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Jim Cooper Papers

Dates

1982-1994

Creator

Cooper, Jim

Summary/Abstract

The Jim Cooper Papers include manuscripts and photographs documenting Congressman Cooper’s service as a member of the United States House Representative from Tennessee’s Fourth Congressional District from 1982 to 1994. They are currently largely unprocessed, but a box-level inventory is available to the correspondence, press releases, newsletters, news clippings, financial documents, and photographs in the papers. Congressman Cooper has served Tennessee’s Fifth Congressional District since 2003.

Quantity/Physical Description

Approximately 230 record boxes of papers; in addition, there are 3 archival boxes of photographs.

Language(s)

English

Repository

Albert Gore Research Center, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN 37132, (615) 898-2632

Restrictions on Access

Please contact the archivist of the Albert Gore Research Center for information on access to the Jim Cooper Papers.

Copyright

Congressman Cooper donated legal title, copyrights, and other rights he possesed to materials in this collection to the public through Middle Tennessee State University. It is presumed that all other corporate and individual copyrights in manuscripts, pho

Preferred Citation

(Box Number, Folder Number), Jim Cooper Papers, Albert Gore Research Center, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee

Acquisition

Donated by Jim Cooper, 2011

Processed By

Correspondence series processed by archival assistant Natalie Goodwin (2012).

Arrangement

To be arranged by series

Biographical Note

Congressman Jim Cooper was born in 1954 in Nashville, Tennessee, to Hortense Powell Cooper and former Tennessee governor Prentice Cooper. Congressman Cooper received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 1975. He was a Rhodes Scholar and received a Master of Arts degree from Oxford University in 1977. In 1980, he received his Law degree from Harvard University Law School.

Congressman Cooper was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1982, where he represented the fourth district of Tennessee. At the age of 28, he was the youngest member of the 98th Congress. He ran for Senate in 1994, but lost to Senator Fred Thompson. Congressman Cooper has served as Representative for the fifth district of Tennessee since 2003. He has worked on a variety of committees and subgroups including the House Banking and Finance Committee, House Small Business Committee, Energy and Commerce Committee, the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, and the Environmental and Energy Study Caucus.

He has been a member of the House Armed Services Committee, served as the Ranking Member on the Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee, and also served on the Air and Land Forces Subcommittee. He was the Chairman of the 2008 Roles and Missions panel. He has served as a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee which oversees every federal agency and has investigatory power. He also has served on the Government Organization, Efficiency, and Financial Management Subcommittee, the Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight, and Government Spending Subcommittee, and TARP, Financial Services and Bailouts of Public and Private Programs Subcommittee. As a congressman, Jim Cooper has promoted legislation to establish a market for emissions of carbon dioxide and other major greenhouse gases, worked to reduce the federal budget and spending, and supported literacy programs for Tennessee. As of this writing, Congressman Cooper still serves in several of these capacities.

Scope and Content

The Jim Cooper Papers include approximately 230 boxes of correspondence, press releases, newsletters, news clippings, financial documents, and photographs. They will be arranged by series when processing is complete. While the current stage of processing makes it impossible to both open the all the papers to the public and preserve them, the Albert Gore Research Center is working on making them more accessible. As portions of the collection are processed and ready for research, they will be added to this finding aid. A link and description will appear in the collection inventory list.

Anyone having questions regarding access to these papers should contact the center at (615) 898-2632 or contact the archivist. Contact information is in the “About Us” section of this Website.