Records of the President’s Office
Scope and Contents
The Records of the Office of the President include reports submitted to and by the presidents, primarily after 1953, as well as materials about each individual president and their inaugurations. Though there are materials related to the Office of the President prior to 1953, documents relating to this period can be found in the collections of the Pratt Family or the Pratt family member who held the position of president.
Also included are documents pertinent to Pratt's Board of Trustees, the Institute's merger with Phoenix School (previously New York School of Applied Design for Women), blueprints, Cronar negatives, mortgages, and deeds surrounding the school's real estate ventures, and legal and financial documents, as well as correspondences, memorandums, and notes betwixt administrators. Beyond the aforementioned groups, relevant parties include but are not limited to: Hattie E. Puyol, Richardson Pratt Jr., Roy Goldfarb, Richard Heindel, James Donovan, Donald Mathis, Henry Saltzman, Brooklyn Educational and Cultural Alliance, Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities, Committee of Correspondence for Independent Higher Education in New York, Pratt Institute Engineers Alumni Association, Teachers' Insurance and Annuity Association of America, and the New York Supreme Court.
Dates
- 1891 - 2020
Creator
- Pratt Institute (Organization)
- Donovan, James B. (James Britt), 1916-1970 (Person)
- Heindel, Richard H. (Richard Heathcote), 1912-1979 (Person)
- Ilchman, Warren Frederick (Person)
- Maddox, William Percy, 1901-1972 (Person)
- Schutte, Thomas F. (Person)
- Pratt, Charles Millard, 1855-1935 (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open to the public. Records of the President's Office are restricted for 25 years after the date of creation while Records of the Board of Trustees are restricted for 50 years after the date of creation.
Conditions Governing Use
For permission to publish, contact the Archivist, Pratt Institute Library.
Biographical / Historical
The President is the chief executive officer of Pratt Institute. From 1887 to 1940 the position was as President of the Board of Trustees. After 1940 the President has been appointed by the Board, but the administrative functions of the office are separate from those of the Board. The list of presidents since the school’s founding are as follows:
Charles Pratt (founder), 1887-1891
Charles Millard Pratt, 1891-1923
Frederic B. Pratt, 1923-1937
Charles Pratt, 1937-1953
Frances H. Horn, 1953-1957
Robert F. Oxnam, 1957-1961
Richard H. Heindel, 1961-1967
William P. Maddox (acting), 1967-1968
James B. Donovan, 1968-1970
Henry Saltzman (acting), 1970-1972
Richardson Pratt, Jr., 1972-1990
Warren Ilchman, 1990-1993
Thomas Schutte, 1993-2017
Frances Bronet, 2018-present
Extent
25.64 Linear Feet (79 containers: 62 documents boxes, 2 artifact boxes, 16 clamshell book enclosures, and 2 oversize folders. )
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
The Records of the Office of the President include reports submitted to and by the presidents from 1895 to 2015 as well as materials about each individual president and their inaugurations. The records also include paper records related to institutional advancement submitted to and by the presidents, administrative records from the Phoenix School (previously New York School of Applied Design for Women), as well as materials submitted to and by the Pratt Board of Trustees from 1892 to 1993.
Arrangement
The records are arranged in nine series:
1. Reports to the President’s Office, 1952–1971
2. President's Annual Reports, 1895-circa 2004
3. Presidents, 1940–2018
4. Board of Trustees, 1948-1988
5. New York School of Applied Design for Women & New York-Phoenix School of Design, 1892-1967
6. Legal, 1948-1979
7. Real Estate, 1897-1984
8. Financial Records, 1960-1969
8. Miscellaneous, 1961-2020
Accruals
Further accruals are expected.
Harmful Language Statement
If you encounter any pejorative language (i.e. racist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic) or content in the finding aids or within the content of the collection, please send an email to archives.library@pratt.edu with the relevant details. For more information about how the Pratt Institute Libraries are addressing offensive language and content across its catalogs and databases, please see the Libraries' Harmful Language Statement: https://library.pratt.edu/statement/2022/05/27/harmful-language.html.
Processing Information
This finding aid was written by Ian Post in 2016. Further accruals were processed finding aid written during the Spring 2022 semester by Sara Almai, Rachel Brenner, Gina Divencenzi, Jacob Edwards, Katherine Graves, Catherine Hartup, Anna Jacboson, Ava
Kaplan, Michelle Kennedy, Olivia Meehan, Ellis Mikelic, Tori Stratis, Aditya Narasimhan Tirumalai Srinidhi, Peter Victor-Gasper, and Bonnie Whitehouse and by Caroline Zhu, Liwen HU, and Isaac Womack during Fall 2022 as part of INFO-625 School of Information course taught by Institute Archivist Cristina Fontánez Rodríguez.
Descriptive Rules Used: Finding aid adheres to that prescribed by Describing Archives: A Content Standard. Finding aid written in English
- Accreditation (Education) Subject Source: Fast
- Administration Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Annual reports Subject Source: Fast
- Architectural drawings Subject Source: Fast
- Business correspondence Subject Source: Fast
- By-laws Subject Source: Fast
- College campuses Subject Source: Fast
- College facilities Subject Source: Fast
- Engineering--Study and teaching (Higher) Subject Source: Fast
- Industrial design--Study and teaching Subject Source: Fast
- Minutes (Records) Subject Source: Fast
- New York (State) -- New York -- Brooklyn Subject Source: Fast
- New York School of Applied Design for Women (Creator)
- Photographs Subject Source: Fast
- Portraits Subject Source: Fast
- Pratt, Charles, 1830-1891
- Pratt-Phoenix School of Design (Creator)
- Professional education of women Subject Source: Fast
- Records (Documents) Subject Source: Fast
- Strategic planning Subject Source: Fast
- Strategic planning Subject Source: Library Of Congress Subject Headings
- Strategic planning Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Universities and colleges -- Administration Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Universities and colleges--Administration Subject Source: Fast
- Universities and colleges--Alumni and alumnae Subject Source: Fast
- Universities and colleges--Curricula Subject Source: Fast
- Universities and colleges--Faculty Subject Source: Fast
- Title
- Guide to the Records of the President’s Office
- Author
- Ian Post
- Date
- 2016
- Language of description
- Undetermined
- Script of description
- Code for undetermined script
Revision Statements
- May 5th, 2023: This finding aid was revised updated by Cristina Fontánez Rodríguez to merge and update records processed by School of Information graduate students during Spring 2022 and Fall 2022 semesters.
Repository Details
Part of the Pratt Institute Archives Repository
200 Willoughby Avenue
Brooklyn NY 11205 United States
718-687-5381
archives.library@pratt.edu