Series I.A. Editor-in-Chief Hedley Donovan Files, 1948-1989 (bulk 1959-1979), inclusive

The Appointment Books document Donovan Hedley's schedule, professional and personal, and many of the years contain multiple books. As some are marked "T. Lanz," these are probably the books of his schedule kept by his executive secretary Gertrude "Trudi" Lanz. Some are marked with "Mrs. Donovan" indicating they are his wife Dorothy Donovan's schedule. Books similar in appearance to the marked books are tentatively attributed to her. A few of the books from 1973 were removed from a tax audit accordion folder that also contained expense reports.

Expense Reports contain Hedley Donovan's reported expenses for his corporate account. Some reports from 1973 were removed from a tax audit accordion folder which also contained appointment books.

Research and Development Reports contains reports from various staff regarding their research into new areas for Time Inc. such as the role of the magazine in culture, educational texts, audio-visual media, newspaper publishing, and new magazines.

Speeches, Lectures, and Presentations contains invitations, correspondence, memoranda, notes, itineraries and other records regarding speeches, lectures and presentations by Hedley Donovan. All are duplicated files, but not all of the materials are copies created by the Time Inc. Archives. The files include some original copies, extra copies, carbon copies, and a very few original items.

The Subject Files contain the majority of Donovan's correspondence and other office files and work product including remarks at board meetings; event invitations; press clippings; internal correspondence and memoranda; correspondent cables; and correspondence from former and future United States presidents along with Congress members, heads of companies, presidents and directors at universities, and other notable people. The Subject Files folders are frequently labeled on the front cover in handwriting which looks like Donovan's. Some of the files contain cross-reference sheets indicating the Time Inc. Archives completed some work.

The files labeled as "1959-1979" and "1969-1978" are two groups of files that are labeled similarly to the alphabetical Subject Files and found together as folders and loose material. This might be material removed for research purposes, by Donovan or someone else, and not refiled into the original folders. Materials within each group have a loose topical relationship, and similar topics are in the alphabetically organized Subject Files. For "1959-1979" the majority of the materials were loose. The topics cover politics, United States presidents from Kennedy to Carter, and other politicians during this era. For "1969-1978" the majority of the materials were loose, and cover three topical areas: suspension of Life, research on the press, and speeches or talks.

The miscellaneous files within the alphabetical run contain primarily correspondence along with article proposals, request for issues of magazines, complaints about facts in articles, thank yous, and memos regarding staff, correspondence with board members such as Sol M. Linowitz and Thomas J. Watson, Jr., and extensive correspondence from several notable people including Malcom Forbes, Gaylord Freeman, Jr., George McGhee, Arthur "Red" Motley, Elmo Roper, Dean Rusk, and John Volpe. Some items of note in the miscellaneous files include a letter from the U.S. Embassy regarding Mrs. Gandhi (in "B-Miscellaneous"); letters from Buckminster Fuller describing "Spaceship Earth"; and a letter from Florida senator Billy Graham regarding Time's Black Panther articles. Even when there is a specific file on a person or event, additional records may be in the respective miscellaneous file, such as with Herman Nickel, John Oakes, Carl Solberg, and Cyrus Vance.

In order to get background information on people or places and to stay apprised of current events and trends, Donovan utilized research assistants to write briefs on various topics. Briefs from Time reporter Dorothy "Dottie" Ferenbaugh are the most prevalent in Donovan's files. There are extensive research memos from Ferenbaugh in her own file as well as throughout the Subject Files on topics including: number of deaths of Black Panther party members due to encounters with the police; women's magazines; Time Inc. stockholders; summaries of New York Times articles; Time's association with university curriculum; Time's coverage of Guatemala; and the publishing industry.

Other items of interest include the compiled critiques on Time from throughout the United States and Canada found in "Attitudes", and the specifics on Donovan's business meetings in the "Lunches and Dinners" files which contain attendee and special guest lists, invitations, agenda, and correspondence.

The duplicate Subject Files may contain material not represented in the original alphabetical files although they include similar topics.