14 items
Materials concern political opposition to the annexation of the Philippines and anti-imperialism in the elections of 1900 and 1902. Correspondents include: Alfred T. Mahan, William J. Palmer, Herbert Welsh, and H. Parker Willis.
6 linear feet (in 7 boxes)
The Burrows / Avery / Smith collection was brought together and preserved by Emeline Burrows (daughter of Lorenzo Burrows) and Julia Smith (granddaughter of the elder Roswell Burrows).
The collection has been arranged into the following series: Correspondence and other papers of family members (arranged chronologically); Family records; Topical files; Visual Materials; and Financial materials.
1 linear foot
The Callahan papers have been arranged chronologically into a single series of newsletters and other materials. These files relate primarily to the effort to preserve the eighteenth amendment, to the Presidential campaign of 1928, to the movement to nominate a dry Democrat for the Presidency in 1932, and to the temperance activities of William Jennings Bryan.
13 items
This collection is made up of 13 letters that Isaac Fletcher wrote to Epaphras Bull of Lyndon, Vermont, while serving in the United States House of Representatives in 1839 and 1840. Fletcher discussed Whig party politics and political issues, such as the difficulty (and process) of electing a Speaker of the House, a contested election in New Jersey, state political conventions, and the presidential election of 1840, which he mistakenly assumed would result in Martin Van Buren's comfortable reelection (August 9, 1840). Some of the letters refer to prominent politicians such as Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.
11 items
This collection contains 11 letters that Dennis McElhone ("Denny") wrote to his friend, Andrew B. Cochran ("Andy") of Pottsville, Pennsylvania, from February 16, 1860-July 23, 1860. McElhone commented on life in Washington, D.C., where he worked as an assistant messenger for the United States House of Representatives. He wrote about political issues, such as possible nominees for the presidential election of 1860, and inquired about friends in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. McElhone expressed his support for the Democratic Party, but indicated his willingness to vote for a Republican candidate under certain circumstances. He also described differences between the North and the South, commented on sectionalism in politics, and mentioned mutual acquaintances and his plans to visit Pennsylvania. For more information, see the Detailed Box and Folder Listing below.
511 linear feet (in 511 boxes) — 136.4 GB (online) — 2 oversize items (framed)
The collection documents John D. Dingell, Jr.'s political career including his 59 years in the United States House of Representatives (1955-2015). The papers include campaign materials documenting Dingell's 29 elections, Democratic National Committee and Michigan Democratic Party materials, and redistricting in Michigan.
The bulk of the papers document Dingell's tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives including legislative files on topics such as civil rights, healthcare, insurance, Social Security, Medicare, environmental issues, endangered species, the auto industry, agriculture, taxes, and trade; administrative office files including correspondence, schedules, voting records, and legislative planning; and photographs, press clippings, scrapbooks, and speeches.
The collection includes born-digital records, as well as 254 pieces of audiovisual material, described in the Container Listing at the item level. Dingell's member website, campaign website, as well as his personal Twitter account are cataloged separately.
4 linear feet
The papers of John Dingell span the years 1932-1955. The papers appear to represent a portion of his congressional office file. The collection consists of correspondence (both incoming and outgoing) and clippings relating to many of the bills which Dingell introduced, and copies of press statements, speeches, and interviews. There is no personal material. There are no documents relating to his committee work or to legislation introduced by other members of the House. Nor do the files of his own bills seem complete (for instance, Dingell's anti-pollution bill is missing). By and large the correspondence is fairly routine or for public consumption. Some of the correspondence is from constituents, some from special interest groups, and some (though not much) from colleagues.
365 items (1.5 linear ft.)
The Henry C. Gilbert papers consist of a substantial body of personal and business correspondence documenting a long and successful public career. As attorney, Indian agent, political hand, and Colonel of a regiment of Civil War volunteers, Gilbert served his state and nation for over twenty years, giving his life in the cause. His letters, mostly addressed to his wife, Hattie (Harriet), are extremely literate, tinged with a good natured sense of humor, though occasionally a black humor, and a deeply felt affection for family and nation. At his best, Gilbert is a passionate, keenly observant writer who never minces his words or hides his opinions. His forthrightness and firmness of opinion come through in nearly every letter, as does his sense of fun and fair play.
