Scope and Content Note
The Reid Family Papers span the years 1795-2003, with the bulk of the material concentrated between 1869 and 1970. The papers are organized in three parts. Part I, encompassing material received, arranged, and described by the Library between 1968-1971 spans the years 1795-1970 and consists of four series. Part II, consisting of material organized and described in 1996, supplements Part I. Part III consists of material given to the Library in 2002 and 2008.
Part I
Series A of Part I includes the papers of Whitelaw Reid (1837-1912) journalist, Republican party activist, diplomat, and proprietor of the New York Tribune newspaper. The papers of Reid's wife, Elisabeth Mills Reid (1858-1931), are arranged in Series B, and material generated by their son, Ogden Mills Reid (1882-1947), forms Series C. The largest component of the Reid Papers, Series D, consists of the papers of Helen Rogers Reid (1882-1970), wife of Ogden Mills Reid and advertising manager of the Tribune and Herald Tribune.
The papers of Whitelaw Reid (1837-1912) span 1795-1961, with the bulk of the material covering the period 1869-1912. The most extensive correspondence occurs during the period of Reid's ambassadorship to Great Britain, 1905-1912, and during presidential election years. There is an appreciable decrease in correspondence during the years of the Grover Cleveland administration.
Reid's correspondence includes an extensive interchange of letters with literati and educators as well as with politicians and journalists. Topics include New York Tribune scoops during the early days of the Franco-Prussian War; the Tribune building, New York City's first skyscraper; reports by the Tribune of attempts by the Democratic party to buy votes during the disputed Hayes-Tilden presidential election of 1876; the beginning of the Fresh Air Fund in 1879; the Roscoe Conkling controversy within the New York Republican party; development of the Mergenthaler linotype; and the Homestead riots of 1892. Topics of Reid's diplomatic correspondence include extradition and commercial treaties with France, negotiations concluding the Spanish-American War, and unsuccessful Newfoundland fisheries negotiations, 1906-1910.
Whitelaw Reid's papers also include speeches, articles , biographer's notes , scrapbooks, and clippings . There is a gap in the scrapbooks from 1892 to 1898.
In 1881 Reid married Elisabeth Mills, daughter of Darius Ogden Mills, a financier who moved from New York to California during the Gold Rush of 1849 and amassed a fortune organizing the Bank of California at San Francisco and other business ventures. Series B, the papers of Elisabeth Mills Reid , consists of family correspondence , general correspondence , business correspondence , financial papers , a subject file , and miscellaneous papers , spanning 1880-1931.
Elisabeth Mills Reid's family correspondence includes letters from her husband, 1880-1911, with intimate glimpses of the social and political scene in Washington, particularly during James A. Garfield's presidency. Reports coinciding with her periodic absences from New York City discuss such matters as Stanford White's decoration of a Madison Avenue residence, events among the city's social circles, and diplomatic activities after Whitelaw Reid's appointment as American ambassador to Great Britain in 1905.
Elisabeth Mills Reid's family correspondence also includes letters from her daughter-in-law, Helen Rogers Reid, discussing day-to-day operations of the newspaper, prominent figures in politics and other fields, and members of the Herald Tribune staff, such as Franklin P. Adams, Walter Lippmann, and Mark Sullivan. Other prominent correspondents include Mabel Thorp Boardman, Bishop Charles Henry Brent, Anna Roosevelt Cowles, Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve, and Frederick H. Gillett. Of special interest are letters of Royal Cortissoz, art critic for the Herald Tribune, raconteur, and biographer of Whitelaw Reid, relating to the Reid family.
Elisabeth Mills Reid's business correspondence and financial papers , with their detailed accounting of the management of the town house on Madison Avenue and the country estate, "Ophir Farm" near White Plains, New York, document an opulent life style as well as Reid's work for a variety of philanthropic causes. Material in both the general correspondence and subject file record activities related to the Nurses' Training School at New York's Bellevue Hospital, the D.O. Mills Training School for Nurses, the construction of a hospital at San Mateo, California, Reid's work with the American Red Cross, and her assistance to Edward L. Trudeau in founding his sanatorium at Saranac Lake, New York.
Series C of Part I, the papers of Ogden Mills Reid , covers the years 1900-1947 and consists of a travel journal , family correspondence , general correspondence , business correspondence , financial records , a subject file , and miscellaneous papers .
Ogden Mills Reid's journal recounts impressions of Japan, Korea, China, and the Philippines and interviews with Douglas MacArthur and Chiang Kai-Shek during a trip Reid made with Wilbur S. Forrest following the close of World War II.
Reid's family correspondence includes letters from his father, Whitelaw Reid, and from his mother, Elisabeth Mills Reid, in which she coaches her son regarding the Tribune's editorial policies and daily operations during his early years as head of the paper. Other correspondents include Richard Evelyn Byrd, John J. Pershing, Fred B. Pitney, Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), and Leonard Wood.
Substantial correspondence is included in the subject file for the European edition of the New York Herald Tribune in Series C. These letters, exchanged mainly between Ogden Mills Reid and Laurence Hills, editor of the European edition, discuss daily operations but also comment on people and events during World War II. Business correspondence and financial records relate mainly to the operation of Ophir Farm and other Reid properties.
The largest grouping in the Reid Family collection is Series D, the papers of Helen Rogers Reid , wife of Ogden Mills Reid. Her papers span the years 1899-1970 and include family correspondence , general correspondence , business correspondence , financial records , a subject file , a speech and article file , and miscellaneous papers .
