Scope and Content Note
The papers of the family of Edward Wight Washburn (1881-1934) span the years 1817-1934. The collection contains diaries, correspondence, school material, notebooks, photographs, financial and military papers, genealogical records, writings, printed matter, and miscellaneous documents pertaining to Washburn and his family, including his parents, William Gilmor and Flora Ella Wight Washburn, and grandparents, George A. and Elizabeth Gilmor Washburn. The collection is organized into six series: Diaries , Correspondence , Notebooks , Genealogy , Miscellany , and Oversize .
Edward W. Washburn was a professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois who in 1926 became chief chemist at the National Bureau of Standards. Beginning in 1918, he served variously as member, commissioner, delegate, editor, and chairman of various organizations and commissions relating to international chemistry standards and physical chemistry tables. The papers, however, focus almost entirely on the Washburn family, with the bulk of material as it pertains to Edward stemming from his early or personal life rather than professional concerns. He was born in Beatrice, Nebraska, where his father moved from Maine in the 1870s and was joined by his mother, who traveled west for their wedding. Grandfather George A. Washburn owned a dry goods and grocery operation in Calais, Maine, from 1857 to 1861.
The diaries and correspondence treat the circumstances and interrelationships of family life in these and other locales, including details of their daily activities. Of particular significance are correspondence and military papers from George A. Washburn’s service in the Civil War as a volunteer in the 12th Maine Infantry Regiment that shipped from Boston on the steamer Constitution to Ship Island, Mississippi, in November 1861. As captain in the Maine infantry, Washburn saw service under General Benjamin F. Butler in New Orleans before being discharged in May 1863 because of an illness contracted while in transport on the Constitution.