Scope and Content Note
The papers of Horace Greeley (1811-1872) span the years 1812-1928, with most of the collection encompassing the years 1860-1872. The papers include correspondence, typescripts and transcripts of Greeley’s letters and writings; articles, notes, lectures, and speeches by and about Greeley; scrapbooks of newspaper clippings and other printed matter; and miscellaneous material.
Incidents of Greeley’s boyhood, his early struggle in New York to maintain himself in the printing and publishing business, and the growth and success of the New York Tribune that he owned and edited are related in letters from Greeley to Charles A. Dana, B. F. Ransom, Rufus W. Griswold, and others. Other subjects are Whig politics and the slavery issue prior to the Civil War. There is little material relating to Greeley’s three-month term in Congress, 1848-1849, or his senatorial aspirations in 1861 and 1867.
Lecture requests, business and editorial matters concerning the New York Tribune, New York politics, family illness, the bail bond for Jefferson Davis, the Liberal Republican Party, and the presidential campaign of 1872 are also subjects in the collection.
Prominent correspondents include Simon Cameron, William E. Chandler, Schuyler Colfax, William Maxwell Evarts, Hamilton Fish (1808-1893), Jessie Benton Frémont, John G. Nicolay, John Sherman, Gerrit Smith, and B. F. Wade.