Scope and Content Note
The papers of Wharton Barker (1846-1921) span the years 1864-1921, with the bulk of the material dating from 1887 to 1896. The collection includes correspondence, letterbooks, telegrams, legal papers and documents, scrapbooks and clippings, prospecti and pamphlets, financial records, and manuscripts and printed copies of speeches, articles, and books by Barker. The papers are organized in the following series: General Correspondence ; Letterbooks ; Business Records ; Subject File ; Speech, Article, and Book File ; Printed Matter ; Miscellany ; Scrapbooks ; and Oversize .
The papers relate to United States presidential campaigns from 1876 to 1900, in which latter year he was himself the unsuccessful candidate of the Anti-Fusion Populists; University of Pennsylvania trusteeship matters, 1880-1921; the weekly periodical, The American, edited by Barker, 1880-1891 and 1894-1900; financial reforms primarily banking and tariff; financial, railway, and real estate enterprises; and peace movements during the early years of World War I. Also included in the collection are papers relating to Chinese and Russian trade and railway, telephone, telegraph, banking, and mining concessions; international affairs, with special emphasis on Russian-American relations; and Canadian annexation. There is very little material covering the 1900 campaign. Some family correspondence, generally concerned with business matters, is included in the General Correspondence .
Correspondents include George Baird, William Carroll, Moses E. Clapp, Shelby M. Cullom, James A. Garfield, Nikolaï Karlovich Girs, Benjamin Harrison, Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Anthony Higgins, Henry Martyn Hoyt, Marshall Jewell, William D. Kelley, Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924), Alexander MacKenzie, William McKinley, Wayne MacVeagh, S. P. Makietchang, John Inscho Mitchell, Count Mitkiewicz, Boies Penrose, Orville Hitchcock Platt, Thomas Collier Platt, Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonost︠s︡ev, Theodore Roosevelt, L. P. Semetschkin, John Sherman, Goldwin Smith, Henry Moore Teller, John Wanamaker, Andrew Dickson White, and John Russell Young (1840-1899).