Scope and Content Note
The family papers of James Gillespie Blaine (1830-1893) span the years 1777-1945, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the years 1870-1892. The collection consists of diaries, memoirs, correspondence, speeches, writings, notebooks, scrapbooks, and miscellaneous material. Except for a small Addition series, the entire collection was microfilmed in the order of its arrangement in 1976.
The Blaine Family Papers focus largely on James G. Blaine. His letters in the Family Correspondence series are addressed mainly to his wife, Harriet Stanwood Blaine; his mother, Maria Louise Gillespie Blaine; his oldest son, Walker Blaine; and his secretary, Thomas H. Sherman. The letters principally concern personal and family matters, but political references are scattered throughout. Blaine served two presidents as secretary of state, and there is a significant amount of correspondence written while he was traveling in Europe in 1867.
In the General Correspondence series, the presidential campaign of 1884 is treated in depth, and virtually all major issues of the period receive attention. A small portion of the correspondence deals with foreign policy and diplomacy, especially concerning Latin America. The series also provides insight into Blaine's business activities. Included in the correspondence are condolences conveyed to Blaine upon the death of his son, Walker, in 1890 and the death of his son, Emmons, in 1892. Among the correspondents are William B. Allison, George S. Boutwell, Benjamin H. Bristow, Edwin C. Burleigh, Benjamin F. Butler, J. D. Cameron, Simon Cameron, Andrew Carnegie, William E. Chandler, Zachariah Chandler, George William Childs, Schuyler Colfax, Alonzo B. Cornell, Samuel Sullivan Cox, Stephen B. Elkins, William Maxwell Evarts, Thomas Ewing, Cyrus W. Field, Hamilton Fish, Charles R. Flint, Patrick Ford, Charles Foster, James A. Garfield, Lucretia Rudolph Garfield, George Congdon Gorham, Ulysses S. Grant, Horace Greeley, Galusha A. Grow, Eugene Hale, Murat Halstead, Hannibal Hamlin, John Marshall Harlan, Benjamin Harrison, John Hay, Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Phineas Warren Hitchcock, E. R. Hoar, George Frisbie Hoar, O. O. Howard, Timothy A. Howe, Henry M. Hoyt, William H. Hunt, Robert Green Ingersoll, Robert Todd Lincoln, Henry Cabot Lodge, John Alexander Logan, Alexander K. McClure, William McKinley, Edward McPherson, Joseph Medill, Warner Miller, Edwin D. Morgan, Justin S. Morrill, Lot M. Morrill, Baron Julian Pauncefote, William Walter Phelps, Wendell Phillips, Thomas B. Reed, Whitelaw Reid, Horace Rublee, Robert Cumming Schenck, Ellen Ewing Sherman, John Sherman, William T. Sherman, Charles E. Smith, William Henry Trescott, Israel Washburn, Elihu B. Washburne, Thurlow Weed, William Windom, and Fernando Wood.
Scrapbooks in the collection relate almost entirely to Blaine's public activities during the years 1873 to 1893. Speeches and writings elucidate his views on many public issues and include a draft of his book Twenty Years in Congress. Financial matter in the Miscellany series documents his extensive business activities and includes a record of his assets at his death. Also in the financial records is an account book kept by Walker Blaine while on a diplomatic mission to South America from 1881 to 1882.
Much information on the family is located in the Diaries and Memoirs, Notebooks, and Family Correspondence series. Especially valuable is Harriet Stanwood Blaine's memoir of President James A. Garfield's assassination. The first part of the Family Correspondence includes a small group of letters sent and received by Blaine's father, Ephraim L. Blaine, and his grandfather, Ephraim Blaine, a prominent figure in the American Revolution. The second part of the Family Correspondence consists of letters to Blaine from his immediate family and letters exchanged among family members. The majority of the letters are written by Harriet Stanwood Blaine, Walker Blaine, and Blaine's daughter, Margaret Blaine Damrosch. The letters relate mainly to personal and family matters, although Walker Blaine often wrote of political and diplomatic topics, especially while in South America from 1881 to 1882. Letters received by family members from outside the family circle constitute the remaining part of the Family Correspondence. The letters to Harriet Stanwood Blaine from William E. Chandler and Lucretia Rudolph Garfield and to Walker Blaine from William Henry Trescott are particularly revealing. Other prominent correspondents include Chester Alan Arthur, Andrew Carnegie, James A. Garfield, Bret Harte, John Hay, William McKinley, Rachel Sherman, and William T. Sherman.
The autograph collection in the Miscellany series contains several items of historical interest, including letters of Benjamin Franklin, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Benjamin Vaughan, and Daniel Webster, two letters of W. E. Gladstone, Abraham Lincoln's endorsement on the back of a Blaine letter, and a copy of a letter of George Washington. The collection also includes twelve pages of holograph notes of Henry Clay, 11 May-9 June 1815, relating to an Anglo-American commercial convention, a two-page holograph fragment of Clay's address on the occasion of his resignation as speaker of the House of Representatives, four pages of James Madison's holograph notes for a speech at the Richmond Convention of 1829-1830 to revise Virginia's constitution, and an autograph of John Quincy Adams.
A small Additions series contains family correspondence pertaining to James G. Blaine and others, 1776-1932, as well as general correspondence and miscellaneous items.