Scope and Content Note
The papers of John Franklin Jameson (1859-1937) span the years 1604-1994, with the bulk of the material dating from 1900 to 1930. The papers are organized into nine series: Diaries, Family Papers, General Correspondence, Personal Miscellany, Office Files, Biographer's Papers, Miscellany, Additions, and Oversize.
The papers include personal, family, and professional material. There are some papers relating to Jameson's academic careers at Brown University and the University of Chicago, but most concern his achievements in the establishment and early existence of institutions that helped to professionalize the field of American history in the twentieth century. These include the American Historical Association, American Historical Review, United States National Archives and Records Administration, and the Dictionary of American Biography. The largest portion of the papers consist of Jameson's files as director of the Department of Historical Research of the Carnegie Institution of Washington (1905-1928). Also in the papers are guides to and copying of material pertaining to American history in foreign repositories and files kept by Leo Francis Stock for the publication of Proceedings and Debates of the British Parliaments respecting North America.
The following note by John Beverley Riggs, written in 1956, pertains primarily to the Office Files of the Department of Historical Research of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
REPORT ON THE PAPERS OF J. FRANKLIN JAMESON
At the request of officials of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the following report on the files of the Department of Historical Research is submitted. With the attached inventory, it forms a record memorandum of materials which are being transferred to the Division of Manuscripts in the Library of Congress, under a special instrument of gift.
These files contain the official record of the Department of Historical Research (originally created as the Bureau of Historical Research on February 18, 1903). Besides the correspondence of Andrew C. McLaughlin, its first director (October 1, 1903-October 1905), and his successor, John Franklin Jameson (October 1905-June 1928), they contain a substantial body of material that antedates the existence of the Carnegie Institution itself. The pattern of the files indicates that much of this earlier material was interfiled when Jameson succeeded to the directorship 1905. Possibly as a matter of convenience in conducting his own correspondence, Jameson blended his files (particularly those for his years at Brown University and at the University of Chicago) with that which McLaughlin had left by way of an official record.
The passage of years brought further additions, including an important series of letters and memoranda from the files of Dr. Waldo Gifford Leland, senior member of the Department of Historical Research. The Leland materials contain many original Jameson letters and a group of others relating to research in Paris. Upon the retirement of Jameson as director in 1928, the activities of the Department of Historical Research passed through stages of progressive diminution, but a few letters continued to be added to the files by the late Dr. Stock, who, as Jameson's executor, had immediate control of the material. These particular additions related to subjects more pertinent to Dr. Stock's own interests, and some were in reply to occasional inquiries. He had control of the full set of files until his death in March 1954.
During the autumn of 1954 Miss Elizabeth Donnan commenced a further arrangement of the files. As co-editor, with Dr. Stock, of selections from Jameson's correspondence, her study of these papers was painstaking and thorough. The letters which they chose are scheduled for publication early in 1956 by the American Philosophical Society as Volume 42 of its Memoirs, entitled An Historian's World. Work on this book commenced about the year 1948. It embraced an exhaustive survey of all correspondence in the files of the Department of Historical Research, as well as the quest for additional items outside the jurisdiction of the Carnegie Institution. In some cases Miss Donnan acquired the original letters from interested parties, in others, photocopies or transcripts were received. These are valued additions. When editing ended, she turned to the work of shifting, sorting, and re-grouping much of the material in the official files. A quanity of letters had been pulled from the files during the process of selection for publication, and her first duty was to return these to their proper folders. During the course of this operation Miss Donnan made repeated modifications in the arrangement of material. Her full knowledge of Jameson's career made it possible for many letters to be placed under proper subject headings. This feature of her work deserves great praise. Dr. Stock had already supplied numerous cross-references to which she added certain others. These two features were attendant upon the editorial work and are traceable to its earlier stages. Miss Donnan was unable to complete the interfiling of much of this material under special subject headings before her death in 1955, but had taken the precaution to mark much of it with proper designations, and, following these, it has been possible to place most of the items where she wished them.
Dr. Stock had also in his charge a great many of Jameson's personal papers. This material dates from his childhood years, and includes school and college items, lecture and research notes, family correspondence, and miscellaneous memorabilia. It was from this material that Miss Donnan had begun to draw in the last months of her work on the files. A portion of these personal items had already been integrated when her work ceased. When I was engaged to complete the work on the main files I conferred with Dr. Leland about this category of personal materials. He suggested that the remaining portions of correspondence prior to 1903, and those embracing the letters of Jameson to members of his family, not be interfiled, so they have been retained in a separate category as indicated in the attached inventory.
