Scope and Content Note
The papers of James Garfield Randall (1881-1953) and Ruth Painter Randall (1892-1971) span the years 1779-1970, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1916-1970. Included in the collection are photocopies and transcripts of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century documents dating between 1779 and 1865.
The papers consist of correspondence, diaries, notes, memoranda, drafts, proofs, outlines, printed matter, and photocopies. They relate primarily to J. G. Randall's exhaustive study of the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln, but they also include the private diary of Ruth Painter Randall and correspondence relating to the Randall's courtship and marriage. Another focus is on J. G. Randall's long tenure as professor of history at the University of Illinois, Urbana, and there is considerable material pertaining to Ruth Painter Randall's extensive research and writing on Mary Lincoln, especially her book Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Marriage published in 1953.
The correspondence includes letters to and from the Randall's professional contemporaries. Among them are Paul M. Angle, William E. Baringer, Roy P. Basler, Howard K. Beale, Henry Steele Commager, Avery Craven, Bernard Augustine De Voto, David Herbert Donald, Frank Burt Freidel, William Best Hesseltine, Reinhard H. Luthin, David C. Mearns, George Fort Milton, Jay Monaghan, Jeannette Paddock Nichols and Roy F. Nichols, Theodore Calvin Pease, David Morris Potter, Henry E. Pratt, Milo Milton Quaife, Carl Sandburg, Wendell Holmes Stephenson, Bell Irvin Wiley, and T. Harry Williams.