Scope and Content Note
The papers of Sayles Jenks Bowen (1813-1896) span the years 1836-1896, with the bulk of the material dated during the period 1876-1882. The collection consists primarily of family, general, and business correspondence with few items from the period of Bowen’s decade of public service. Family correspondence covers the period 1838-57 as well as the 1860s. Bills, receipts, checks, loan agreements, and a variety of legal papers constitute the remainder of the collection.
Subjects in the Bowen Papers include the presidential campaign and disputed election of 1876, the administration of President Rutherford Birchard Hayes, opposition to Ulysses S. Grant, and political support for James Gillespie Blaine, James A. Garfield, and Chester A. Arthur. Correspondents include James Gillespie Blaine, William E. Chandler, Frederick Douglass, Rueben E. Fenton, Robert Todd Lincoln, James H. Platt, and Whitelaw Reid.