Scope and Content Note
The papers of Dudley Wright Knox (1877-1960) span the period 1864-1950, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the years 1921-1946. The papers consist of seven series: Correspondence, Subject File, Speech, Article, and Book File, Printed Matter, Newspaper Clippings, Miscellany, and an Addition.
Much of the Correspondence series concerns Knox's duties and interests as director of the Office of Naval Records and Library, 1921-1946, and as secretary of the Naval Historical Foundation, 1926-1946. Knox held firm views on such subjects as international naval limitation conferences, naval aviation, the revival of a strong merchant marine, naval preparedness, Far Eastern affairs, foreign trade, and national defense. These views are reflected in his correspondence, speeches, articles, and other papers.
The collection is rich in material regarding naval limitations conferences, including the Washington Conference on Limitation of Armament, 1921-1922, the Geneva Conference for the Limitation of Naval Armament, 1927, and the London Naval Conference of 1930. Admiral Hilary P. Jones, the American adviser to the conferences, wrote often to Knox concerning these meetings.
The papers also contain considerable material relating to Knox's published and unpublished books. Included are typescripts of his best known work, A History of the United States Navy, and reviews, clippings, and letters from his publisher and readers.
Knox wrote the text for William H. Meyers's Naval Sketches of the War in California, which has an introduction by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Knox's association with Roosevelt is detailed in a memoir in the Miscellany series.
Knox expanded the holdings of the Naval Library and carried on the normal functions of the Naval Records Section despite the time devoted not only to his own speaking and writing but also to assisting others in similar activities, represented by copies of many of the speeches and articles Knox prepared for fellow naval officers. He had a lengthy correspondence with Thomas Goddard Frothingham, who sent him a draft of each chapter of his three-volume study The Naval History of the World War. Month after month Knox commented, criticized, or corrected the drafts and returned them to Frothingham. An appendix to this finding aid lists the titled articles, speeches, and other writings by Knox included among his papers.
Correspondents in the Knox Papers include J. H. Adams, John V. Babcock, Earle Henry Balch, Harry Alexander Baldridge, Hanson Weightman Baldwin, James Phinney Baxter, Charles Bittinger, Wilson Brown, Howard G. Brownson, Willard H. Brownson, Raymond Leslie Buell, Charles Perry Burt, Kenneth G. Castleman, Bennett Cerf, William Bell Clark, Wat Tyler Cluverius, George P. Colvocoresses, Albert Lyman Cox, Leonard M. Cox, Thomas T. Craven, Josephus Daniels, Ralph E. Davis, Howard A. DeWeerd, Philip R. Dillon, Ralph Earle, Edwin A. Falke, Guy Stanton Ford, George Edmund Foss, Julius Augustus Furer, William Howard Gardiner, Charles E. Gilpin, Harpur Allen Gosnell, Edwin Grabhorn, Fitzhugh Green, Kent Roberts Greenfield, F. Griffith, John George Hartwig, Jan Hasbrouck, N. A. Helmer, Roy Hoffman, James J. Hogan, Franklin Henry Hooper, Alfred G. Howe, Hiram Johnson, Ira Rich Kent, John Crawford Knox, Warren B. Koehler, William Chauncey Langdon, Robert J. S. LaPorte, Henry Cabot Lodge, Stanford E. Moses, Orson D. Mumm, R. E. Pope, Charles N. Robinson, William Sowden Sims, Edward E. Spafford, J. D. Springer, Harold R. Stark, and Lewis L. Strauss.
The Addition to the collection consists of photocopies of memoranda, correspondence, and other documents from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York, concerning efforts by Knox and Roosevelt to publish naval records relating to American wars.