The files contain comparatively little for the years after 1928, when Jameson became chief of the Division of Manuscripts in the Library of Congress.
Another portion of the records of the Department of Historical Research included in the gift to the Library of Congress is the file developed by the late Dr. Stock in connection with his edition of Proceedings and Debates of the British Parliaments respecting North America. This material includes mounted clippings, photo-reproductions, transcripts, annotated volumes, and correspondence.
For purposes of record it may be useful to include a brief account of the use which has been made of the files of the Department of Historical Research since 1928, when Jameson retired as director. Aside from the steady recourse which his former associates have had to these materials (and these include, particularly, Dr. Waldo Gifford Leland, Dr. Leo Francis Stock, and Miss Elizabeth Donnan), the files have been used for particular work noticed in Miss Donnan's preface to An Historian's World. They were used by the author of this report, in connection with a seminar paper he prepared at Yale University in 1948-1949 on work done by Charles M. Andrews in the British archives, and again during 1954-1955, in preparing a doctoral dissertation, also at Yale, entitled "The Acquisition of Foreign Archival Sources for American History to the Year 1940." Dr. A. S. Eisenstadt of Brooklyn University has also consulted them for particular references in his study of Charles M. Andrews which is scheduled for publication during 1956. Dr. Fred Shelley of the New Jersey Historical Society made use of particular portions in his very able account, "The Interest of J. Franklin Jameson in the National Archives, 1908-34" (American Archivist, XII, 99-130), published in 1949. More recently the files have been used by Dr. Waldo G. Leland in preparing his sketch of Jameson for the forth coming volume of the Dictionary of American Biography. The most recent inquiry was in December 1955, by Mr. George Kennan of the Institute of Advanced Research at Princeton, who consulted papers relating to the Sisson Documents. Mr. Kennan is preparing an exhaustive study of the Sisson materials, and it will appear in 1956. But by far the most significant work based on the collection is the selection of correspondence already mentioned. The edition of An Historian's World is primarily the work of two of Jameson's colleagues, and includes about 500 of his best letters to American and European figures. It may well be considered the most important contribution to the documentation of American historiography that has yet been accomplished.
These files of the Department of Historical Research, numbering about 50,000 pieces, are a rich store for historians, and especially for any who study American historiography for the period between 1890 and 1930. Here are found letters from most of the leading historians in America and in Europe, for Jameson's interests were wide, and he spent much time in advancing the work of others. There are important files relating to the International and Anglo-American historical conferences, the crusade for the National Archives at Washington, the American Historical Review, and the affairs of the American Historical Association. One of the most vital portions relates to the foreign archival surveys conducted by the Department of Historical Research during the first quarter of the century. There are highly significant documents, too, concerning the establishment of a Department of Historical Research by the Carnegie Institution in Washington. These last named items show how completely Jameson's influence dominated the creation of this agency.
The full list of Jameson's correspondents is impressive. It is no exaggeration to say that it omits scarcely any American historian of his time. The names of the famous, Woodrow Wilson, Lord Bryce, Elihu Root, Jusserand, Henry Adams, Daniel Coit Gilman, Cardinal Gibbons, and the two Roosevelts, are but a few to be cited from the plentiful store. His correspondence with foreign historians, archivists, and other professional people was equally extensive. The papers probably contain something about every historical enterprise undertaken in the United States during his lifetime. More than anything else, they reveal his oft-expressed description of the Department of Historical Research as a "clearing house," or, as Henry Adams once said, a "telephone exchange for historians" for all that passed through the hands of its gifted director.
Those portions relating to the Guides contain the reports which he required each month from agents while they were abroad. There are also the letters which he wrote in their behalf, in which the problems of access, co-operation, and institution policy are discussed. All indicate how well he controlled the entire operation of foreign surveys.
An examination of the inventory reveals the wonderful range of the man's activities and interests. As they now stand, the letters are arranged under alphabetical (author) headings. Within these groups, papers are filed by date. This is the order which they had during Jameson's lifetime. It was an arrangement found useful by the editors of his correspondence. The inclusive dates of material in individual folders are indicated in the inventory. The physical condition of the papers is good, but the folders themselves should have more attention; many are old and brittle. It did not seem imperative that this condition be remedied before transfer is made to the Library of Congress, for it is not known just what processing may be necessary for the best use of the papers after they reach the Division of Manuscripts. The inventory, as it stands, is a provisional key to the collection, and will guide those who use the materials until such time as an improved order evolves.