Scope and Content Note
The papers of James Alexander Robertson (1873-1939) extend from 1816 through 1939, with the bulk of the material dated 1898-1939. The major portion of the papers focuses on Robertson's career as editor, bibliographer, librarian, and educator, a professional life that spanned the first four decades of the twentieth century and was devoted to the study of Hispanic America, Florida, and the Philippines. The collection is organized into six series: Diaries, Correspondence, Subject File, Writings File, Miscellany, and Oversize.
The Correspondence series constitutes the bulk of the collection and is divided into three subseries: Family, Special, and General. Some correspondence is in Spanish and French. The Writings File includes translations and editorial notes by Robertson as well as his poems and miscellaneous writings. Included in the papers are two manuscripts pertaining to Americans in Latin America, 1835 and 1845.
Robertson's letters to his wife, Cora Halsey Robertson, began in 1910, two years prior to their marriage and continued to 1938. The Family Correspondence also includes exchanges with his children and relatives. This correspondence is particularly revealing for his work on the Philippines from 1910 to 1915, and it gives a daily account of his private and family life. Much of the correspondence dated 1939 relates to his illness and death.
Robertson's contribution as compiler and coeditor of the fifty-five volumes of The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 is described in the Special Correspondence from his collaborator, Emma Helen Blair. This correspondence also gives an account of his travels to Spain, Portugal, Italy, and France from 1902 to 1907. Other Special Correspondents include Carroll T. Bond, James A. LeRoy, and Mabel P. LeRoy. Letters to and from Bond relate to Robertson's appointment as archivist for the State of Maryland. The LeRoy correspondence concerns research and translations for The Philippine Islands project.
The General Correspondence dates from 1898 to 1939 and covers Robertson's professional activities in an uninterrupted sequence. It includes copies or carbons of Robertson's outgoing letters, memoranda, notes, and telegrams. From 1898 to 1900 the letters refer to The Jesuit Relations project. In addition to the material of Emma Helen Blair in the Subject File series, much of the General Correspondence file from 1900 to 1907 includes Blair-Robertson correspondence. Although the letters and other manuscript materials relating to the Hispanic American Historical Review (1916-1918) are a part of the Subject File, correspondence for the years 1920-1939 in the General Correspondence also concerns HAHR matters. This is especially true of letters between 1923 and 1929, the period in which Robertson served as managing editor of the journal. Letters relating to the activities of the Florida State Historical Society and Robertson's duties as executive secretary of that organization and as general editor of its publications date from March 1923 to 1932. Specific business letters, reports, and minutes of the society are a part of the Subject File.
The Subject File details the founding of the Hispanic American Historical Review.Documents and correspondence in the American Historical Association and Hispanic American Historical Reviewfiles refer to this phase of the journal's history. Most of the research and duplication of Spanish manuscripts relating to the history of Florida in the archives of Spain was the work of Irene Aloha Wright. In a file for Wright are letters and financial records relating to her work.
Of special interest in the Miscellany series are the writings of Robertson's colleagues and the reproduction of Cabeca de Vaca's Relacion de la Florida(Zamora, 1542).