Scope and Content Note
The papers of Charles Sumner Hamlin (1861-1938) span the years 1869-1968, with the bulk of the items concentrated in the period 1880-1938. These papers primarily concern Hamlin's civic and political affairs and his family's active social life in Washington, D.C., from Grover Cleveland's administration through that of Franklin D. Roosevelt. They also relate to the formation and early history of the Federal Reserve System. Included are diaries, scrapbooks, indexes, incoming and outgoing correspondence, speeches, reports, newspaper clippings, brochures and other printed matter, unpublished writings, photographs, autobiographical notes, genealogical records, and other original and secondary material.
Charles S. Hamlin's scrapbooks cover the entire period of his adulthood, from law school graduation in 1886 to his death in 1938. Containing newspaper clippings, copies of correspondence, published reports, and other printed matter, the scrapbooks document Hamlin's political interests, law practice, and service with the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Board. The scrapbooks have been abstracted and indexed, with a special index prepared for those items concerning Woodrow Wilson's presidential administration. The scrapbooks are available on microfilm only. Items removed from the scrapbooks by the Federal Reserve Board in the summer of 1941 were filed separately from the scrapbooks when they were returned and have not been microfilmed.
Hamlin's diaries chronicle his business and political careers as well as his social life. Topics covered parallel and augment those documented in his scrapbooks. The diaries have also been indexed.
The Correspondence series includes letters exchanged between Hamlin and his wife, Huybertie Pruyn Hamlin, during the years 1900-1934 and general correspondence from 1869 through 1955. It contains a considerable number of letters from presidents Grover Cleveland, Herbert Hoover, William McKinley, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, and Woodrow Wilson, as well as exchanges with other figures, such as Newton Diehl Baker, Frances Folsom Cleveland, Josephus Daniels, Cordell Hull, Robert Lansing, Henry Cabot Lodge, William Gibbs McAdoo, Levi P. Morton, and George Foster Peabody. Most of the letters contain political discussion and comments on Democratic party leaders and policies of the Cleveland, Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt administrations, particularly those issues affecting the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve System. A list of major correspondents is included as an appendix to this register.
Anna Hamlin was the only daughter of Charles and Huybertie Pruyn Hamlin. Her scrapbooks and diaries are organized in separate series and mainly concern social life in Washington, D.C., from about 1915 until her death in 1925. References to Anna in her father's diaries and scrapbooks have also been indexed in a separate volume that is filed in the Indexes to Scrapbooks series. Anna Hamlin's scrapbooks are available on microfilm only.
The Miscellany series contains copies of two unpublished manuscripts by Huybertie Pruyn Hamlin, "Some Memories of Franklin Delano Roosevelt" and "Visit at the White House, November 1941-January 1942." In the first manuscript, Huybertie Hamlin described the longtime friendship among the Roosevelt, Hamlin, and Pruyn families which began early in her childhood. The latter manuscript is an intimate account of her social visits to the White House during the critical period just before the country's entry into World War II at a time when Winston Churchill and other prominent leaders were also guests there. She was, for instance, a witness to the signing of the "Declaration by the United Nations" on January 2, 1942. The originals of both of her manuscripts are in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park, New York. Another of her autobiographical narratives, "Memories of Washington from the Age of Seven," begun in 1929 and completed in 1934, is an informal account of social life mainly from 1913 to 1934. Also included is a satiric poem, "As to the British Embassy Garden Party June 1939," probably also written by her.
Charles S. Hamlin's history of the Federal Reserve Board used extracts from his diaries and other records from March 1913 to January 1929 but is incomplete and ends abruptly in midsentence. A folder containing extracts from diary volumes fourteen and fifteen also includes a March 1968 note to Federal Reserve Board Governor Andrew Felton Brimmer concerning the rate reduction determined by the Board for the Chicago Reserve Bank in 1927.
Biographical notes on Charles S. Hamlin and genealogical information on the Hamlin family are included in the Miscellany series, as well as correspondence, reports, and drafts of legislation pertaining to the 1913 federal income tax law, statistical material and pamphlet files of the Federal Reserve System, 1907-1917, and speeches given by Hamlin between 1897 and 1937. An unpublished report concerning an investigation of customs laws and refunds of duties at the New York customs house was submitted in 1893 to John G. Carlisle, Secretary of the Treasury, by Charles S. Fairchild, chairman of the Fairchild Commission on Hat Material Refunds. The series also contains a photograph of Hamlin and an original cartoon drawn by Sebastian T. Robles for the "National Gallery" series in the Washington Post and published on July 12, 1934. The Robles cartoon is an attachment to correspondence from William Haggard, assistant managing editor of the Post.
The Addition, 1942-1997, includes letters written to Huybertie Pruyn Hamlin and newspaper clippings. The correspondence was written between 1942 and 1962, chiefly by Edith Benham Helm, White House social secretary, concerning personal and social matters and politics.