Scope and Content Note
The papers of Abram Peter Turner Elder (circa 1890-circa 1930) span the years 1890-1916, with the bulk of the items concentrated in the period 1903-1916, and include correspondence, illustrated material, photographs, biographical files, and miscellaneous matter. The collection is divided into three series: Correspondence, Biographical Case Files, and Miscellany.
Little is known of Elder's life or career outside the professional associations and productions illuminated by his papers, other than that he was involved in creating and marketing specialty publications. In 1896 Elder and a relative published a compendium of religious art, apparently marketed by private subscriptions and published by a family corporation in Chicago. In 1899 they reissued the book through a worldwide publishing firm. There is no information, however, in the Elder Papers concerning these ventures. In 1902 Charles H. Grosvenor began compiling The Book of the Presidents, with Biographical Sketches, a customized biographical directory for sale by private subscription. The National Biographical Society, a commercial firm of which Elder was an official, became involved in Grosvenor's work, eventually assuming control of most or all aspects of its publication, which is noted in correspondence in the Elder Papers and is graphically represented in four-color engravings of title sheets, sample page proofs, and other publishing matter.
Between approximately 1903 and 1912, Elder assisted in the preparation of another customized biographical directory, marketed via subscription and published under the auspices of his firm, entitled The National Memorial of the United States. Correspondence and related records in Elder's papers provide an in-depth view of the efforts to publish the National Memorial, with extensive detail concerning contracts, quality of work which printing firms promised or submitted, internal personnel matters, efforts to identify a subscriber audience and increase sales, and outreach, including an award-winning exhibit in the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915-1916 in San Francisco. Most of the correspondence regarding the National Memorial was generated by several officials of the National Biographical Society, including Elder, but was not signed and is impossible or difficult to identify by author. Prominent among the correspondents are society officials Charles H. Grosvenor, Robert E. Doan, Lucy S. Bahnsen, R. E. Montague, and Richard R. McMahon.
The Biographical Case Files contain correspondence, background information, clippings, and other printed matter, as well as photographs and biographical entries regarding the individuals profiled in the National Memorial. Many of the people featured were prominent local, state, and national politicians, capitalists, and philanthropists, including Charles F. Chickering, W. W. Corcoran, Moody Currier, H. A. Du Pont, Mary Baker Eddy, Isaac E. Emerson, Charles W. Fairbanks, Marshall Field, Julius Fleischmann, Ulysses S. Grant II, Solomon R. Guggenheim, William Guggenheim, Edward Everett Hale, Marcus Alonzo Hanna, David N. Hershey, Christian Heurich, Henry Edwards Huntington, Charles Kellogg, Henry Miles Knowles, Daniel Scott Lamont, Craige Lippincott, Nicholas Longworth, Cyrus Hall McCormick, Darius O. Mills, J. Pierpont Morgan, Levi P. Morton, Gottlieb Muhlhauser, Francis G. Newlands, George Mortimer Pullman, and Matthew Stanley Quay.
A small number of records document the organization, function, and mission of the National Biographical Society, including statements of intent, bylaws, articles of incorporation, and sample stockholder certificates. A very small amount of correspondence concerns the maintenance of Elmhyrst, the Elder family summer estate in Middletown, Rhode Island, and is virtually the only reference in this collection to Elder's nonprofessional life.