Scope and Content Note
The papers of John Bassett Moore (1860-1947) span the years 1866-1949, with the bulk from the period 1885-1938. The collection consists of correspondence, a few letterbooks, notes, memoranda, manuscripts of speeches, articles, and books, memorabilia, newspaper clippings and printed matter. The papers are organized into ten series: Diary Memoranda ; General Correspondence ; Subject File ; Autobiographical and Biographical File ; Speech, Article, and Book File ; Scrapbooks ; Miscellany ; William L. Marcy Biographical File ; 2013 Addition ; and 2023 Addition.
The dominant subject is international law. Much of Moore's life, from when he entered the Department of State as a law clerk in 1885 until he resigned from the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague in 1938, was devoted to the study and practice of international law, and the collection reflects this central theme. The typescript of an unpublished memoir, edited by Edwin Borchard, and a large file of miscellaneous autobiographical and biographical material is included in the papers.
Significant correspondents include Alvey A. Adee, Thomas F. Bayard, Edwin Borchard, William Jennings Bryan, Nicholas Murray Butler, William R. Day, Cleveland H. Dodge, John Watson Foster, George Gray, Walter Quintin Gresham, John Hay, Charles Evans Hughes, Hiram Johnson, Philander C. Knox, A. T. Mahan, W. G. McAdoo, William L. Putnam, Sir Cecil Spring Rice, Elihu Root, L. S. Rowe, Harlan Fiske Stone, and Woodrow Wilson.