Scope and Content Note
The papers of Ben Barr Lindsey (1869-1943) span the years 1838-1957, with most of the material originating between 1890 and 1943. The bulk of the collection is comprised of correspondence, family letters and case files. Other papers include manuscripts of Lindsey's articles, books, speeches, and plays; drafts of broadcast scripts and statements; notebooks, daybooks, journals, yearbooks, and appointment books; and stenographic notes. In addition, there are financial, legal and legislation files; official and personal files; memorabilia; scrapbooks; photographs; newspaper clippings; broadsides; and related material. The collection is organized into eleven series: Correspondence (Indexed); Correspondence (Not Indexed); Colorado File; California File; Article, Book, and Speech File; Memoranda, Reports, Statements, and Interviews; Subject File; Legislation; Miscellany; Formerly Restricted Correspondence; and Oversize.
The Lindsey Papers primarily concern his development of the juvenile court system, his tenures as a judge in Colorado and California, and his political and literary activities. Considerable material relates to child welfare, child labor laws, penal reform, women's suffrage, birth control, marriage and divorce, sex education and hygiene, and the Women's Protective League. The collection also treats Lindsey's disbarment in Colorado, the Colorado coal miners' strike of 1913-1914, and the investigations of the Whittier State School of California in 1940-1942.
Prominent correspondents include Jane Addams, Joseph P. Annin, Newton Diehl Baker, Roger Nash Baldwin, Albert Jeremiah Beveridge, Edward William Bok, Louis Dembritz Brandeis, Henry Augustus Buchtel, Luther Burbank, Carrie Chapman Catt, James H. Causey, John Cavanaugh, Edward Prentiss Costigan, George Creel, Clarence Darrow, Stephen T. Early, Thomas A. Edison, Havelock Ellis, Robert Erskine Ely, Wainwright Evans, Harriet Ford , Henry Ford, Louis M. Howe, Charles Evans Hughes, Harold L. Ickes, Hiram Johnson, Tom Loftin Johnson, James Harvey Kellog, Robert M. La Follette (1855-1925), Jesse L. Lasky, Walter Lippmann, William Gibbs McAdoo, S. S. McClure, Jesse F. McDonald, H. H. McIntyre, Julian W. Mack, Justin Miller, Henry Morgenthau, Harvey Jerrold O'Higgins, Culbert Levy Olson, Thomas McDonald Patterson, Drew Pearson, George W. Perkins, James H. Pershing, Amos Pinchot, Gifford Pinchot, Donald R. Richberg, Jacob A. Riis, Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Sol A. Rosenblatt, Bertrand Russell, Margaret Sanger, Hannah Kent Schoff, John F. Shafroth, Morrison Shafroth, Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, Lyman Beecher Stowe, William Howard Taft, R. D. Thompson, Earl Warren, James E. West, William Allen White, Brand Whitlock, Woodrow Wilson, and Stephen S. Wise.
Edwin Markham, coauthor with Lindsey and George Creel of Children in Bondage (1914), is not heavily represented in the collection. There are, however, signed copies of Markham poems, "The Man With the Hoe" (1899) and "Lincoln, the Man of the People" (1900), in the Subject File under the title of "Edwin Markham Poetry, 1899-1900."