The Gilbert papers are arranged into several series. The first four boxes comprise the main run of correspondence, both professional and personal, written between 1826 and his death in May, 1864. The correspondence begins in earnest after Gilbert's move to Michigan. The early part of the collection is dominated by letters stemming from his work as prosecuting attorney for Branch County, providing a limited indication of crime and criminality in rural western Michigan in the 1840s. There are three extensive reports on Branch County merchants prepared by Gilbert in 1845 that give an indication of their viability for credit agencies.
Gilbert's employment as an Indian agent is somewhat sketchily documented, though there is a very nice series of five letters written while Gilbert was distributing annuity payments in the upper Lower Peninsula and Upper Peninsula in the fall of 1853. The best of these includes a nice description of the Indian village at Cross Village at the northern limit of the Lower Peninsula. Unfortunately, Gilbert's letters from the field tend to be somewhat sparse of detail, and are generally shorter than average.
For many researchers, the heart of the Gilbert papers is the 210 letters written while he was colonel of the 19th Michigan Infantry. These letters form a complete and detailed history of the activities of the regiment from its formation in July, 1862, through the death of Col. Gilbert at the Battle of Resaca on May 13, 1864. Although the regiment was in the rear during much of this period, assigned to reserve duty with the Army of the Cumberland in Kentucky and Tennessee, they nevertheless provide an important perspective on the war, as well as on the attitudes, motivations, and duties of an officer. Gilbert was ideologically driven, and less concerned for self-glorification or promotion than for the ardent and ceaseless pursuit of the war against secession and slavery. While he did not follow the radicalism of his cousin, Theodore Dwight Weld, he was a moderate abolitionist and held progressive views on race relations. Some of his best letters are filled with a strident patriotism and calls to sacrifice for the survival of the Union.
The significance of Gilbert's Civil War letters lies in their documentation of the activities of the army of occupation in Kentucky and Tennessee. Although the 19th Michigan was not involved in many major battles prior to Resaca, Gilbert's letters paint a vivid picture of the brutality of the guerrilla conflict in East Tennessee and the resulting devastation. Gilbert leaves no doubt that he considered the situation to be an inevitable result of civil war and a necessity in meeting the political goal of ending the war and slavery. His transformation from a stern disciplinarian into a more ruthless and rigid commander under the pressure of guerrilla violence is a particularly interesting feature of the collection.
In one letter and in his diary, Gilbert provides an account of the Union debacle at the Battle of Thompson's Station and of his capture by Confederate forces. Information on his imprisonment at Libby Prison in Richmond is sketchy, but between his diary entries for this period and five letters a strong sense emerges of the physical and psychological hardships he endured. His toughness, though, resulted in his very rapid return to active duty.
Among other miscellaneous items of note in the collection is a humorous description of Gilbert's visit to the home in of Theodore Dwight Weld and Sarah and Angelina Grimké in Belleville, N.J. (1849 July 22). To his annoyance, Gilbert, the smoking, coffee guzzling carnivore, found that the lot of them were on the Graham system, eschewing meat, caffeine, and tobacco. Of equal interest are two exceptional descriptions of séances with one of the Fox sisters, held in Detroit in 1853 (1853 August 26, 29). Gilbert is at his literary best in conveying the emotional power of these séances and the mechanics of the séance itself.
Box 5 of the Gilbert papers contains correspondence and records relating to the Southern Michigan Railroad, 1848-1852. As the only one of three railroad lines planned for Michigan to be completed in the 1850s, the Southern Michigan Railroad established an important communications and commercial link between the eastern and western parts of the state. As President, stock holder, and chief lobbyist in Lansing, Gilbert was instrumental in securing passage of a bill in 1849 to help finance the construction of the line.
The Southern Michigan Railroad series contains a considerable body of detailed information regarding the laying out and financing of the line, including 74 letters received by Gilbert between June, 1849, and December, 1851, contracts, time sheets for laborers, surveys for right of way, and information on stocks and dividends. Additional information on the railroad can be found in letters from Gilbert to his wife, filed in the main correspondence series.
