The Hugo V. Mailey Papers, 1953-1989
Collection
Identifier: 03-41-003-001
Scope and Content
The Hugo V. Mailey Papers, 1953-1989, consist of correspondence, reports, pamphlets, action proposals, newspaper clippings, photographs, and the professional and organizational records of Dr. Mailey during his time at Wilkes College as the Director of Institute of Regional Affairs and as a political science professor. This collection spans a wide range of years, 1953-1989, and contain Dr. Mailey’s work with multiple organizations and with many associates. Although Mailey died in 1971, many of these organizational files continue into the late 1980s, revealing Dr. Mailey's legacy on regional organizations and social programs.
This collection is divided into six series, with some of them having smaller subseries to further organize the documents based on specific topics and content. As the Head of the Department of Political Science at Wilkes College, he coordinated many events on campus, within Wilkes-Barre, and the other areas in the Susquehanna Valley.
This collection is divided into six series, with some of them having smaller subseries to further organize the documents based on specific topics and content. As the Head of the Department of Political Science at Wilkes College, he coordinated many events on campus, within Wilkes-Barre, and the other areas in the Susquehanna Valley.
Series I:Community Programs and Involvement, 1959-1984, contains documents pertaining to different local government programs and projects in the Wyoming Valley. This series is broken up into four subseries regarding different aspects of Mailey’s interaction with the community. It contains Hugo Mailey’s speeches and correspondence with associates who partook in different conferences and annual dinners during his career. The series also contains notable letters and reports regarding potential projects for Concrete City in Nanticoke, which Wilkes College acquired on November 5, 1964 from the Glen Alden Coal Company. Concrete City had been abandoned for 40 years prior to Wilkes’ land purchase. Dr. Mailey’s vision was to gain more regional support in converting the grounds into a modern training facility for fire, civil, and police officials.
Series II: Sewer and Sanitary Development, 1956-1968, contains the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority files. The different types of documents range from technical reports on the allocution of money and resources, to rules and regulations for employees and facilities maintenance.
Series III: Newspaper Files, 1972-1976 contains clippings from newspaper articles following Mailey’s passing in 1971. Ranging from local newspapers to the New York Times, these articles describe various stories of Wilkes events and the surrounding areas, revealing the impact of Mailey’s involvement in local and regional organizations.
Series IV:Community Education Programs, 1966-1976 contains files related to K-12 grade school programs and information regarding the various school districts in the area. The series consists of correspondence regarding Wilkes’ payments to partnered school districts for extra curricular school programs, and documents that explain Wilkes programs offered directly to interested students. The most notable of these programs is Upward Bound, a program still offered by Wilkes today to low-income families with high school students who wish to get an early start with their college career and have access to programs that help them succeed in a college academic environment.
Series V: Wilkes College Administration Files, 1953-1989, contains various files from different departments and offices at Wilkes, including contemporary events for the staff and faculty, memos about faculty meetings and newsletters, letters related to the Office of Continuing Education’s activities, and departmental budget reports for the fiscal year.
Dates
- 1953-1989
Access:
Open for Research except for one restricted box with files that have been removed from different series across the collection.
Biographical Sketch:
Dr. Hugo V. Mailey was an important public figure in the Wyoming Valley region of Northeastern Pennsylvania, and worked to fix a number of issues the area had been facing from the 1950s into the 1970s. Dr. Mailey arrived at Wilkes College in 1946 from Bridgeport High school in Pennsylvania, and eventually became the Head of the Political Science department. His own education included degrees from both West Chester State Teachers College in Chester County Pennsylvania, and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He is known for being the founder of the Institute of Municipal Government (known later as the Institute for Regional Affairs) at Wilkes College, doing work for the Pennsylvania Economy League, and most famously for his contribution in creating the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority in 1962.
At the beginning of his role as Director of Institute for Regional affairs, he and his team tackled a variety of issues from the late 1950s into the early 1970s, such as implementing civil service rules and regulations for different towns, analyzing tax collections for Luzerne County, comparing rural and urban school districts in Luzerne County, and collaborating with joint police services in areas such as Fairview, Wright Townships, and Back Mountain. This work led him to his eventual creation of the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority in 1962, where he brought 14 communities in the Wyoming Valley region together to create a solution to better manage the wastewater in the area. Up until its creation, the sewage from the valley communities was flowing directly into the Susquehanna River and oftentimes this included not just wastewater from cities but waste from old mines as well. The state then told communities that they would have to be responsible for treating this wastewater themselves, to which Dr. Mailey began organizing a way in which to convince the surrounding communities to embrace the idea of regionalization. He was successful, and after he created it on December 12th, 1962 he then served as the authority’s first executive director part-time. Later, he went on to further help the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority build their sewage treatment plant in the Breslau section of Hanover township in 1969 where it still operates today.
In March of 1971, Dr. Mailey died at the age of 55 of a heart attack while at his desk. He was known for being intelligent, efficient, honest, and trusted. These attributes would allow him to not only accomplish great things for his community, but for the entire Wyoming Valley region.
Extent
12 boxes (12 boxes total (9 full, 3 half boxes)) : 4.17 linear feet
Language of Materials
English
Condition:
This collection was affected by the 1972 Hurricane Agnes flood. A lot of the material is flood-damaged, ink is faded, and some pages have stuck together or are in frail condition.
Provenance:
The provenance and the original order of the Hugo Mailey Papers is unknown. This is an artificial collection created off of the order of the inventory that Elizabeth Sullivan created in 2012. Because Hugo Mailey passed away in 1971 and this collection continues into 1989, the archivist has confirmed that papers from Political Science professor Phil Tuhey and former Institute of Regional Affairs Director, Andrew Shaw, were combined into the Hugo Mailey papers. It's difficult to determine which materials belonged to Shaw and which belonged to Tuhey, however they are the most likely source for this donation.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Acquisition: It is unknown when the University Archives received these materials. The first documentation of them in the collections is an inventory created in 2012 by Elizabeth Sullivan.
