Scope and Content Note
The papers of Thomas De Witt Talmage (1832-1902) span the years 1831-1902 and consist of correspondence, diaries, notebooks, minutes, sermons, lectures, autobiographical material, scrapbooks, clippings, and other printed matter. The collection is organized into four series: Correspondence ; Diaries, Notebooks, and Minutes ; Writings ; Printed Matter and Miscellany .
The correspondence of letters sent and received includes a small file of correspondence belonging to his uncle, Samuel K. Talmage (1831-1851), letters pertaining to the twenty-fifth anniversary of T. De Witt Talmage’s pastorate at the Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York; and contracts for his lecture tours and church appointments.
Although the notebooks contain mostly ideas for sermons and lectures, there are five pertaining to his trip to the Holy Land, 1889-1890, and eight concerning his trip around the world in 1894. Included is a notebook containing the Minutes of the Session of the Central Presbyterian Church, later the Brooklyn Tabernacle, for the years 1847-1871.
The collection includes numerous sermons and sermon fragments and many lectures by Talmage covering the years 1866-1893. A majority of these sermons is included in a twenty-volume collection, 500 Selected Sermons (New York: Bible House, 1900).
Talmage’s autobiography, T. De Witt Talmage as I Knew Him(New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1912), is written on loose sheets and in notebooks; included are the final chapters written by his wife, Eleanor McCutcheon Collier Talmage.
The scrapbook file consists of printed copies of Talmage’s sermons. Clippings from newspapers and magazines contain articles by or about Talmage.
The collection also includes miscellaneous articles by Talmage; letters and talks written during his trip around the world, including an interview with Alexander III, Emperor of Russia; texts and indices of his sermons; as well as family photographs.