Towards the end of 1964 a campaign was launched by the University of the Orange Free State to collect political documents dating back as far as 1902 throughout South Africa. It was an attempt to gather all politically relevant documents still in private possession under one roof in a centrally situated place of safekeeping, where they could be arranged systematically and made available to researchers. The success of this venture and the rate at which political documents poured into the then Political Archive undeniably proved the need for such a center in South Africa.

It soon became clear that the function of the Political Archive extended beyond the mere collecting of documents. Scholarly interpretation of the material, the introduction thereof to the public and the stimulation of contemporary history were urgently necessary. This led to the establishment of an Institute for Contemporary History in 1970, formed around the nucleus of the Political Archive.