manuscript collections

introduction

In order to locate all manuscripts relevant to your research, it is advisable to begin by speaking with the Manuscripts staff, who will assist you in using the Manuscripts Catalog, Josiah, Brown Archival and Manuscript Collections Online, and related finding aids and databases. Josiah includes collection-level records for all manuscript collections acquired prior to March, 1996. Consult the Manuscripts Catalog and the collection registers, inventories, and finding aids for more detailed subject and name access to manuscript collections.

The Brown Archival and Manuscript Collections Online project, part of Brown's Center for Digital Initiatives, seeks to change how the Library provides access to its manuscript and archival collections, and should radically alter how researchers at all levels think about, access, and use manuscript materials. Many of the collections maintained by the Brown University Library are significant enough to warrant inclusion of digital facsimilies in the finding aid. For those collections (in accordance with copyright and other intellectual property limitations), links will be provided from the finding aid to a digital copy of a letter, photograph, or other object. This is an ongoing project; content will increase greatly in coming years.

literary collections

American literature holdings are strongest in poetry and drama, for the reason that both manuscript and printed materials in these fields were formerly acquired for the Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays. The extensive holdings in literary manuscripts include notebooks of Harry Crosby (1898- 1929), diaries and letters of Maud Howe Elliott (1885-1945), the papers of Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937), the papers of Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950), the papers of S. J. Perelman (1904- 1979), letters of Ezra Pound (1885-1972), the papers of Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961), manuscripts of Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), sermons and correspondence of Jones Very (1831- 1880), the papers of Sarah Helen Whitman (1803-1898), the papers of John Brooks Wheelwright (1897-1940), and letters of William Carlos Williams (1883-1963). The papers of John Hay (1838-1905) include correspondence with Henry Adams, Richard Watson Gilder, William Dean Howells, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Walt Whitman, and others.

Related to the field of American literature are the records of small presses and little magazines, pre-eminent among which are the rich archives of Unicorn Press (1966-1984), but which also include the archives of Copper Beech Press (1973-1983), "December Magazine" (1962-1982), "Gallery Poets Series"/ Harper Square Press (1966-1979), Greenfield Review Press (1974-1985), "Stone Country" (1971-1983), Vagabond Press (1965-1980), and "West Coast Poetry Review" (1969-1982). European literature is represented by several collections of correspondence and literary manuscripts, notably those of John Buchan (1875- 1940), William James Linton (1812-1897), Jose Rodriguez Migueis (1901-1980), Frank Swinnerton (1884-1982), and Emile Zola (1840-1902).

historical collections

Collections in American history are strongest for the Nineteenth Century. The papers of Jonathan Russell (1771-1832) include records of the United States commission for the Treaty of Ghent. The McLellan Lincoln Collection includes over 900 items written or signed by Lincoln himself and many items relating to his associates. The papers of John Hay include correspondence and his diaries written as Lincoln's assistant private secretary and as secretary of several U. S. legations in Europe. Also worthy of mention are the papers of the politician Samuel Sullivan Cox (1824-1889) and the papers of Eli Thayer (1819- 1899), organizer of the New England Emigrant Aid Company. In addition, there are several dozen collections of letters and diaries written by Union soldiers during and after the Civil War.

Collections relating to church history include the records of several Baptist churches in Rhode Island and the papers of individual Baptist clergymen, including Roger Williams (1603?- 1683), Isaac Backus (1724-1806), Thomas Ustick (1753- 1803), and several Presidents of Brown University. In addition to the papers of clergymen of other denominations, there are the papers of the seminarian and Transcendentalist Charles King Newcomb (1820- 1894) and the English Theosophist and spiritualist Mary Ann Atwood (1817-1910).

Twentieth Century collections include several that relate to the Second World War: the papers of Robert Cloutman Dexter (1887- 1955) and Elizabeth Anthony Dexter (1887-1971), which document their roles in Czechoslovakia and Portugal for the Unitarian Service Committee, and the papers of Rabbi Baruch Korff (1914- ), founder of the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe and the Political Action Committee for Palestine. The Watergate era in American politics is illuminated by the files retained by Rabbi Korff as founder of the National Citizens Committee for Fairness to the Presidency and the United States Citizens Congress.

Among the many collections relating to Rhode Island are the papers of the reformer Thomas Wilson Dorr (1805-1854), governors William Sprague (1830-1925) and Charles Warren Lippitt (1846- 1924), several volumes of the original manuscript minute-books of the Providence Town Council (1800- 1814), and an official manuscript copy of the Acts and Resolves of the Rhode Island General Assembly (1678-1747).

The Gorham Archives (1857-1940) document the history of American design and broader themes in social and economic history as reflected in the records of a major silver manufacturing company in Rhode Island.

Prominent among the Nineteenth Century collections relating to European history is the Hoffman Napoleon Collection, which contains manuscripts pertaining to the First French Republic and the Napoleonic era, including some written or signed by Napoleon I.

science collections

The Lownes History of Science Collection includes several manuscripts of John James Audubon and autographs of various scientists. Mathematics is represented by the papers of James Joseph Sylvester (1814-1897), James Whitbread Lee Glaisher (1848-1928), William Fogg Osgood (1864- 1943), and Raymond Clare Archibald (1875-1955) and the mathematical drawings of Royal Vale Heath (1883-1960). Other collections include the papers of the botanist and physician Solomon Drowne (1753- 1834), inventor and manufacturer George H. Corliss (1817-1888), civil engineer Elmer Lawrence Corthell (1840-1916), surgeon William Williams Keen (1837-1932), and sociologist Lester Frank Ward (1841-1913). The Morse Whaling Collection has over a dozen logbooks of whaling vessels and several hundred related business papers.