Collections : [Rare Book & Manuscript Library]

Approximately 12,000 letters to Allan Nevins from various correspondents including James Truslow Adams, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Willa Cather, Frances Folsom Cleveland, Van Wyck Brooks, Robert Frost, Newton D. Baker, Archibald MacLeish, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Carl Sandburg, and Henry Wallace; notes and typescripts for Nevins' books including Emergence of Lincoln, The Ordeal of Democracy, Rockefeller, and History and Historians, with notes by editor Ray A. Billington; miscellaneous transcripts, clippings, newspapers, and photographs. Also, autograph letters and manuscripts by presidents, Civil War figures, financiers, politicians, and authors. There are also the Brand Whitlock World War I Diaries and letters to him by such people as Herbert Hoover, Gen. John J. Pershing, and others.

Correspondence, legal papers, and letter books of Shepard. The correspondence, which comprises the largest part of the collection, is rich in information about New York politics and social activities at the turn of the century. The letter books cover the years 1890-1911. The collection also contains legal papers, drafts of speeches, clippings, and memorabilia. Correspondents with Shepard include Felix Adler, Thomas Willing Balch, Frederic Bancroft, Bernard Baruch, Richard Rogers Bowker, William Jennings Bryan, Alfred Clark Chapin, Grover Cleveland, Hamlin Garland, Richard Watson Gilder, Edward Everett Hale, Fletcher Harper, Abram S. Hewitt, Charles Evans Hughes, John La Farge, Henry Cabot Lodge, Josephine Shaw Lowell, Hamilton Mabie, Walter H. Page, Alton B. Parker, George Foster Peabody, Bliss Perry, Joseph Pulitzer, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Elihu Root, Carl Schurz, Kate Nichols Trask, Oswald Garrison Villard, and Booker T. Washington.

The General Manuscript Collection is an artificial collection of correspondence, diaries, lecture notes, class work, essays, administrative documents, minutes, and other documents collected by the Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Single items or very small collections are generally classified as part of the general manuscript collection rather than assigned an individual manuscript number. Additionally, small additions to existing RBML manuscript collections may be classified as part of the General Manuscript Collection.

Papers of Stillman include over 100 items pertaining to the business enterprises of his father, Charles Stillman of Brownsville, Texas, who was engaged in shipping and trade, real estate, and railroad investment. A large portion of the collection documents of James Stillman's activities in banking, in railroad financing, and in other of his business and industrial interests. The letters, legal documents, and miscellaneous papers are representative of the entire span of his career. Included in the correspondence are letters from many prominent financiers and industrialists of his day, including many from William Rockefeller; letters from President Grover Cleveland, some personal in nature and some concerned with business transactions; nine letter books of James Stillman, covering the years 1886-1897, 1906-1918; letter books of his secretary Miss K. Bredin, 1908-1916; journals for the years 1889, 1891, 1898, 1899; bank book recording Stillman's drafts, 1911-1914, on the London firm of Baring Brothers; four diaries, 1881-1884; six notebooks; one cash and journal and one ledger, 1868-1871.

This collection contains correspondence, including letters from U.S. President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908), Canadian author Gilbert Parker (1862-1932), and printed monographs and magazine articles. Please note that Parsons' diaries covering his Panama Canal years and World War I service have been catalogued as book manuscripts.

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.