Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions on personal use. Permission to publish material from the Vincent Callahan Collection must be obtained from the Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

Access Restrictions

There are no access restrictions.

Preferred Citation

Vincent Callahan Collection, C0299, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

Acquisition Information

Donated by Yvonne Callahan on November 15, 2016.

Processing Information

Processing completed by Zac Greenfield in June 2017. EAD markup completed by Zac Greenfield in June 2017.

Biographical Note

Vincent F. Callahan Jr. was a Republican party member from Northern Virginia that represented Fairfax County in the state legislature. He served for 40 years before retiring in 2008 until he passed away as a result of complications from West Nile virus. Callahan was first elected in 1967 as one of only 14 Republicans out of 100 representatives, with the Republicans becoming a majority by the time of his retirement. In 1972 he was elected to the Appropriations Committee, where he would eventually become the first Republican to head the committee in many years.

Many of his accomplishments benefitted his native Northern Virginia, as he worked to make sure the region was not only not forgotten but expanded upon. He is credited for the expansion of the Dulles Corridor as well as the funding of the Wolf Trap Center. He was also influential in the growing George Mason University.

He did not always see eye-to-eye with the conservative direction the party was moving in as the decades went, preferring to be a moderate and work to compromise with both sides whenever possible. This led to his being well liked on the floor of the Virginia House.

Scope and Content

The Vincent F. Callahan Jr. collection consists primarily of local newpaper clippings, magazine clippings, photographs, and various invitations and awards that Callahan collected over the course of his political career. The content ranges from the late 1960s to the mid-2000s when Callahan retired. The materials in the collection pertain almost entirely to local Northern Virginia news and events that he was directly involved in. Topics range from Callahan's campaigns to get elected and re-elected, tax issues across the state, events in Northern Virginia and across the state, projects he has helped secure funding for, and invitations to political events. While the majority of the material was not created by Callahan, included also are several writings of his that were submitted to papers or were part of his newsletters. These range from the "Callahan and the Capital" newsletter to the "House Call" column run in the McLean Providence Journal, as well as responses he made to his opponents in papers. Over the course of his political career Callahan had opportunities to travel internationally and locally for major events, attending the inaugurations of President Nixon and many other events that shaped local and national history that have appearances in this collection. One box consists of many newspaper clippings sorted into scrapbooks put together by the Callahan family. The remaining boxes are loose clippings and other materials sorted into folders organized by publication. Some parts of the collection, such as The Washington Post and the Washington Times, were not kept due to the ease of access online.

Arrangement

Collection is arranged alphabetically by folder title.

Related Material

This Special Collections Research Center also holds the papers of other Virginia state legislators, including Dorothy McDiarmid and Armistead Boothe.

Index Terms

Persons:

• Holton, A. Linwood (Abner Linwood), 1923-

Geographical Names:

• Virginia, Northern--Politics and government.
• Virginia--Politics and government--20th century.

Document Types:

• Newspapers.
• Scrapbooks.