Copyright Status:
Anyone can read or obtain copies of any of the materials for research purposes but if the researcher wants to quote from the materials, they will need to obtain copyright permission from Wilkes University Archives.
Further References:
https://www.citizensvoice.com/news/mailey-was-force-behind-early-regionalization-efforts/article_ebe6d19b-abac-5032-ab65-79a311357995.html
Series Descriptions
This collection is divided into six series, with some of them having smaller subseries to further organize the documents based on specific topics and content. As the Head of the Department of Political Science at Wilkes College, he coordinated many events on campus, within Wilkes-Barre, and other areas in the Susquehanna Valley.
Series I: Community Programs and Involvement, 1959-1984
The first series, Community Programs and Involvement, 1959-1984, contains documents pertaining to different local government programs and projects in the Wyoming Valley. This series is broken up into four subseries regarding different aspects of Mailey’s interaction with the community. It contains Hugo Mailey’s speeches and correspondence with associates who partook in different conferences and annual dinners during his career. The series also contains notable letters and reports regarding potential projects for Concrete City in Nanticoke, which Wilkes College acquired on November 5, 1964 from the Glen Alden Coal Company. Concrete City had been abandoned for 40 years prior to Wilkes’ land purchase. Dr. Mailey’s vision was to gain more regional support in converting the grounds into a modern training facility for fire, civil, and police officials.
This series is arranged into four subseries: Subseries I: City Development Programs and Outside Organizations, 1959-1983, Subseries II: Budgets and Economic Developments, 1966-1972, Subseries III:Health, Wellness, and First Responders, 1966-1984, and Subseries IV: Townships and Boroughs, 1973.
This series is arranged into four subseries: Subseries I: City Development Programs and Outside Organizations, 1959-1983, Subseries II: Budgets and Economic Developments, 1966-1972, Subseries III:Health, Wellness, and First Responders, 1966-1984, and Subseries IV: Townships and Boroughs, 1973.
Series I: Subseries I: City Development Programs and Outside Organizations, 1959-1983
This subseries is arranged chronologically and consists of Dr. Mailey’s Institute of Regional Affairs and Institute of Municipal Government files from 1959 to 1983. Included in this subseries are correspondence and reports for various organizations such as The Flood Recovery Task Force, Inc., American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, and Wyoming Borough Civil Service Commission.
Series I, Subseries II: Budgets and Economic Developments, 1966-1972
This subseries is arranged chronologically and consists of budgets and economic reports from different offices and departments that are involved with the community and local government.
Series I, Subseries III: Health, Wellness, and First Responders, 1966-1984
This subseries is arranged chronologically and consists of documentation regarding various different health services, as well as a directory for the the different ambulance services throughout Pennsylvania at the time.
Series I, Subseries IV: Townships and Boroughs, 1973
This subseries is arranged chronologically and consists of reports and newspaper clippings on the various townships and boroughs in the Wyoming Valley.
Series II: The Sewer and Sanitary Development, 1956-1968
The second series, Sewer and Sanitary Development, 1956-1968, contains the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority files. The different types of documents range from technical reports on the allocution of money and resources, to rules and regulations for employees and facilities maintenance.
Series III: The Newspaper Files, 1972-1976
The third series, “Newspaper Files, 1972-1976”, contains clippings from newspaper articles following Mailey’s passing in 1971. Ranging from local newspapers to the New York Times, these articles describe various stories of Wilkes events and the surrounding areas, revealing the impact of Mailey’s involvement in local and regional organizations.
Series IV: Community Education Programs, 1966-1976
The fourth series, “Community Education Programs, 1966-1976” contains files related to K-12 grade school programs and information regarding the various school districts in the area. The series consists of correspondence regarding Wilkes’ payments to partnered school districts for extra curricular school programs, and documents that explain Wilkes programs offered directly to interested students. The most notable of these programs is Upward Bound, a program still offered by Wilkes today to low-income families with high school students who wish to get an early start with their college career and have access to programs that help them succeed in a college academic environment.
Series IV, Subseries I: K-12 programs and Aid, 1971-1976
Subseries I: K-12 programs and Aid, 1971-1976 is arranged chronologically and contains files with forms and letters pertaining to Wilkes programs offered directly to interested students, such as the Wilkes Upward Bound program and the YWCA Tutorial Program.
Series IV, Subseries II: School District Information, 1969-1972
Subseries II: School District Information, 1969-1972 is arranged chronologically and contains documents that consist of the correspondence regarding Wilkes’ payments to partnered school districts for extra curricular school programs.
Series V: Wilkes Administrative Files, 1953-1989
This series contains various files from different departments and offices at Wilkes, including contemporary events for the staff and faculty, memos about faculty meetings and newsletters, letters related to the Office of Continuing Education’s activities, and departmental budget reports for the fiscal year.
Processed By:
Nick Chupela, Archives Work-Study, Fall, 2020. Supervised by Suzanna Calev, Archivist, Fall 2020.
- Language of description
- Undetermined
- Script of description
- Code for undetermined script
Repository Details
Part of the Wilkes University Archives Repository
Contact:
84 W South St.
Wilkes-Barre PA 18701 US
570-408-2000
570-408-7823 (Fax)
ask.archives@wilkes.edu
84 W South St.
Wilkes-Barre PA 18701 US
570-408-2000
570-408-7823 (Fax)
ask.archives@wilkes.edu