Mark Hatfield interviews, archives now open to the public

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, July 13, 2022

Scholars and researchers will have access to Mark Hatfield’s archives compiled during his half century of public service in Oregon, as well as oral histories conducted after he left public office.

The Oregon Historical Society and Willamette University announced the openings on Tuesday, July 12, on the centennial of Hatfield’s birth. The former Oregon governor and U.S. senator died in 2011 at the age of 89.

A few oral history interviews conducted for the historical society had been available via the historical society’s digital history web page. None was with Hatfield himself. But Executive Director Kerry Tymchuk, a one-time intern for Hatfield, said the society has now released more than 30 hours of interviews with Hatfield conducted between 1998 and 2002. Interviews with others also were released.

An annual lecture series, bearing Hatfield’s name, has been sponsored by the society since 1998. The latest season is scheduled to start Oct. 18 at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall with historian Doris Kearns Goodwin; other lectures will follow in 2023. The lectures in 2020 and 2021 were done via video link; subscribers had in-person or video options this past year.

Willamette University also used the centennial to announce the opening of Hatfield’s papers, which are housed in the library that bears his name on the Salem campus. The papers were under family control until Tuesday. A large room on the second floor displays many of the books Hatfield collected, heavy on U.S. history and presidents.

Hatfield was born in the mid-Willamette Valley town of Dallas and grew up in Salem. He earned a bachelor’s degree at Willamette University before U.S. Navy service during World War II. After one year of law school at Willamette — he dropped out — and a master’s degree from Stanford University, Hatfield returned to Willamette in 1949 to teach political science, He was first elected to the Oregon House in 1950, and to the Oregon Senate in 1954, but continued to teach at Willamette, where he become dean of men. He left Willamette in 1956 in his successful run for Oregon secretary of state.

He taught at Willamette briefly after he left the U.S. Senate in 1997, though most of his post-Senate academic career was in institutions closer to Portland, notably George Fox University in Newberg. Others were Portland State University, whose school of government bears Hatfield’s name, and Oregon Health & Science University.

“Willamette treasures the history and relationship with Senator Hatfield. We are proud to have his political papers,” said Sean O’Holleran, a former Hatfield aide and retired Nike executive, who leads Willamette’s current board of trustees.

O’Holleran should know. As a staff assistant to Hatfield in Hatfield’s later years, he had the task of helping Hatfield and others sort documents and other materials — even a rocking chair and a tribal headdress — that had been stored in the attic of a Senate office building. O’Holleran said it was no small task, given that Hatfield served 30 years.

“The senator loved books,” he said. “He loved history. He loved teaching. He loved being a professor. He loved government. And he loved being a husband and father.”

pwong@pamplinmedia.com

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