The league's own archive — the AAGPBL collection

National repository, chosen by the Players Association

The choosing: When the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League's Players Association went looking for a permanent home for the league's memory, it chose South Bend — one of the league's own cities, home of the Blue Sox for all twelve of the league's seasons. The South Bend Tribune's account records that the Center for History "was selected to be the national repository for the AAGPBL by the players association after a long search for the perfect location," and that the collection, by the time of that account, had been donated more than ten years before. A permanent exhibit on the league stands in the museum, and the United States Senate, in its December 2022 resolution on women's professional baseball in Indiana, stated the standing plainly: "the History Museum in South Bend holds the largest collection of memorabilia from the League."

The collection: As the Tribune described it at the choosing's retelling, the collection holds more than 2,000 photographs, and scrapbooks, programs, letters, oral histories, video histories and film footage besides — the paper and film residue of twelve seasons of women's professional baseball, gathered from the players themselves. The museum is the league's repository of record: its photographs, programs, film footage, scrapbooks and playing equipment are the items the city's visitor literature names first. One distinction belongs in print, so the two holdings are never confused: the University of Notre Dame's Hesburgh Libraries hold a separate All-American Girls Baseball League Collection of manuscripts — among it nine loose-leaf notebooks compiled by Blue Sox executive Harold T. Dailey, a documentary history of the league in his own keeping. The Dailey notebooks are Notre Dame's; the league's national archive, the Players Association's own gift, is The History Museum's.

Sources:

1. South Bend Tribune, on the league's archive (as preserved in the Mohammed Bin Rashid Library newspaper record) — the Players Association's selection of the Center for History as the national repository after a long search, the gift made more than ten years before the account, and the collection's contents: more than 2,000 photographs, scrapbooks, programs, letters, oral histories, video histories and film footage.
2. United States Senate, S. Res. 786, 117th Congress (December 2022) — the History Museum "holds the largest collection of memorabilia from the League."
3. Visit South Bend Mishawaka, The History Museum — the AAGPBL collection of photographs, programs, film footage, scrapbooks and playing equipment.
4. Hesburgh Libraries, University of Notre Dame, ArchivesSpace — the All-American Girls Baseball League Collection (MSSP 0014), including Harold T. Dailey's nine notebooks.
5. The Blue Sox team history in this record — the league and the South Bend club, 1943–1954.