Collections

The professional and personal correspondence, papers, and pamphlet collection of Melvil Dewey, relating to libraries, the American Library Association, library classification, the Lake Placid Club, Columbia College, the New York State Library, and spelling reform. Included are notes for and a typescript of Grosvenor Dawe's biography of Dewey.

Personal and professional correspondence, including 25 long letters from Professor Henry F. Herbig; manuscripts (mainly speeches); specifications for patents in electrical fields; technical and personal photographs; and memorabilia. Included is a copy of the famous "shot in hand" x-ray photograph, ca. 1896, one of the first ever to be taken. This collection also contains the correspondence, manuscripts, documents, and memorabilia of Professor Pupin's daughter, Varvara Smith, and his son-in-law, Louis Graham Smith. His daughter's letters and documents deal with her financial difficulties, her administration of Pupin's estate and her claims against Columbia University. Louis G. Smith's letters deal with his anti-Communist sentiments and his manuscripts are mainly ideas for popular songs and plays. There are three letters (photostatic copies) to Smith from Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Correspondence, manuscripts, notes, diaries, documents, photographs, audio tape recordings, printed materials, scrapbooks, and sketches and drafts of portraits. Her finished portraits on ivory are cataloged separately for the Art Collection (q.v.). The collection includes her correspondence with friends and clients; manuscripts of her articles, lectures, and many unpublished autobiographical drafts; pencil sketches, watercolor drafts, and photoprints of her portraits on ivory; photographs of her family amd travels; clippings and other printed materials; and three scrapbooks of clippings and memorabilia. There is cataloged correspondence from Arnold Genthe, S.I. Hayakawa, Karen Horney, Burges Johnson, Dwight Macdonald, and Alice B. Toklas, etc.

The collection documents the New York Monthly Meeting of Relgious Society of Friends financial activities from the 1880s until the 1920s. The majority of the collecion consists of cancelled checks, vouchers, and correspondence related to the payment of mortgages held by the N.Y. Monhtly Meeting of Religious Society of Friends. Much of the material is addressed to David S. Taber (Treasurer) or George D. Hilyard.

The New York Technical Services Librarians (NYTSL) records include correspondence, minutes, memoranda, reports, questionnaires, programs, financial records, membership records, typescript copies of papers presented at meetings, and related printed materials. Several topics of note are the 1926 meeting to honor Margaret Mann; the 1926 cooperative cataloging issue; and the 1946 American Library Association constitution matter.

The editorial and production files of Pantheon Books from 1944 through 1968. The correspondence from authors, agents, and publishers is written to Kurt and Helen Wolff, Jacques Schiffrin, André Schiffrin, and the editors of the firm. The files document the publication of works by A. Alvarez, Georges Bernanos, Hermann Broch, Jacob Burckhardt, Albert Camus, William Demby, Eugene Ionesco, Karl Jaspers, Winifred Bryher, Jacques Maritain, Isamu Noguchi, José Ortega y Gasset, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Sir Herbert Read, Ben Shahn, and others.

Correspondence, manuscripts of poems, and manuscripts of lectures by Benjamin. The correspondence consists of original letters of Benjamin, typescript and photostatic copies of Benjamin letters in other libraries, and letters to Benjamin from some of his literary contemporaries including Paul Hamilton Hayne, Willis Gaylord Clark, John Lothrop Motley, and Fitz-Greene Halleck. Many of the letters relate to Park Benjamin's lecture tours. There are other family letters and many documents relating to the Benjamin family,and two letterbooks of John Lothrop Motley. Also, a large amount of genealogical material of the Benjamin family, and its related families from the 16th century to the present day. There are also financial records, monographs, clippings, and photographs.

Correspondence, manuscripts, documents, lists, and subject files of the Mexican Communist Party (Partido Comunista Mexicano) from the 1950s. Included are organizational records of the national party as well as many local groups, and folders on a great range of topics including workers in the petroleum industry, teachers, relations with other national communist parties, finances, front groups, factionalism within the party, party conferences, party history, and biographical data.