Highlights of the
Gilder Lehrman Collection

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The Gilder Lehrman Collection, on deposit at the Pierpont Morgan Library, is one of the largest collections of American historical documents in private hands. Its holdings range from the first European encounters to recent times and include many individual treasures. Now exceeding an estimated 40,000 items, principally manuscripts and significant printed materials, the collection has in-depth coverage of American history from approximately 1760 through Reconstruction. Within that timespan, at least one important document can be found for every year, with concentrations of important materials centering on the Revolution and Civil War. Among the treasures are a printed copy of Columbus's letter to Ferdinand and Isabella (1493) announcing his discovery of the New World, two working drafts of the Constitution, and a copy of the Thirteenth Amendment Resolution signed by Abraham Lincoln. Significant archives, such as the papers of the Livingston Family and Henry Knox, and Pierce Butler's personal record of the Constitutional Convention, add depth to the collection. Through its acquisitions of new materials, the Gilder Lehrman Collection has effectively created new groups of manuscripts, comparable to some original archives.

Richard Gilder and Lewis E. Lehrman established the Gilder Lehrman Collection to preserve, exhibit and make available important historical American documents that lay scattered in private collections here and abroad. Initially, the collection concentrated upon significant individual autograph documents showing the growth of America as both an entity and an idea. Efforts focused on the American Revolution and the founding of the nation, and the antebellum and Civil War periods. This emphasis on the founding and re-founding of the United States led us to concentrate on assembling a few thousand significant documents relating to slavery. And while the manuscript documents from the Revolution through the Civil War remain the vital core of the Gilder Lehrman Collection, we now have one of the largest privately held collections of original Civil War period photographs. In the last few years, the collection also has extended its range to encompass ephemera such as election tickets and broadsides, as well as prints, maps, rare books and photographs.

Scope of the Collection

The earliest era of European exploration and settlement is largely represented by documents that emphasize the British colonies. The Gilder Lehrman Collection is particularly rich in manuscripts relating to the settlement of upstate New York (1660-1720), the Revolutionary War, and the foundation of the republic's institutions. Presidents and other leaders, both military and civil, figure prominently. Among the authors included in the large and important group of founders' writings are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Edmund Pendleton, Henry Knox, James Madison, and William Ellery. In addition, there are important selected maps and prints, mostly for the Revolutionary period and the nineteenth century, that show the geopolitical situation.

Autograph manuscripts from important nineteenth-century leaders such as John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, Robert E. Lee and Abraham Lincoln form part of the collection. Notable categories of holdings for later periods include personal letters of the presidents, presidential pardons, and documents relating to slavery and abolitionism, nullification and secession, Texana, and Mormonism. Soldiers' letters and journals, principally from the Civil War era but also for earlier wars including the Revolution, constitute another significant holding.

Collection Access and Affiliation

In order to facilitate scholarly access and regular public exhibits of these materials, the Gilder Lehrman Collection has been placed on deposit at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. The Morgan Library has regularly exhibited its holdings with the Gilder Lehrman Collection in several shows and recently published From Jackson to Lincoln (1995) to accompany an exhibition on political and cultural ferment in the period 1820-1860. The Gilder Lehrman Collection's holdings are described in finding aids available in the Library Reading Room, and in the near future we hope to disseminate inventories and finding aids through new technologies like the World Wide Web.

A separate organization, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, founded by Richard Gilder and Lewis E. Lehrman, promotes the study of American history. The Institute introduces teachers to scholars for seminars and enrichment programs, supports publications and traveling exhibitions, and sponsors lectures and symposia of interest to the general public.

Some Early American Treasures

The chronological breadth of the Gilder Lehrman Collection makes any description of its treasures both selective and unsatisfactory. Nevertheless, a few highlights may prove of interest. Among our treasures are a John Adams letter to Richard Henry Lee, dated November 15, 1775, arguing for a new government composed of three balanced parts; Charles Thomson's letter book from the Stamp Act Congress; a unique printing of the Declaration of Independence by Charleston printer Peter Timothy; and George Washington's famous letter to John F. Mercer, September 9, 1786, in which he writes that "it [is] among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by the Legislature by which slavery in this Country may be abolished by slow, sure & imperceptible degrees." The most magnificent Hamilton letter in existence must be that of December 23, 1800 to Harry G. Otis, in which he compares Jefferson and Burr (whom he finds "bankrupt beyond redemption") and concludes, "In a choice of Evils, let them take the least - Jefferson is in my view less dangerous than Burr." (A short excerpt from this letter is published in Hamilton's Papers, ed. Harold C. Syrett, et al., 25: 271.)

