2.2  Biographical history See WB IBRD/IDA A0015

2.4  Source   Donated to the World Bank Group Archives by Davidson Sommers’ estate after Sommers death.

3.1 Scope and content The files consist of correspondence, speeches, articles, and photographs related to Davidson Sommers’ years of employment in the World Bank’s Legal Department and his subsequent service as a consultant to the Bank. 

Topics covered in the correspondence files include reorganization of the World Bank, procurement review, communications, loan documentation, Bank studies, World Bank president’s succession, and improving efficiency in the Bank.  Also included are Sommers’ copies of the transcripts of two oral history interviews he gave and a copy of the transcript of an oral history interview with John J. McCloy which Sommers and Richard Demuth conducted in 1984.  Some speeches and articles presented by Sommers are part of the series, including a description of the Bank and its operations given in Mexico City in 1950, an address entitled “Early Days of the Bank” given to Bank staff in 1960, and an article commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the Bretton Woods institutions written in 1984 for the Bank/IMF periodical Finance and Development.  Photographs included in the series are of a Bank building remodeling in the late 1950s, an Egyptian negotiation in 1959, the World Bank’s twentieth anniversary luncheon in 1966, and the Pension Finance Committee in 1985.

3.3  Accruals   Accruals are not expected.

3.4  Arrangement  Arranged in one series

4.1 Conditions of access Papers are subject to the World Bank Policy on the Disclosure of Information.

4.2 Conditions of reproduction  Copyright in the papers is donated to the World Bank and the papers are subject to the World Bank Policy on Copyright.

4.3 Language/scripts English

4.5  Finding aids  File unit list

5.3  Related units of description  WB IBRD/IDA 13, Records of the Office of the General Counsel; WB IBRD/IDA 44-01, Oral histories, Davidson Sommers; WB IBRD/IDA 55-02, Robert W. Oliver collection on George D. Woods, oral interview, Davidson Sommers

7.2 Rules or conventions Internal World Bank Group Archives rules
7.3 Date(s) of descriptions 2004-10-13