Finally, the Champion-Warner series relates to Gilbert's financial entanglements with his father-in-law, Reuben Champion, with whom he was often at odds. Most of these items are deeds and legal documents relating to the grist mill in Lima, Ind.
272 linear feet — 3 oversize volumes — 2 oversize folders — 19.4 GB
The Philip A. Hart collection consists of those files maintained by Hart and his staff in Washington D.C. while serving as senator from Michigan in the period 1958-1976. A senate office in the 1960s and 1970s could employ as many as thirty staff and clerical workers. In 1975, Hart wrote: "My own office presently consists of 34 full-time people in Washington plus 4 in my Detroit office and one part-time employee each in Grand Rapids and Marquette." Received from Washington, the Hart collection documents the workings of his Capitol office. Excepting for a few files from the 1950s when Hart served in Michigan state government, the Hart papers relate exclusively to Senate activities and detail the variety and bulk of problems crossing the desk of a United States senator and his staff.
In a press release describing his office, Hart stated that the work of a senator falls into three categories: legislative, participating in the discussion and formulation of public policy, and serving as "ambassador" between his constituents and the Federal Government. Beyond the study of legislation, public policy debates, and the relationship between a senator and the people of his state, the Hart collection is a reflection of the times in which Hart served, the sixties and seventies, years of the presidencies of Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford, a time when public figures discussed issues of conscience and of war, matters of human rights and of public morality, areas where Hart's basic integrity and humaneness placed him in the forefront of public debate.
The collection falls into eleven principal series: Personal/Biographical, Legislative Files, Staff Files, Press Files, Subject Files, Constituent Correspondence, Office Files, Political Files, Miscellaneous, Sound Recordings, and Visual Materials. Except for Personal/Biographical and the series of audio-visual materials, the Hart collection is an office file and represents the activities of one senator and a dozen or so of his key staff members. To use the collection, the researcher after examining the "Series Description" (on the following pages) should note that for any topical study, information will usually be found in any number of series within the collection. The series represent functional divisions within the Hart office, legislation, press, or whatever. To study an issue such as consumer protection, therefore, the researcher should be prepared to examine the Hart finding aid under the series that might document that topic from different functional perspectives (Legislative Files, Staff Files, Subject Files, among others). The researcher interested in a narrower, more specific topic should recognize that the following inventory, for the most part, is not a folder-level description and thus specialized kinds of information will be filed first under a more general heading.
One more note: The Hart papers originally consisted of more than 700 linear feet of files. Hart himself and his staff had discarded certain types of files before donating them to the library, notably case files and constituent mail answered by form. In addition, the library discarded files of low research content - thank yous, invitations, and carbons of Hart correspondence duplicated in the other principal series of the collection. Furthermore, files containing similar types of correspondence from constituents have been sampled (the folders have "S" or "Samp" on them). Government publications, easily available in a government documents library, and unless heavily annotated, have been discarded. Researchers on any topic within the Hart collection should familiarize themselves with the standard sources on government documents (the indices to the Congressional Record for example). Topics on which Hart played a key legislative role or about which he was keenly interested have not been sampled. These topics include civil rights, the passage of various consumer legislation, the Sleeping Bear Dunes debate, his committee work, and the debate over the war in Vietnam to list a few.
0.5 linear feet
The Solomon G. Haven family papers contain the business and personal letters of Solomon Haven, as well as many letters of his wife and daughters. The collection holds 185 letters.
The Solomon Haven Correspondence series consists of 103 letters written from Haven to James Smith, his law partner in Buffalo, New York; 33 letters to his wife; and several letters addressed to various political acquaintances. Most of the letters were written during the period of Haven's congressional career, with the heaviest concentration being from 1853 to 1856.