Other significant treasures include Paul Revere's engravings The Bloody Massacre, and A View of Part of the Town of Boston (showing British troops landing in 1768), both printed in 1770, and his copy of John Muller's Treatise of Artillery (London, 1759). These materials complement the many documents relating to early Revolutionary Boston and the Intolerable Acts.

One of our greatest artifacts is a plaster bust of Thomas Jefferson by French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828). The bust has its original coat of terra-cotta paint and Houdon's seal as a member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et Sculpture. This bust may be the same plaster bust displayed at the Salon of 1789 in the Louvre. Exhibited at Monticello and the Pierpont Morgan Library, the bust complements our holdings of over 140 autograph documents by Jefferson.

The Livingston Family Papers

The most important source for early colonial history in the Collection is the Livingston Family Papers (1637-1850). Consisting of approximately 8,000 papers from the family and descendants of Robert Livingston I (1666-1726) and his wife Alida Schuyler Livingston (1680-1726), these materials document the Anglo-Dutch colonization of upstate New York and the settlers' often turbulent relations both with the Algonquin and Iroquois Indians and among themselves, as evidenced by Leisler's rebellion of 1689-1691. Of special interest are the eighty letters between Robert Livingston and his wife Alida, who had power of attorney to act on her husband's behalf. Although later periods are not as well represented, the Livingston Papers does include an illustrated letter of Robert Fulton about steamboats and a rare 1810 pamphlet on torpedo warfare. Other correspondence and the family's seventeen land lease ledgers (1729-1791) document the power and wealth of this branch of the Livingstons. Many of the materials have been microfilmed and copies are available through the Pierpont Morgan Library.

The Henry Knox Papers

The Henry Knox Papers (1750-1820) constitute the most important single archive in the Gilder Lehrman Collection. These materials include over 10,000 letters and documents written to or by Knox (1750-1806), who served as chief of artillery during the Revolution and then as Secretary of War under the Articles of Confederation and in President Washington's first administration. Knox organized the new republic's armed forces for peacetime. His voluminous correspondence includes such figures as Washington, Jefferson, Lafayette, Benjamin Lincoln, and Nathanael Greene, as well as interesting letters between Knox and his wife Lucy. The close relationship is well documented in the papers. From retirement, Washington exchanged letters with Knox concerning deficiencies in the Articles of Confederation and the need for a new form of government. Indeed, Knox is considered instrumental in persuading Washington to attend the Constitutional Convention and later in promoting his candidacy for president. On being elected to the presidency, Washington wrote Knox of "feelings not unlike that of a criminal going to the place of his execution." The Knox Papers have been microfilmed by UMI. A copy of the original manuscript index serves as finding aid to the papers and accompanies the microfilm set.

The Gilder Lehrman Collection has acquired separately an additional seventy Knox letters which were not part of the original papers. These additions include two letters of Lucy Knox to her husband during the Revolution. In 1996 we acquired one of our most important, a George Washington letter to Knox, dated March 3, 1788, that Knox's granddaughter removed from the papers in 1842. In the letter Washington discusses the news of the close vote in the Massachusetts convention to ratify the Constitution and attacks opponents of ratification. (The letter is published from Washington's letterbook copy in Writings, John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., 29: 434-435.) These additional materials are not available on microfilm.

The Catharine Macaulay Graham Papers

The Catharine Macaulay Graham Papers (1763-1830) consist of approximately 190 items, mostly incoming correspondence to the English historian and radical supporter of colonial grievances. Macaulay corresponded sympathetically with American patriots such as John Adams, Ezra Stiles and Mercy Otis Warren. Her opposition to British colonial policy led the Boston Committee of Correspondence to send her official notification of the Boston Massacre. Writing to her on 15 April 1775, Stiles declared: "Our Fathers fled hither for Religion and Liberty: if extirpated from hence, we have no new World to flee to. God has located us here, and by this Location has com[m]anded us here to make a Stand, and see the Salvation of the Lord." This largely unpublished collection also includes Macaulay European correspondence and letters of her daughter, descendants and relatives. A microfilm of the Macaulay Papers is available for consultation at the British Library's Reading Room. The Papers themselves are available for consultation at the Morgan Library's Reading Room. Microfilm of the Papers is available from the Morgan Library's Department of Photography and Rights (photoservices@morganlibrary.org).

