Administrative Information
Provenance
The Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of Walt Whitman Papers was given to the Library of Congress by Harned, 1917-1918, and supplemented by gift and purchase from his son, Herbert S. Harned, 1955-1956. Herbert S. Harned also gave part of his father's original collection to Bryn Mawr College in 1950.
Processing History
A description of the collection is included in Walt Whitman: A Catalog Based Upon the Collections of the Library of Congress (Washington: Library of Congress, 1955). The collection was laminated and reorganized in 1956 to correspond to the arrangement in this catalog. This register, prepared in 1981, was revised in 1996 and again in 2013.
In 1942 the Harned Collection was evacuated from Washington, D.C., for security reasons. Upon the return of the collection to the Library of Congress in 1944, it was discovered that ten notebooks and a cardboard butterfly were missing. Photocopies of selected portions from these missing items that had been made prior to their disappearance are included in the present arrangement in place of the missing manuscripts. In 1995, four of the notebooks and the cardboard butterfly were recovered, leaving six notebooks unaccounted for.
Transfers
Items have been transferred from the Manuscript Division to other custodial divisions of the Library. Printed volumes from the Harned collection have been transferred to the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. A small number of prints and photographs have been transferred to the Prints and Photographs Division. All tranfers are identified in these divisions as part of the Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman.
Microfilm
A microfilm edition of these papers is available on seven reels. Consult reference staff in the Manuscript Division concerning availability for purchase or interlibrary loan. To promote preservation of the originals, researchers are required to consult the microfilm edition as available.
Online Content
The Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of Walt Whitman Papers is available on the Library of Congress Web site at http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/collmss.ms000041.
Preferred Citation
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container or reel number, Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of Walt Whitman Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.