Manuscripts
Anna Strunsky Walling letter to Priscilla Murdock
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Anna Strunsky Walling papers
Manuscripts
A collection of 952 items from 1877 to 1958, which consists of correspondence, manuscripts, diaries, photographs, and newspaper clippings pertaining to the life and career of Anna Strunsky Walling and her husband, William English Walling. The majority of the collection is correspondence between Anna Strunsky Walling and her family, friends and colleagues. The collection also contains portions of Walling's personal diary, manuscript poems and prose pieces authored by Walling and others, and several photographs and newspaper clippings relating to familial concerns and political matters. Some of the material in the collection originally belonged to William English Walling, including some of his personal and professional correspondence and writing. Most of the collection relates to the Wallings' personal and professional concerns, including their interest in politics (especially socialism) and political activism. Correspondents include: Leonard Dalton Abbott, Melville Best Anderson, Leslie Edgar Bliss, Eugene Victor Debs, Theodore Dreiser, Max Eastman, Katherina Evseroff-Maryson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Bernhard Groethuysen, Henry Edwards Huntington, Helen Keller, Cameron Haight King, Charmian London, Jack London, Joan London, Ray Nash, Thomas Reveille, Eleanor Butler Roosevelt, Charles Edward Russell, Upton Sinclair, Rose Pastor Stokes, Irving Stone, William Howard Taft, Rosamond English Walling Tirana, Georgia Walling, Rosalind English Walling, William English Walling, Willoughby Walling, Gaylord Wilshire and Woodrow Wilson.
mssAW
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Mary Jane Brooks letters to Thomas and Priscilla Marsh
Manuscripts
These manuscripts are a series of letters from Mary Jane Brooks to her sister Priscilla Marsh and brother Thomas Marsh. HM 19790 is dated 1853, December 14 and 15, and lists the current price of goods in San Francisco. Mary Jane Brooks also writes of her family and friends. In the next letter (HM 19791, dated 1854, February 28), Mary Jane Brooks writes further of family and friends. HM 19792, dated 1854, July 14, tells of a fire in San Francisco, but the Brooks home was undamaged. Mary Jane Brooks writes in the next letter (HM 19793, dated 1855, July 28) that her father is not doing well. He has quit working, and "thinks he is not long for this world." HM 19794, the final letter in this sequence, is dated 1856, March 4. Father is still alive, but is ailing, and Mary Jane Brooks urges Priscilla to prepare their mother for his passing. The letters are written from San Francisco, and all are signed "Aaron and Mary Jane Brooks" but letters are in the handwriting of Mary Jane Brooks. With one-page typescript of an additional letter, dated 1856, July 5.
mssHM 19790-19794
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Mary Jane Brooks letters to Thomas and Priscilla Marsh
Manuscripts
In this first letter (HM 19797, dated 1853, September 14), Mary Jane Brooks describes her journey to California "according to agreement" to her sister Priscilla and her husband Thomas Marsh. Much of this letter contains Brooks' description of Kingston, Jamaica, where she stopped en route to California. She laments that she has not yet found a man to run away with her. HM 19798, written August 12, 1886, and includes an envelope. Brooks is still in San Francisco, and writes of people she is seeing and letters written and received. The last letter in this sequence was written 1886, September 2. Brooks writes that she has reached her sixtieth birthday, but feels "old beyond my years." She discusses the possibility of getting her share of the farmstead left by her father, and hopes her sister will cooperate.
mssHM 19797-19799
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Jacob Primer Leese letters
Manuscripts
Set of 18 letters sent to Jacob Primer Leese and his wife Rosalia by various family members between 1832 and 1863. The letters were sent from Nashville, Memphis, Kentucky, Ohio, Washington, D.C., and Reading, Pennsylvania by Leese's relatives, including his brother-in-law William Clarke, mother Joanna Primer Leese, sister-in-law Jane Ludlow Leese, sisters Sarah Leese Ferrill, Ann M. Leese Hotch, and Rosanna C. Leese Drew, brother Manuel Leese, and nephew George C. Hotch. The majority of the letters focus on family news, including condolences on the death of Leese's daughter Rosalie. Other topics include California statehood ("If you make her a free state she will come in - if a slave state she will be rejected," Manuel Leese wrote in 1851 - HM 19778); mention of William Clark's extensive travels throughout the eastern and southern United States in 1851 (HM 19779); news on Ohio in 1852, including a brief "excitement" for emigration to California, a visit by Hungarian statesman Lajos Kossuth that "raised some commotion in all philanthropic minds," and a proposed "Maine Liquor Law" that would make Ohio a dry state, which according to George Hotch would "destroy three of the principal staples of the state: corn, pork, and whiskey" (HM 19780); William Clark's speculations on selling a repeating rifle in California and supplying water to Panama, as well as mention of the Myra Clark Gaines case (HM 19781); and a description of Civil War era Memphis by Rosanna C. Leese Drew, who writes in 1863 that "our once prosperous and happy city has been nothing but sadness and gloom for the last two years...I have seen the glorious auld Stars and Stripes torn down and trampled in the dust" (HM 19789).
mssHM 19772-19789