Collections

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.

A teaching collection of original comic art, much of which sheds light on various historical styles or techniques. Accompanied by several comic books. Materials includes daily newspaper strip art, Sunday newspaper strip art, single-panel cartoons, comic book pages, and related comics material, such as printing plates and ephemera.

There is a letter book / account book of 347 p., 1790-1856, containing 466 draft copies of his commercial and social correspondence with shipping agents in Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Germany, China, Canada, as well as in the United States. The correspondence concerns Bell's business arrangements, the various cargos he shipped and their disposal, political affairs affecting the shipping trade, laws and treaties of various countries to be dealt with, taxes, embargoes, piracy, threats of war, and other pertinent events. A second account book of 84 p. (many are blank), 1787-1852, for the Ship Stephania and others contains ships' records for 1799 to 1828 and miscellaneous accounts up to 1857. There is a one volume carbon typescript (113 p.) of genealogical notes and reminiscences by Gordon Knox Bell (Regent of the University of the State of New York and grandson of Isaac Bell) and others, ca.1940. There is also an essay and lists of the residents of Greenwich Street (including the Bell and Rogers families) by Elizur Yale Smith with related correspondence, 1940.

Correspondence, manuscripts, documents, oral histories, photographs, audio cassettes, and printed material. Family and personal correspondence; materials related to his secondary, college, and university education; materials related to his tenure at the National Council of the Protestant Church; business correspondence of St. Philip's Episcopal Church and the St. Philip's Community Service Council; bulletins of church services; drafts of sermons and speeches, as well as numerous audio-tapes; manuscripts and publications; correspondence related to the construction and on-going maintenance of several senior-citizen and other community housing; correspondence related to various community redevelopment initives and campaigns for affordable housing; materials related to college courses including oral histories for his Black Family Research project; photographs of St. Philip's Church and of activities of the St. Philip's Community Service Council.