Special Collections recently opened the Claude W. Johnson Committee of 500 Records for research access and use. The collection contains a small amount of organizational records and campaign ephemera for the Committee of 500, a group operating in Campbell County, Kentucky during the 1960s. Local Campbell County businessmen and citizens organized the Committee of 500 in 1961 to change some of the local economy from illegal activity such as gambling, prostitution, and organized crime, to a legal, industry-based economy. The committee developed a large membership and campaigned for new officials to be elected to key local government offices.
Materials in the records include committee membership lists, correspondence, financial receipts, speeches, campaign ephemera, news clippings, and photographs. A guide to the collection can be found at: http://archives.nku.edu/special_collections/collections/johnson/index.php
Researchers using this collection may also be interested in looking at Special Collection’s Social Action Committee of the Newport Ministerial Association Records and the H. Lew Wallace Newport History Collection for other information on reform in northern Kentucky during the 1960s.
