Scope and Content Note
The papers of Solon Hannibal Borglum (1868-1922) span the years 1886-1969, with the bulk of the papers dated from 1900 to 1922. The papers include commission files of his works of art, correspondence, subject files, articles by Borglum, certificates and awards, photographs, printed matter, a scrapbook, and microfilm.
The commission files are arranged chronologically and contain correspondence, contracts, photographs, notes, receipts, clippings, reports, and printed matter relating to the individual commissions. The general correspondence includes letters from friends and colleagues to Borglum, but also includes letters relating to commissions for art work not found in the commission files. In the special correspondence are letters from such correspondents as Theodore Roosevelt, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Booker T. Washington, and Leonard Wood, and incoming letters to Borglum's wife, Emma Vignal Borglum, and his daughter, Monica Borglum Davies. Of interest also is correspondence relating to the legal dispute with the dancer Loïe Fuller.
The subject files document Borglum's career and interests. In 1907, Borglum founded with other artists the Silvermine Group of Artists whose file contains correspondence, minutes, a rule of law, and printed ephemera. Represented also in the files is Borglum's service during World War I in France with the Young Men's Christian Association and Les Foyers du Soldat which set up canteens for soldiers on leave, and the American Expeditionary Forces Art Training Center in Bellevue, France, an institution providing instruction in the arts to American soldiers during the Armistice period. Writings by Borglum about this period and especially the American Expeditionary Forces Art Training Center are filed with the articles. There is also material on the School of American Sculpture that he founded in 1920. A scrapbook of newspaper clippings, and certificates and awards are in oversize. Microfilm in the collection contains newspaper clippings and magazine articles about Borglum, some of which are neither in the scrapbook nor the printed matter. In 1899, Borglum and his wife traveled to the Crow Creek Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Borglum's time there influenced his art and he became best known for his depictions of frontier life, especially cowboys and Native Americans. While at the reservation, his wife kept a journal, a translation of which appears in the papers. Other related material includes drawings and watercolors, many of them signed, created by Native American schoolchildren attending the Fort Spokane Boarding School in Miles, Washington, and sent to Borglum in 1905 by F. F. Avery, a former teacher at the Crow Creek Indian Reservation.