ABSTRACT
This article examines the history and rhetoric of administrative reform in Georgia during the Progressive Era, as it affected the operation of the State Archives. During this period, Georgia's governor, Thomas W. Hardwick (1921–1923), was part of a cadre of public officials, legislative committees, and state governors who led the charge to develop and perfect the “business management of their people's affairs.”1 As a result, organizations such as the Institute for Government Research of the Brookings Institute, the National Institute of Public Administration, and the Public Administration Service were commissioned to look into the operation and organization of federal, state, and local government. In Georgia, Hardwick hired the Chicago firm of Griffenhagen and Associates to make his case for proper efficiencies and economies in state government. In the process, the Georgia Department of Archives and History was almost swept away in the wake of Hardwick's program. In laying out this historical case study, particular attention is drawn to the larger cyclical political and social forces that, in promoting administrative reform, serve to undermine the survival of state archival agencies.