Collections

The records of W.R. Grace & Co. cover the rise of the Grace shipping business from 1864 until World War II. The early correspondence concerns all aspects of the shipping business in New York and South America, mining interests in Peru and Chile, the railroad in Costa Rica, the inter-ocean canal planned for Nicaragua, and political interests throughout Central and South America. There are letter books, correspondence, and scrapbooks of clippings for all aspects of W.R. Grace's career. There are minute books and other documents for more than 50 subsidiary companies owned by W.R. Grace & Co. or by family members. The papers of Joseph Peter Grace (1872-1950) continue the business, family, and philanthropic activities until 1942. There are also 20 reels of motion picture film about the Grace Co. South American interests in the 1950s.

Records of publisher W.W. Norton & Co, as well as the records of Boni and Liveright, Inc. and Horace Liveright, Inc.

A collection of manuscripts pertaining to the social and business history of the John Wyles family. The more important earlier letters in the collection, 1795-1805, indicate the commercial and speculative interest, largely in real estate, John Wyles had in the newly settled territory of the Western Reserve. The subsequent letters and manuscripts including deeds, receipts, and miscellaneous papers, are concerned with the financial and business history of the Wyles family throughout the several generations from 1800 through 1903.

The first manuscripts collected at Columbia, these 2,350 volumes of manuscript books and bound volumes of letters were classified in the regular classification scheme (Dewey) with the call number preceded by the letter "X". They were cataloged by printed book rules into the main catalog. Cards are found in RBML in the correspondence and manuscript card files, as well as the "X" shelflist. No firther additions to this collection are made since the 1960s.

A collection of letters from members of the Yeats family, including twelve letters from William Butler Yeats to Ellen Douglas Duncan, director of the Dublin Gallery of Modern Art, relating to public lectures and containing comments on the unrest in Ireland in 1918. There are also thirty letters from Elizabeth C. Yeats to Mary L. Sutliff dealing with publications of the Cuala Press. Family photographs with the annotations of Elizabeth Yeats, newspaper clippings, book reviews, and other printed ephemera are also contained in the collection. In addition, TALKING ABOUT YEATS, a 1967 television script by Micheál Mac Liammóir, and a related letter from Mac Liammóir; and a typescript catalog of Col. Russell K. Alspach's Yeats collection (not on microfilm).