Scope and Content Note
The Puerto Rican Memorial Collection spans the years 1519-1923, with the bulk of the material dating from 1833 to 1910. The collection consists of correspondence, essays, lecture notes, a journal, plays, newspaper clippings, printed matter, and bibliographic material.
In 1941, and again in 1947, Alice Bache Gould donated to the Library of Congress her collection of papers and manuscripts concerning the history of Puerto Rico. In addition to her own correspondence, writings, and bibliographic work, Gould had gathered original nineteenth-century manuscripts by several important figures in Puerto Rico's intellectual and political history.
The largest file in the collection concerns Father Rufo Manuel Fernández Carballido. It includes his notes and essays on science, religion, education in Puerto Rico, and a journal of a trip to the United States in 1837. The writings of Fernández Carballido that had been in bound volumes have been disassembled for conservation purposes. As an aid for maintaining order, small numbers placed on the bottom of each piece of paper have been cited in the Container List of this finding aid.
The papers of Román Baldorioty de Castro shed light on the political history of the island, especially Baldorioty de Castro's activities as president of the "Partido Autonomista Puerto-Riqueño" in 1887-1888. Also in the collection is a fifty-seven page bound manuscript written by the Spanish general Alejandro O'Reilly in 1765 who described and analyzed, with statistical information included, the population, resources, and future development of Puerto Rico. The O'Reilly volume had belonged to Baldorioty de Castro.
Incorporated into the collection is the James G. Shine gift of correspondence written by Ramón Emeterio Betances, physician and Caribbean political activist. The letters were written in 1890 during his exile in Paris.