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This Congressional Papers series is organized chronologically by congressional term. Terms are further organized by sub-subseries and include: Administrative and office files, Legislative, Legislative-personal, Press, Photographs, Speeches, and Travel and events. Not all sub-subseries are present in each congressional term. This arrangement reflects the original filing system of Dingell's office. The primary distinction between Legislative and Legislative-personal is that the latter identifies legislation Dingell sponsored, co-sponsored, or was heavily involved in drafting.

The Congressional Papers series comprises the bulk of the collection and documents John Dingell's 59-year career in Congress. Materials document Dingell's leadership roles including Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce (formerly Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee), Dean of the House (1995-2015), service on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, Subcommittee on Energy and Power, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, and the Small Business Committee (formerly Select Committee on Small Business). Materials include correspondence with colleagues, schedules, reports, legislative accomplishments, honors and awards, biographical materials, call logs, voting records, speeches, floor statements, writings, files of various state and national trips and events, press clippings, press releases, 110 scrapbooks, 27 magnetic data tape reels, and Dingell's member website and Twitter account.

John Dingell, Jr. is the longest-serving member of Congress (1955-2015). As such, his papers cover major political, social, industrial, and technological movements and events of the 20th century including the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the Great Society including the passage of Medicare and creation of Social Security, major environmental legislation such as the passage of the Water Pollution Control Act, National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air and Clean Water acts, and other legislative achievements Dingell was involved in such as the Endangered Species Act, Affordable Care Act, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), among many others.

The bulk of John Dingell's committee files are restricted in accordance with federal statute (Boxes 307-308, 452-496). Restrictions are indicated at the file level in the Container List that follows.