Collections : [Rare Book & Manuscript Library]

Correspondence, copies of letters, documents, manuscripts, invitations, menus, clippings, school papers, leases, agreements, deeds, financial accounts, photographs, and printed miscellany. The papers deal with many aspects of the Belmont family interests from 1799 until 1930, including: finance, banking and the Rothschilds; the United States Navy, Commodore Matthew C. Perry (1794-1858) and the Perry expeditions to Mexico and Japan; Belmont's embassy to The Netherlands from 1853 to 1857; the Democratic Party, New York City politics, presidential and Civil War politics; social life in New York and Newport and European travel; horses, horse breeding, The Jockey Club, polo, the Remount Association (for cavalry horses in World War I), fox hunting, dog breeding, and yachting; New York subway construction, railroads, the Cape Cod Canal and aviation; the Democratic Convention of 1912; and genealogical notes on the Belmont, Perry, and other families. In addition to the correspondence, there are 117 letter books, tissue-paper copies of outgoing letters.

Invitations and photographs relating to dinners given by the Bohemian Club to honor artists such as Mischa Elman, Engelbert Humperdinck, Serge Koussevitzsky, Ignace Paderewski, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Richard Strauss, and Eugene Ysaye.

A photostatic copy of the diary of Strong. The diary, running without interruption from Oct. 1835 through June 1875, contains a wealth of information about life in New York City. Its scope broadens to include the national scene with the outbreak of the Civil War. There is also a miscellaneous assortment of approximately 150 photostatic copies of personal correspondence with family and friends, correspondence during his term as treasurer of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, original drawings, caricatures and doodlings, invitations, guest lists, theater and concert programs, newspaper clippings, a family tree, and photographs. Includes typed index of Columbia references in Strong's diary.

Levi's correspondence with his wife, Alice Fries Levi, letters of other family members, his diaries, his school and college notebooks and papers, awards and medals, and personal photographs. The earliest item in the collection is a scrapbook kept by his father, Albert A. Levi, in San Francisco, 1862.

Correspondence and papers of various members of the Kane and Hand families. The collection includes the business correspondence of Oliver Kane of Albany (early 19th century); the correspondence of Moses Hand (1764-1826) of Baltimore; the letters and papers of Thomas Jennings Hand (1824-1908) of New York, with many letters from Professor William Hand Browne of John Hopkins; the diaries and account books of Thomas Jennings Hand, extending from 1859 to 1901, and the household account books of his wife; the family correspondence, accounts, and personal papers of Oliver Kane-Hand (1863-1941); various legal documents and papers of Oliver Kane-Hand (1863-1941); various legal documents and papers of Oliver Kane King, Thomas Jennings Hand, Jr. and Oliver Kane-Hand; and a group of family photographs.

Correspondence, art work, and memorabilia of Rood, including letters to Rood from colleagues, scientists, and artists including Albert Bierstadt, Arthur J. Evans, Joseph Henry, and Charles Eliot Norton. Family letters to and from his wife, Matilda, and children; letters from his wife to her mother, Anna Prunner, in Germany; sketchbooks, drawings, and etchings of Rood and his son, Roland Rood; and photographs and memorabilia.

Letters written to James Ripley Wellman Hitchcock, to Mrs. Hitchcock, and to Richard Henry Stoddard from various people in literary artistic and dramatic circles, mainly of New York. There are letters and documents relating to Hitchcock's early life, photographs, a group of materials relating to the American Art Alliance in which Mrs. Hitchcock was interested, and a group of miscellaneous papers and letters relating to the publication, dramatization, filming, and radio rights of Edward N. Westcott's DAVID HARUM which Mr. Hitchcock was instrumental in having published. Also, manuscripts and printed versions of Charles Chapin Sargent, Jr.'s (brother of Hitchcock's second wife, Helen Sargent Hitchcock) writings including short stories and a libretto for an operetta "Cleopatra" written for the Columbia College Musical Society in 1897, two scrapbooks containing mementos of his college years, two pictures, and a Columbia College diploma.

Correspondence and papers of Low. Both sides of the correspondence are almost intact from 1890 on, with copies of outgoing letters for the two previous decades. There are also four letterpress copybooks, numerous scrapbooks of clippings relating to Low's career and activities, a large number of photographs and other memorabilia, and printed and manuscript copies of many of Low's speeches. Also, contains ten boxes of Annie Low's (Mrs. Seth Low) business and financial correspondence, invitations and regrets, requests for donations, and bills for the period 1914 to 1930.