Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

The collection is without restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

Virginia Credit Union League Papers, 1923-1991, Accession #11102, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

These papers were given to the University of Virginia Library on July 26, 1993, by Eugene Farley, President of the Virginia Credit Union League, Lynchburg, Virginia, through William Wilkerson, Assistant Provost for Research, University of Virginia.

Scope and Content Information

This collection consists of ca. 16,000 items, 1923-1991, and contains correspondence, printed material, minutes, and related materials, much of which was formerly housed in three-ring notebooks (probably by the League Historian and Editor of The Virginian , Jack O'Connor), all pertaining to the history and operations of the Virginia Credit Union League. The Virginia Credit Union League was organized on November 26, 1934, and became incorporated in 1952.

The League was founded "to promote the organization and development of credit unions in Virginia, to represent the credit unions on a state and national basis, to originate favorable legislation and to guard against attacks on present laws, to provide advice and counsel in the development of local credit union chapters, to maintain a state-wide publication for the dissemination of information for credit union operations, and to maintain a central source for the dissemination of information about applicable governmental laws and regulations."

The collection is arranged in two series, 1) Minutes and Credit Union League History Papers and 2) Miscellaneous Topical Files re the Virginia Credit Union League. The first series, 1953-1991, arranged in reverse chronological order within the year, comprises the material found in three-ring binders and consists of the minutes of the Board of Directors meetings, the Executive Committee meetings, Education Committee meetings, other occasional committee meetings, and the Annual Conventions, including minutes of the Virginia League Central Credit Union; notices and bulletins; reports of various committees; treasurer's reports and financial summaries; printed material; statements concerning policies and objectives; reports of the managing director; issues of the official publication for the V.C.U.L., The Virginian ; correspondence; copies of addresses and speeches; memoranda; agendas for meetings; nominations; rosters of Virginia Credit Union officers; notes concerning the V.C.U.L. meetings kept by Jack O'Connor; and credit union memorabilia.

Many of these records in the first series were assembled to help compile an updated history of the Virginia Credit Union League. In about 1968, Jack O'Connor, a member of the League Education Committee for a total of twenty years, was appointed League Historian. O'Connor wrote several long-time activists in the credit union, such as Managing Director Eugene H. Farley, Jr., Dollie Reynolds (a League Director), C.L. Shackelford (League President 1952-1953, President of the Danville Chapter, and former editor of The Virginian ), and E.L. Field (League President 1936-1937), asking for their help in assembling earlier League records into a new history to supplement E.L. Field's Virginia Credit Union League History 1922-1954 (see Box 29). O'Connor was a very active volunteer in the Virginia Credit Union League, Editor of The Virginian , President of the Tidewater Chapter of the Credit Union, a founding father and the only President of the St. Pius X Federal Credit Union until his death in 1979. O'Connor's history was never published in book form but appeared in monthly historical segments in The Virginian .

The second series consists of miscellaneous topical files pertaining to the V.C.U.L. (Boxes 22-32). Among these are the correspondence and records kept by E.L. Field (Boxes 24-26), 1923-1966, arranged in chronological order, dating from Field's (d. 1973) election as president of the Richmond Postal Credit Union, the first successful credit union in Virginia, on September 7, 1923. These records are used frequently for the earliest years covered in the latest history of the Virginia Credit Union League, Of the People, By the People, and For the People by William R. Wilkerson (1993). Topics in these papers include the Welfare Council; co-operative buying; the Local Service Council; the establishment of credit unions in Petersburg, Norfolk, Roanoke, and elsewhere; the use of the credit union to purchase economical group life insurance policies; the extension of credit unions to other postal employee groups; a copy of the 1934 application for membership in the Credit Union National Association (CUNA), with Field elected Vice-President of the Virginia Credit Union League, and the first meeting of the Board of Directors.

Correspondents of Field include: Henry S. Dennison (First Director of the United States Post Office Department of Service Relations Division); Louis Brehm (Assistant Director of the Service Relations Division); Roy F. Bergengren (1879-1955), the executive secretary of the Credit Union National Extension Bureau until 1934, when there were enough credit union associations on the state level to organize the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) - Bergengren became its managing director (until his retirement in 1945); E.G. Swem; Angela Melville; J.C. Cotten; M.E. Bristow (Chief Examiner of Banks, State Corporation Commission); and Howard T. Colvin.

Committees with files in this series include the Advertising (Marketing) Committee; the Education Committee; the Legislative and Liaison Committee; the Planning Committee; and the Policy Committee. Individual files on the Virginia Credit Union League Conventions begin with the Fourteenth Annual Convention held at the Mosque, Richmond, Virginia, on May 29, 1948, and continue into the seventies. Records for the annual conventions are also filed by date in the first series of minutes and league history papers.

Printed Material with individual folders include "The Little Man Says" an education-oriented newsletter, named after the credit union symbol of the little man carrying an umbrella; notices and bulletins; copies of The Virginian and folders on reporters for the publication (copies of this publication can also be found in the first series by date); and miscellaneous printed items pertaining to the credit union movement (Box 28) including newsletters from North Carolina, early copies of The Virginian (1946 Oct-Nov; 1947 Apr; 1949 Feb); copies of the Credit Union Bridge (1955 Oct; 1959 Feb); reprinted addresses by Edward A. Filene (1860-1937), a leader of the progressive reform movement in Boston; and The Debt Shall Die With the Debtor The CUNA Mutual Insurance Society Story by Charles F. Eikel, Jr.

Other items in the second series include blank examples of checklists and forms used by credit unions; reports about the credit union; a file on the Chapter Leaders Seventh Annual Conference; and the CUNA School for Credit Union Personnel Lecture Outlines belonging to Garland K. Keeling (1918-1967) who became managing director of the V.C.U.L. in 1949, serving for seventeen and half years until his death in 1967. There are also records of the Virginia League Central Credit Union, 1964-1973, "a state-wide credit union for members of affiliated credit unions offering services unavailable locally," in individual folders (Box 30) as well as mixed in with the other minutes in the first series by date. All of the various League histories by Field and O'Connor, with copies of research material and notes for use in the history, can be found in Box 29. Also present in this series is a file about Virginia Credit Union Services, Incorporated, founded to provide electronic data processing and other contract services to credit unions and the papers of the Tidewater Chapter of the V.C.U.L., 1964-1965, when Jack O'Connor was President and Vice-President.