Lucy Smith Crittenden Thornton papers

The collection consists of 43 letters. Thirty of the 43 letters are from Lucy Smith Crittenden Thornton to her son Harry Innes Thornton, Jr. The remaining letters are written by other Thornton family members including (piece counts in parenthesis): Bessie Thornton (3), Sarah Thornton (2), Margaret Thornton Fall (1), Katherine Marshall Thornton (2), Harry I. Thornton, Jr. (3), and Ann Mary [last name unknown] (2). Even though the letters chiefly deal with family matters and the Thorntons' social lives in San Francisco and Oakland, California, many of the letters also discuss the social conditions in the post- war South and family friends who left the South because of failing plantations. The Thorntons also comment upon the numerous "Yankees" with whom they have to socialize after the war. The family also mentions the freedmen in the South, Jefferson Davis, the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, and politics in California. The 3 letters by Harry I. Thornton, Jr., discuss his travels in the American Southwest, his legal career, and specific court cases with which he was involved. Harry I. Thornton, Sr., is mentioned briefly in one letter.