Scope and Content Note
Part I
Part I of the papers of George Bruce Cortelyou (1862-1940) spans the years 1891-1941, with the bulk of the material dating from 1901 to 1908. The material consists of correspondence, letterpress copybooks, memoranda, and printed matter and is organized into the following series: Letterbooks , General Correspondence , Political Correspondence , Executive File , Subject File , and Miscellany .
The Letterbooks , General Correspondence , and Political Correspondence series contain a few family letters, but relate mainly to the administration of the government departments that Cortelyou headed and to his role as chairman of the Republican National Committee in the presidential campaign of 1904. Politics, political appointments, and personal business affairs are other subjects of the correspondence series. The Executive File contains a great number of letters to or from Theodore Roosevelt and his secretary, William Loeb (1866-1937). The Subject File is principally composed of material assembled for a projected biography of William McKinley.
Principal correspondents in Part I include James Sullivan Clarkson, Charles Gates Dawes, Elmer Dover, Harry S. New, Thomas Collier Platt, and Nathan Bay Scott. Among other prominent correspondents are Alvey A. Adee, Robert Low Bacon, Albert Jeremiah Beveridge, Cornelius Newton Bliss, Edward William Bok, Charles J. Bonaparte, Nicholas Murray Butler, Joseph Gurney Cannon, Andrew Carnegie, William R. Day, Charles W. Fairbanks, John H. Finley, Moreton Frewen, Richard Watson Gilder, John Hay, Frank H. Hitchcock, Henry Cabot Lodge, Ida Saxton McKinley, James Clark McReynolds, Victor Howard Metcalf, William H. Moody, Henry C. Payne, Jacob A. Riis, Elihu Root, Leslie M. Shaw, Charles Emory Smith, Oscar S. Straus, and William H. Taft.
Part II
Part II of the Cortelyou Papers spans the period from 1871-1948, with the material chiefly dating from 1897 to 1902. Part II is organized into the following series: Diaries , Correspondence , Subject File , and Miscellany . Correspondence contains some Cortelyou family correspondence, but more of the letters and memoranda pertain to McKinley's presidential administration. The series includes letters sent and received by McKinley as well as a few items of the presidential correspondence of Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison. The bulk of the material in the Subject File concerns the Spanish-American War and related events, although files relating to the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, assassination plots against President McKinley, and presidential protection are also included. Financial ledgers of both Cortelyou and McKinley, press clippings, invitations, and other printed matter are in Miscellany . Significant correspondents include Alvey A. Adee, Andrew Carnegie, William R. Day, Mark Alonzo Hanna, John Hay, Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924), Ida Saxton McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and John Sherman.