Scope and Content Note
The papers of Constance McLaughlin Green (1897-1975) span the years 1920-1969, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period between 1953 and 1963 when Green researched and wrote her Pulitzer Prize-winning history of Washington, D.C. Published in 1962-1963 by Princeton University Press, the two-volume work, Washington, Village and Capital, 1800-1878 and Washington, Capital City, 1879-1950, was the product of a ten-year undertaking that Green completed with the aid of foundation grants and the administrative support of American University. The collection contains drafts and galleys of the work, voluminous research notes arranged according to the chronological blocks established by Green, and subject files that contain reports and correspondence pertaining to the editing and publishing of both volumes. Papers unrelated to the Washington project are limited to correspondence and to miscellaneous speeches and writings. The collection is organized into five series: Correspondence , Subject File , Speeches and Writings File , Research File , and Oversize .
As a historian and author, Green's career ranged from teaching positions at Mount Holyoke and Smith colleges to the post of chief historian, Ordnance, Army History Division, at the Department of Defense. Most noteworthy, however, was her pioneering insistence on the significance of the city in American history. Green's portrayal of the social reality of nineteenth and twentieth century urban life in Washington, D.C., can be traced in detail in the research notes in this collection. Together with her manuscript drafts, the note cards in these papers are a supplementary guide to the social practices, economic policies, racial attitudes, and political and legal standards that prevailed in the capital during its first one hundred fifty years. Absent from the papers are the transcripts or notes of interviews Green obtained from persons who lived in Washington during the years covered by the second volume. Brief recollections of a personal nature, however, are in the correspondence folder in the subject files of the Washington history project. Among those who offered their personal reminiscences of important episodes and conditions in the history of the city were Rayford Logan, Louis Brownlow, and Ulysses Simpson Grant (1864-1953).
Other writings in the collection include her doctoral dissertation published as Holyoke, Massachusetts; A Case History of the Industrial Revolution in America (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1939.). Also in the writings are speeches on such diverse themes as “Project Vanguard” and New England's contribution to America's economic progress. Additional items include notes and drafts of journal articles; notes and related material for her published book on urban history relating to Naugatuck, Connecticut; manuscripts of encyclopedia entries on the subject of Washington, D.C.; and a book review of Morton and Lucia White's The Intellectuals Versus the City.
Correspondence on subjects other than Washington, D.C., is slight. Important exceptions are letters from Charles A. Lindbergh concerning the manuscript of a book Green coauthored with Milton Lomask entitled Vanguard; A History (Washington, D.C.: Scientific and Technical Information Division, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1970) for which Lindbergh wrote an introduction, and a small group of letters relating to Green's advisory role in the publication of Notable American Women.
Correspondents include Herbert Smith Bailey, Louis Brownlow, M. D. C. Crawford, Charles B. Fahs, John Hope Franklin, Phineas Indritz, John Ihlder, Edward T. James, and David Allan Robertson.