Scope and Content Note
The papers of Henry Clark Corbin (1841-1909) span the years 1864-1980, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1898-1909. The collection consists of correspondence, topical material, memoranda, reports, speeches and writings, transcripts of an autobiography, photographs, printed matter, and scrapbooks and photograph albums of Corbin, his wife, Edythe Agnes Patten Corbin, and other members of the Patten family, including Edythe's sister, Augusta Patten Glover, and her husband, John M. Glover.
Important subjects in the Corbin Papers include the Spanish American War, Corbin's military career from the Civil War to his retirement in 1906, administration of the Phillippines, 1900-1906, the Peking Relief Expedition, 1901, and the political and social affairs of a prominent family in Washington, D.C., at the turn of the century. Featured are memoranda and affidavits gathered by Corbin in an effort to obtain the rank of major general and the army's investigation of private uses of public funds in the Philippines. There is a large file of special correspondence concerning the engagement and wedding of Corbin and Edythe Agnes Patten in 1901. Letterbooks kept by Corbin as corresponding secretary for the presidential inaugural committee for James A. Garfield, 1880-1881, and for William McKinley, 1901, are also included.
Principal correspondents include Adna Romanza Chaffee, George B. Cortelyou, Charles Henry Grosvenor, Rutherford Birchard Hayes, William Loeb, William Ludlow, John James McCook, Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), Theodore Schwan, William Rufus Shafter, William H. Taft, and Leonard Wood.