[From Index to the Benjamin Harrison Papers (Washington, D.C.: 1964), pp. v-vii]

The story of the Benjamin Harrison Papers is largely that of Mrs. Harrison's search for a biographer. [1] She became the chief mover in the search shortly after E. Frank Tibbott had to abandon his attempts at a biography shortly after the ex-President's death. [2]

Inquiry about the papers on behalf of the Library of Congress was first made in 1903. [3] Mrs. Harrison had about that time agreed to place the manuscripts at the disposal of John S. Griffith, U. S. Consul General in London, who was to be the official biographer. [4] When Mr. Griffith died a decade later, the biography was unwritten and the papers remained in London.

By December 1914 Mrs. Harrison had retrieved the collection and wrote to Gaillard Hunt requesting him to ask Senator Theodore E. Burton of Ohio to write the biography. While the Senator showed interest in the project, the press of his other duties made it impossible for him to give it the time required. [5] On March 1, 1915, the first group of Harrison papers was deposited in the Library under the restriction that the collection was not to be consulted without Mrs. Harrison's permission. The deposit was converted to a gift on June 2, 1933, at which time the William Henry Harrison Papers were established as a distinct group. [6] The principal group of Benjamin Harrison manuscripts was bound in 181 volumes in 1933.

Mrs. Harrison and the Library continued to cooperate in efforts to organize the collection for the biographer, as well as to locate a writer suitable to the undertaking. John W. Foster, a Secretary of State under Harrison, was approached, as were Charles Williams, James A. Woodburn, Paul L. Haworth, and others. As early as 1921, Mary Lord Harrison was assisted in her efforts to perfect her husband's collection by Albert T. Volwiler, Harrison Fellow in the Department of History of the University of Pennsylavania. [7] On August 9, 1926, Mrs. Harrison asked Charles Moore, Acting Chief of the Manuscript Division, to give Professor Volwiler access to the Harrison papers and concluded, "He is to write my husband's biography. . . ."

Through the efforts of Professor Volwiler to provide materials for the long-planned biography, other significant additions were made to the collection over the two decades of his intensive and exclusive use of the papers. These included extracts from Elijah W. Halford's diary, kept while he was Harrison's White House secretary; letters of Louis T. Michener, Harrison's campaign manager; Mary Harrison McKee's collection of letters Harrison wrote to his first wife, Carrie S. Harrison, during the Civil War; letters of Robert S. Taylor, Indiana circuit judge; and letters exchanged by Harrison and his closest college friend, John A. Anderson. One of Volwiler's most noteworthy efforts to complete the collection was the Tibbott transcript project. In 1928, at Volwiler's suggestion, Tibbott who had been Harrison's stenographer and private secretary for 12 years, was engaged by the Library to transcribe from his own shorthand notebooks. This he proceeded to do, carefully dictating over 7,000 letters which filled many important gaps in the collection for the years of Harrison's presidency and after, and which are indicated in this index by the abbreviation "TT." Series 15 of the Harrison papers contains part of the correspondence between Volwiler and Tibbott which documents the Tibbott transcript story.

Later Volwiler efforts resulted in the addition to the Harrison collection of the letterbooks and other records of the law firms of Wallace and Harrison, and Harrison and Fishback. Thomas P. Martin, Assistant Chief of the Manuscript Division, called Volwiler the researcher "par excellence" with good reason, [8] for his efforts to improve the Harrison collection also made him instrumental in bringing to the Library the papers of Benjamin F. Tracy, Secretary of the Navy under Harrison, of Eugene Gano Hay, a prime mover in Harrison's nomination for the presidency, and of James S. Clarkson, Assistant Postmaster General. [9]

With some regret regarding Volwiler's inability to convert his years of research into a biography and an often-expressed wish that the papers be made available to scholars, Mrs. Harrison requested on April 24, 1945, that the Harrison papers be opened to the public. [10] Mary McKee Reisinger and Benjamin Harrison McKee requested that the separate collection of President Harrison's letters to his first wife during the Civil War also be converted to an unrestricted gift on April 13, 1947. [11] All restrictions relative to use of the combined collections were removed on July 14, 1947.

The long wait for a Harrison biographer ended in 1948 when the Reverend Harry J. Sievers, S. J., began his work with the Harrison Papers, the fruition of which was the publication 4 years later of Benjamin Harrison, Hoosier Warrier (Chicago, 1952). A second volume, Benjamin Harrison, Hoosier Stateman, appeared in 1959, and a third volume covering the presidential years is in progress. Father Sievers has told the story of both the collection and the search for a biographer in the preface to the second edition of his first volume, previously cited.

The Benjamin Harrison Papers, which number 69,612, cover every aspect of Harrison's life and career: his relations with his family, his college work and fraternal activity, his great love for Carrie Scott Harrison, his service as Brigadier General of the 70th Regiment, Indiana Volunteers, his early law practice, his service as reporter for the Supreme Court of Indiana, his senatorial career, the political buildup to his election as President, and his legal triumph in the Venezuela boundary dispute. It is particularly rich in materials pertaining to the political campaign of 1888, Pension Office problems, and controversial Post Office and Civil Service disputes. In addition to the letters, the collection contains speeches, memoranda, petitions, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, financial records, and miscellaneous items detailing White House social events.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Reverend Harry J. Sievers, S. J., biographer of Benjamin Harrison, who read and commented on a draft of this essay and in other ways contributed to the accuracy of the entries in this volume.

1. Fuller accounts are found in Sievers' Benjamin Harrison, Hoosier Warrier (New York, 1960), second edition, pp. xv-xxiii and in Marcia Wright's article, "The Benjamin Harrison Papers," Library of Congress Quarterly Journal of Current Acquisitions, 18 (May 1961), 121-125.

2. D. S. Alexander to E. F. Tibbott, May 18, 1901, Harrison Papers, Series 1.

3. Worthington C. Ford, Chief, Manuscript Division, to Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress, November 27, 1903, Manuscript Division files.

4. Gaillard Hunt, Chief, Manuscript Division, to William H. H. Miller, October 29, 1914, Manuscript Division files.

5. Gaillard Hunt to Mary Lord Harrison, December 15, 1914, Manuscript Division files.

6. This was done in compliance with Mary Lord Harrison's wishes; see her letter to Herbert Putnam, June 2, 1933, Manuscript Division files. In 1960 the papers of John Scott Harrison were also established as a distinct group.

7. Mary Lord Harrison to John C. Fitzpatrick, December 21, 1921, Manuscript Division files.

8. T. P. Martin to A. T. Volwiler, September 15, 1928, Manuscript Division files.

9. The Harrison Papers were transferred from the Library of Congress late in 1941 to the University of Virginia as part of a program to protect irreplaceable manuscripts from the hazards of war. The papers were returned in the summer of 1944.

10. Letter to St. George L. Sioussat, Manuscript Division files.

11. Letter to St. George L. Sioussat, Manuscript Division files.