The Edmund Pendleton Papers

The Edmund Pendleton Papers (1757-1792) consist of correspondence and documents to James Madison, Sr. and James Madison, Jr. (the president) by Virginia's foremost jurist during the Revolutionary period. Pendleton's correspondence to James Jr. discuss the Stamp Act, the Revolutionary War in Virginia, his ideas on government, the site of a national capitol, and his suggestions on the Constitution and the judiciary. His thoughts prove interesting, even though Madison chose to ignore many of his specific suggestions for the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The papers also include Pendleton's manuscript on the case of Caton v. Commonwealth, which helped establish the principle of judicial review. The correspondence to the younger Madison has been printed in volume 17 the Papers of James Madison, ed. David B. Mattern et al.; previous editions used the Peter Force transcripts at the Library of Congress. A detailed inventory of the Edmund Pendleton Papers is available.

The Joshua Mauger Papers

The Joshua Mauger Papers (1619-1789, but richest for the years 1763-1785) document the activity of this merchant who built his fortune through transatlantic trade and alcohol distilling in Nova Scotia. The collection of 343 items includes 249 letters to Mauger that deal primarily with his business interests in Nova Scotia and England. Mauger's correspondents also discuss political events, the Stamp Act, and the American Revolution. From Brooks Watson, a founder of Lloyds who served as Mauger's London agent and as Commissary General to Sir Guy Carleton, there are five firsthand accounts written in British-occupied New York late in the Revolution. As the American army prepared to occupy that city, Watson advised Mauger to sell his Nova Scotia lands to the fleeing Loyalists, a suggestion the merchant followed. The collection is unpublished; a photocopy is on deposit at the British Library. A detailed inventory of the Mauger Papers is available.

The Pierce Butler Papers

The Pierce Butler Papers (1787) consist of the papers and notes from the Constitutional Convention made and retained by South Carolina delegate Pierce Butler. The collection of twenty-five items includes printed drafts of the Constitution, Butler's two notebooks of proceedings, and contemporary clerical copies of various plans (Virginia, New Jersey, and Hamilton's and Franklin's compromise). Butler, who proposed the fugitive slave clause to the Constitution, has usually been supposed to have been its author. However, the draft resolution for the clause is not in his handwriting. In an article about these documents, James H. Hutson has written that Butler's disjointed and laconic reportage of debates frequently argue with the speakers. The notebooks and resolutions have been transcribed by Hutson in "Pierce Butler's Records of the Federal Constitutional Convention," Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress, 37 (Winter 1980), 64-73.

The Tobias Lear Papers

Tobias Lear (1762-1816) served as George Washington's secretary and later as the U.S. Consul General to Algiers. This collection of over a hundred items concentrates on the period from 1785-1796 (Washington's personal secretary) and 1800-1809 (correspondence on Algiers). It includes a copy of a 1796 treaty with the Dey of Algiers, signed by Washington; some letters of George and Martha Washington to Lear; and correspondence relating to his travel to Europe and his attempts to deal with the Barbary states. The collection also includes James Madison's extraordinary instructions to Lear, dated 14 July 1803, with its postscript: "the universal toleration in matters of religion established in most of our states, and the entire want of power respecting them in the general government, has, we understand, induced the Barbary powers to view us more favorably than other Christian nations, who are exclusively so, and with whom these powers consider themselves in perpetual hostility, suspended only at times by temporary truces. It is recommended to you to avail us of this fact and opinion, ... to lessen the unequal condition of the intercourse between us."

(This article is adapted from "The Gilder Lehrman Collection" by Paul W. Romaine, printed in Uncommon Sense: Newsletter of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Winter 1997. Uncommon Sense is a publication of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History, Williamsburg, Va.)

Inquiries about the Gilder Lehrman Collection are welcomed via mail, fax or e-mail and may be directed either to the Pierpont Morgan Library or to the collection's administrative offices.

Holdings are available for research through the Pierpont Morgan Library Reading Room by appointment. Inquiries to the library should be directed to Leslie Fields, the Associate Curator for the Gilder Lehrman Collection, Pierpont Morgan Library, 29 East 36th Street, New York, NY 10016; telephone (212) 685-0008; FAX (212) 685-4740, or by sending e-mail to: reference@gilderlehrman.com .

The administrative offices of the Gilder Lehrman Collection may be contacted by writing to Paul W. Romaine, Curator and Executive Director, The Gilder Lehrman Collection, 105 Madison Avenue, Suite 3B, New York, NY 10016.

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