The main focus of Helen Reid's papers is her devotion to the success of the New York Herald Tribune. Many of the papers relate to her work in the advertising department of the paper where, in 1918, her ability to secure new accounts resulted in her being named advertising director. In 1922 she became vice president of the Tribune and was named president of the Herald Tribune in 1947 following the death of her husband. Of interest are letters she exchanged with members of the Herald Tribune staff, such as Joseph Alsop, Bert Andrews, Heywood Broun, Royal Cortissoz, Fanny Fern Fitzwater, Walter Lippmann, Geoffrey Parsons (1908-1981), Dorothy Thompson, and Irita Taylor Van Dornen.
Under Helen Reid's direction, the political philosophy of the Herald Tribune continued to be Progressive Republicanism. However, there is ample correspondence with politicians of both parties and many letters exchanged with presidents Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Her belief that political thought should have a fair hearing is best illustrated in the Herald Tribune Forum on Current Problems, which she conceived in 1930 as an international sounding board where leaders in all fields could speak on issues of major concern. In both general correspondence and a large subject file , the activities of the forum are described for the years 1930-1967. Participants included Grace Abbott, George Washington Carver, Whittaker Chambers, Thomas E. Dewey, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Virginia G. Gildersleeve, Oveta Culp Hobby, J. Edgar Hoover, Alan G. Kirk, Walter Lippmann, Richard M. Nixon, Adlai E. Stevenson, Stuart Symington, Charles E. Wilson, and Arthur Woods.
The subject file also contains papers related to Helen Reid's work on behalf of her alma mater, Barnard College; the Herald Tribune Fresh Air Fund which collected money to send inner-city children to summer camps throughout New York state, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey; the Hall of Fame of New York University, which she served as a trustee from 1950 until 1969; the President's Commission on the Status of Women; and woman's suffrage.
Part II
Part II supplements the series comprising Part I but also includes records of the Reid Foundation , an institution that awarded grants to journalists for work and study abroad. Voluminous case and correspondence files contain applications, resumes, sample articles, correspondence, and reports by grant recipients on conditions in Mexico and countries in Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa during the post World War II period. Ben H. Bagdikian and Jules Witcover were among the prominent grant recipients.
Included in the Whitelaw Reid (1837-1912) series of Part II is a file on Horace Greeley, founder of the New York Tribune and Reid's mentor and partner. Prominent correspondents in the series include Oliver Wendell Holmes, John E. Milholland, and Elihu Root.
Among the correspondents in the Elisabeth Mills Reid series of Part II are Elisabeth's father, Darius O. Mills, and brother, Ogden Mills.
Correspondents in the series of Ogden Mills Reid Papers in Part II include JohnV. Babcock, Royal Cortissoz, Frederic R. Coudert, Harold L. Ickes, Leon L. Lewis, Edward G. Longman, and George H. Moses.
Helen Rogers Reid corresponded extensively with Herald Tribune staffers such as Andre Bing, Gladys V. Draper, Eric Hawkins, Selwyn Lezard, Lucie Noel, Marcel M. Tallin, and Kay Thorpe. Other correspondents include Lois A. Barrett, Elsie M. Hill, Francis B. Trudeau, and Purificacion C. Valera Quisumbing.
Part III
The papers of Whitelaw Reid (1913-2009), grandson of Whitelaw Reid (1837-1912) and son of Ogden Mills Reid and Helen Rogers Reid, constitute the bulk of Part III. Part III contains six series: Whitelaw Reid Papers (1913-2009) , Helen Rogers Reid Papers , Other Family Members , New York Herald Tribune , Reid Foundation , and Oversize .
Most of the Whitelaw Reid (1913-2009) Papers consists of correspondence with or about Tribune reporters, editors, columnists, executives, and employees; newspaper publishers and other media proprieters; writers; opinion leaders; politicians; civic leaders; public figures; and members of the public generated when he edited the New York Herald Tribune, 1947-1955. Correspondents include Francis David Langhorne Astor, Homer Bigart, Dorothy Brandon, Art Buchwald, Clifford P. Case, George Anthony Cornish, Howard S. Cullman, Roscoe Drummond (1902-1983), Jinx Falkenburg, Wilbur S. Forrest, Hy Gardner, Emily Genauer, Marguerite Higgins, Walter Boardman Kerr, David Lawrence (1888-1973), John Reagan McCrary, John Mearns, Geoffrey Parsons (1908-1981), William E. Robinson (1900-1969), Donald I. Rogers, J. J. Servan-Schreiber, Alfred Boller Stanford, Anna Louise Strong, Buel Fellows Weare, and Walter Winchel.
Whitelaw Reid's family correspondence includes exchanges with his mother, Helen Rogers Reid, and father, Ogden Mills Reid, as well as with his aunt, Florence Rogers Ferguson. Ferguson's nearly seven decade correspondence with her sister Helen Rogers Reid is part of the Helen Rogers Reid Papers series. Her correspondence with other Rogers family members is in the Other Family Members series. Also in the Other Family Members series are files relating to financier Darius Ogden Mills and his daughter Elisabeth Mills Reid.
The New York Herald Tribune series relates to efforts to sustain the Tribune through a period in the 1950s of falling advertising revenue and labor strikes, and to the sale by the Reids of the paper to John Hay Whitney in 1958. The Tribune ceased publishing in 1966.