{"id":8208,"date":"2019-04-18T10:28:04","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T14:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/?p=8208"},"modified":"2019-04-19T13:34:56","modified_gmt":"2019-04-19T17:34:56","slug":"the-theodore-roosevelt-collection-at-harvard-and-the-theodore-roosevelt-association-renew-and-celebrate-their-long-relationship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/2019\/04\/18\/the-theodore-roosevelt-collection-at-harvard-and-the-theodore-roosevelt-association-renew-and-celebrate-their-long-relationship\/","title":{"rendered":"The Theodore Roosevelt Collection at Harvard and the Theodore Roosevelt Association renew and celebrate their long relationship"},"content":{"rendered":"

A magnificent gift from the Theodore Roosevelt Association<\/a> (TRA) in March celebrates its 76-year-long association with Harvard University.<\/p>\n

\"Portrait<\/p>\n

The Roosevelt Memorial Association (now the TRA) presented its sizable library holdings\u2014which included 12,000 books and pamphlets, 10,000 photographs, and thousands of letters, manuscripts, and other items\u2014to Harvard University, Roosevelt\u2019s alma mater, in 1943. This became the Theodore Roosevelt Collection<\/a>, now housed in Harvard’s Houghton and Widener libraries. While much was an outright gift, a significant portion of the collection, both manuscripts and correspondence, was on deposit\u2014owned by the TRA, but cataloged, preserved, and made available to researchers by Harvard.<\/p>\n

The remaining deposited material has now been given to Harvard in appreciation of the Library\u2019s careful stewardship of the collection over the years. Lieutenant Colonel Gregory A. Wynn, USMC (Ret.), a Trustee and member of the Executive Committee of the TRA, who oversaw the gift to Harvard, said “We are proud to continue and enhance our mutually supporting relationship with Harvard and Houghton Library.\u00a0 The Theodore Roosevelt Collection at Harvard has stewarded and built upon what the TRA proudly began. It is the most important destination for Theodore Roosevelt scholarship in the world, and we are proud to partner with Harvard in ensuring TR scholarship for future generations.\u201d\"Travel<\/a><\/p>\n

Thomas A. Hyry, Florence Fearrington Librarian of Houghton Library, said \u201cHarvard has been honored to steward the Roosevelt Collection for the past 76 years and we are very pleased to enhance our ability to promote study and understanding of Roosevelt, his family, and his times.\u00a0 We thank the Theodore Roosevelt Association for their decades of partnership and the renewed trust they have demonstrated.\u201d<\/p>\n

The gift includes diaries and notebooks<\/a> kept by TR from 1869; a scrapbook<\/a> containing his Harvard examination papers on natural history, letters to and from TR, clippings and tickets; childhood correspondence;<\/a> incoming and outgoing correspondence;<\/a> manuscripts of his writings; the papers of TR\u2019s sister, Anna Roosevelt Cowles<\/a>; numerous photographs of TR and his family; and memorabilia. This material has been available for research at Houghton Library for some years, and much is now digitized and freely available.\"R<\/a><\/p>\n

Additionally, the Library has acquired new material from the TRA. This includes an important series of 10 unpublished letters to Roosevelt\u2019s sister Anna Roosevelt Cowles (“Bamie”), covering the years of 1885 and 1890-1894.\u00a0 These intimate letters discuss Dakota ranch life, politics, his period as Civil Service Commissioner, and their brother Elliott, and they fill a gap in the previously known and published letters from TR to Bamie.<\/p>\n

A daguerreotype of his grandfather Cornelius V.S. Roosevelt, in an envelope inscribed by TR in 1915, is a unique addition to the Roosevelt Collection\u2019s extensive series of family photographs. A letter from TR Sr. from 1861, during his service with the U.S.\u00a0Allotment Commission in the Civil War, to the 3-year-old TR, is a touching document of a father\u2019s love for his son.<\/p>\n

\"Theodore<\/p>\n

The entirety of the Theodore Roosevelt Collection, including the newly acquired material, is available for research through the Houghton Reading Room.<\/p>\n

Photos:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Portrait of President Theodore Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University.<\/li>\n
  2. Travel diary kept while on a trip to Europe with his parents, age 11, 1869. Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Am 1454.55 (5)<\/a>. The flyleaf is inscribed “Writen [sic] by Theodore Roosevelt Jr. of New York U.S., N. A.” Gift of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, 2019.<\/li>\n
  3. TR letter to Anna Roosevelt Cowles; Elkhorn Ranch, April 29, 1885. Anna Roosevelt Cowles Papers,\u00a0Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Am 1834.1 (202a)<\/a>. TR was in mourning for his first wife, Alice, hence the black border to the stationery, and he writes \u201c\u2026I felt very tenderly to think of the darling wee baby calling for papa. I just long to see you both.\u201d Purchased with Theodore Roosevelt Collection funds, the Harmand Teplow Class of 1920 Fund, the Bayard Livingston Kilgour and Kate Gray Kilgour Fund, and the Herman Dunlop Smith Bequest.<\/li>\n
  4. Theodore Roosevelt Sr. to TR; Washington, D.C., December 31, 1861. Anna Roosevelt Cowles Papers, Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Am 1834.1 (335)<\/a>; pages 1 & 4. TR Senior gently urges obedience to his 3-year-old son: \u201cTedie, while I am away remember always to be very good and obey your mama the first time she speaks to you and help her like a big boy take care of your little brother Elli.\u201d Purchased with the Louis J. Appell, Jr. A.B. 1947 Fund for Early American Literature and History.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A magnificent gift from the Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) in March celebrates its 76-year-long association with Harvard University. The Roosevelt Memorial Association (now the TRA) presented its sizable library holdings\u2014which included 12,000 books and pamphlets, 10,000 photographs, and thousands of letters, manuscripts, and other items\u2014to Harvard University, Roosevelt\u2019s alma mater, in 1943. This became the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1761,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[64929,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-houghton-library","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5TUly-28o","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1761"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8208"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8236,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8208\/revisions\/8236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}