The letters to Smith contain scattered commentary on the Supreme Court, before which Haven argued three times, on Erie County politics, and on their legal practice in Buffalo. These also offer extensive commentary on New York state politics, including discussions of most of the major figures in the state at the time; references to the various intraparty factions; and discussion of the role of political newspapers during this period of political volatility. Of particular note is the detailed commentary on congressional politics surrounding the struggle over the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, the election of the Speaker of the House (1855-56), and a description of various party conventions in 1856, especially the Know Nothing convention in Philadelphia. By this time, Haven had become a fierce American Party supporter, a fiscal conservative, and an ardent critic of the political games being played by most of the Democratic, Whig, and Republican schemers in Washington and Albany. In a letter to his friend James Osborne Putnam (1818-1903), Haven wrote: "You ask for the Whig party. You would as yet ask in vain for any party here -- there is but little doing effective here for the future -- Cass and Douglass are playing high at the game of Weasel" (December 20, 1851).
Solomon’s letters to his wife Harriett (Hatty) were written between 1839 and 1858, and have an affectionate tone; their focus is largely on the many Washington, D.C., social events, such as parties, celebrations, balls, dinners, and other social/political gatherings, which he typically found tiresome. He was a regular guest for dinner at the White House. His letters relay information about who attended the parties, such as the wives of generals, congressmen, and the President, what the ladies’ were wearing and how they interacted with the men. An 1856 letter mentions the reaction of Elizabeth Spencer Cass (wife of lawyer and politician Lewis Cass) to the caning of Charles Sumner (1856).
The Mary and Ida Haven Correspondence series (39 items) documents two trips taken by Mary Haven to Europe. The first commenced sometime before December 1877 and ended in 1879. Mary spent her time primarily in Paris, leaving only for short excursions to Cannes, France, and Geneva, Switzerland. Her second trip began in June 1884, and lasted until sometime after August of the same year. This trip started with short visits to several cities in Germany and Switzerland, and, by August 29, 1884 (the last letter of her correspondence), she had returned to Paris.
Mary, also known as Ninnie, wrote her letters to her sisters, Ida and Antoinette, and to her mother, all of whom lived at the same address in Buffalo, New York. She traveled with other Americans including a traveler named “Puss,” who, as internal evidence suggests, is her husband, Charles Day. She often discussed her activities in Paris and the differences between life at home and life in Paris, her membership in an Art club, other social engagements, and her trips to other European countries. Her letters show, however, that she spent much of her time socializing with other Americans and British friends. While in Europe, she attended “English church.” As a member of an Art Club, Mary spent some of her time painting and taking art classes.
In two letters from Paris (April 29 and May 16, 1878), Mary wrote about attending the opening of the Exposition Universelle: she waited amidst hordes of other people and saw celebrities who passed near her, such as Queen Isabella and her daughter; the Prince of Wales; the Prince of Denmark; foreign ambassadors and generals of the French Army; and many others. Mary wrote a particularly interesting anecdote about a dressmaker, Madame Connelly from New York, who, in a state of drunkenness, told her that she purchased dresses and belts in France very cheaply and re-sold them in New York for an enormous profit (March 26, 1878). A letter from May 16, 1878, mentions the divorce of a woman whose husband cannot support her, possibly because he was an alcoholic. When traveling to Europe in 1884, Mary noted that writer Mariana Griswold Schuyler Van Rensselaer was on the same ship.
Seven incoming letters to Mary and a single miscellaneous item complete the series. Her sister Ida wrote two letters while she traveled abroad in Germany in the summer of 1880. At this time, Mary was living in New York. Alice Craven Jones, a family friend in Hampstead, London, wrote five letters in the 1890s. Alice offered hopes that her family would come to visit them overseas, offered condolences for the death of a loved one in 1890 (likely Mary’s sister, Antoinette), and related the news of Minnie Jones’ marriage to a lawyer by the name of Perks (1895). Finally, an 8-page unsigned letter to Ida Haven describes visits to small villages in Italy; the writer worked with the Red Cross and commented extensively on the manner, dress, and religion (Catholic) of the citizens.
Two items contain decorated letterheads: the letter from August, 24, 1879, has scenic pictures of famous locations on stationary from a hotel in Zurich, and an undated item (marked only July 15) features printed pictures of the buildings Sprudel-Colonnade and Muhlbrunn-Colonnade.