Collections

Letters to and copies of letters, letter books, and miscellaneous papers of (George) Frederick William Holls. There is also an amount of clippings and other miscellanea. The correspondence is with many persons important in the areas of politics and education. The subject content of the letters is international in scope, including such matters as the Suez Canal, the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, the Dreyfus affair, the Hague Peace Conference, Rhodes Scholarships, unification of education in New York State, the St. Louis Exposition, and tenement reform. Among the principal correspondents represented by groups of letters are John Barrett, Nicholas Murray Butler, Henry W. Diederick, Theodor Lange, Hugo Munsterburg, F.J. Odendahl, Theodore Roosevelt, and Carl Schurz.

Letters written by and relating to Watts and members of his family. There are 45 letters written by Charles Wats, dated principally from Biloxi, Miss., to members of his family in New York, and 21 letters from, to, and relating to his sister, Helen Watts, and her husband, H. Floyd Jones, and his family. Also, a few letters from Charles Watts, Sr., to his son, Judge Charles Watts. The letters are personal in nature, dealing with family affairs, daily life, and friends.

The collection contains various documents relating to the practice of enslavement in the Americas. It includes three documents related to the case of Joseph Pochin and John Milner who were accused of murder on the island of Jamaica, ca. 1681; a group of police reports for the city of New Orleans, August-November 1833, listing all arrests, mainly concerned with Afro-Americans sentenced to the chain gang; and other documents.

This collection primarily includes black and white and color photographic prints of approximately 100 buildings designed by the American architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in locations throughout the United States, circa 1945-1969.

This collection contains primarily project records, including drawings, files, specifications, correspondence, and photographs, related to the architectural practice of William & Geoffrey Platt. Projects including commercial, institutional, and residential buildings located in Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maine, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, and France. The firm was involved in the design of many buildings and additions for institutions such as the Pierpoint Morgan Library, Princeton University, Smith College, and Deerfield Academy.

Collection contains large-scale black and white photographic prints taken by G.E. Kidder Smith of historic and contemporary buildings in 32 states.

This collection includes a significant number of original and reprographic interior design and architectural drawings for interiors designed by Jac Lessman throughout the United States and the Caribbean. Records are primarily for hotel, restaurant, club, and resort commissions. Also included are office files and scrapbooks related to his projects and business practices. Noted projects include Wilbur Clark's Desert Inn and the Stardust Hotel and Casino, both in Las Vegas, Nev.; the Hotel Manhattan, the Hotel St. Moritz, and the Hotel St. Regis, all in Manhattan; the Barclay Hotel in Philadelphia; the Virgin Isle Hotel in St. Thomas; the Casino Internacional at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba in Havana; the Beverly Hills Country Club in Newport, Kentucky; the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans, La.; and several projects for Henry J. Kaiser.

This collection consists of three notebooks or field books kept by Fletcher G. Downs and a copy of his 1908 mining thesis, Gilpin County Colorado. The notebooks (I, II and IV) record Down's "Mine Trip" during the Summer of 1907. The books include drawings and schematics of equipment (pumps, shaft guides, brakes, gears, drainage valves, etc.) and field details of the West Vulcan mines.