Scope and Content Note
The Harry Payne Whitney Collection of Letters of William Collins Whitneyspans the years 1757-1942, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1883-1904. William Collins Whitney (1841-1904), a financier and sportsman, was secretary of the navy in the first administration of Grover Cleveland and corporation counsel in the New York Law Department. The collection consists of correspondence, business, legal and financial records, scrapbooks, genealogies, printed matter, photographs, and other papers organized in six series: Bound Correspondence , Letterbooks , Legal File , Miscellany , Scrapbooks , and Oversize .
Topics include Whitney's work in the modernization of the United States Navy and his fight against political corruption and fraud in New York City, primarily in relation to Tammany Hall and the Tweed Ring. Other subjects relate more broadly to New York city and state politics, the New York Democratic Party, national politics, and foreign relations. Featured are Grover Cleveland's nomination and election as governor of New York and president of the United States, presidential campaigns from 1884 to 1896, bimetallism and the silver question, tariffs, social life in New York and Washington, D.C., horse racing and yachting, and Whitney family affairs.