By February 1942, officials from both countries had already begun to develop more concrete plans for international economic stability in the post-war world. Harry Dexter White, special assistant to the US Secretary of the Treasury, and John Maynard Keynes, a British Treasury adviser, independently drew up plans for organisations that would provide financial support to countries with short-term balance of payments deficits. This assistance would help these countries not to pursue protectionist or predatory trade and monetary policies in order to improve their balance of payments. Both plans provided for a world of fixed exchange rates, which were seen as more conducive to the expansion of world trade than flexible exchange rates. The Bretton Woods conference had three main outcomes: (1) the article of agreement on the establishment of the IMF, the objective of which was to promote the stability of exchange rates and financial flows. (2) Statute for the establishment of the IBRD, the objective of which was to accelerate reconstruction after the Second World War and to promote economic development, in particular through loans for the construction of infrastructure. (3) Other recommendations for international economic cooperation. The Final Act of the Conference contained these agreements and recommendations. The conference, officially known as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, met on July 1, 1944 and was attended by 730 delegates. U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. served as president of the conference.
Lord John Maynard Keynes of the United Kingdom delegation headed Committee II, which considered the proposal to establish a Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The Commission`s committees had the task of studying the preliminary draft submitted to the conference and collecting proposals and additional proposals. Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Russia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Canada, China and India were among the active participants. Much of the discussion focused on the two objectives of the proposed bank, reconstruction and development, as well as its capital structure. Imagine all the documents, draft reports, notes, correspondence and other documents created during the conference. Think of all this important documentary evidence. Where are all these archival sources? Like the IMF, the World Bank technically did not exist during or even immediately after the conference and therefore had no responsibility for record keeping. Country delegates may have returned the documents to their countries after the end of the conference, and it is therefore likely that the archival documents relating to Bretton Woods could be found in the custody of the archival institutions of those forty-four countries.
As the host of the conference, the recordings from the United States are particularly comprehensive. The IMF archives would later become the repository of documents held by the Conference Secretariat. The Bretton Woods archives in the World Bank Group`s archival holdings were collected as a result of the collection of copies by banking units and staff for reference purposes, and while they are not negligible, they are far from complete. Although they had a similar purpose, the organizations proposed by Keynes and White differed in size, philosophy, and function. From 1942 to the spring of 1944, numerous bilateral and multilateral meetings of Allied financial experts were held to agree on a common approach. Finally, on 21 April 1944, allied leaders issued a “Joint Declaration of Experts on the Establishment of an International Monetary Fund”. This declaration served as the basis for the Bretton Woods negotiations. After a pre-conference in Atlantic City in mid-June 1944, the Bretton Woods Conference met on 1 July. Three weeks later, delegates signed the Final Act of the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, which contained charters defining the objectives and mechanisms of the IMF and IBRD. U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau addresses delegates.
The files in our custody of Bretton Woods include: the first drafts of country proposals; conference proceedings and working papers; brochures; government reporting; as well as drafts and commentaries on the articles that led to ratification in December 1945. There are also internal IBRD memoranda and annotated copies of articles on interpretation and change after the Bank began operations in 1946. These documents are found in many fonds or archival groups, such as the Secretary`s Department, the Office of the President, central files, and the personal records of the Bank`s first Director of research, Leonard B. Rist. You will also find conference photos collected by the bank`s communication department. Many textual recordings have been published and some of them have been digitized. Below you will find inventories with lists of folders; those that have been digitized are linked. .