1995, the label for each microfilm roll lists the first four digits of the ten-digit document number assigned to the first and last documents located on the roll. These ten-digit document numbers are found on the letter work order form filmed prior to the constituent letter. This form also includes the number of the letter used from the library of reply letters in response to the constituent letter, lines for any additional wording, and a line for the date the reply was mailed. In many instances office staff used the letter work order form for a batch of constituent mail on the same policy topic. Researchers should note, however, that only the letter work order form was filmed for batches of around ten or more constituent letters on the same policy topic.
Starting in November 1995, the Senate Mail Service used a new system, called Quorum, to answer the constituent issue mail. This system did not use document numbers on the letter work order form. The form lists the issue topic, the number of the reply letter from the letter library used in response, and the date the reply was mailed. The form also contains lines for any additional wording if needed.