Alexander T. Stewart papers

The collection consists of letters that Alexander T. Stewart received from strangers requesting financial help, jobs, loans, or other forms of assistance. The majority of the letters are dated 1871 to March 1876.

Correspondents include Civil War veterans, immigrants, charities, disabled persons (including children) seeking assistance with medical expenses, etc. There are letters from Civil War veterans; Western farmers devastated by the Grasshopper Plague of 1874; loans requests from men and women trying to set up their own businesses or to finance their inventions; young men and women asking for financial assistance to receive an education or training and clergymen soliciting funds for building or maintenance of their churches, missions, or assistance with disabled or impoverished congregants. A few letters express the authors' disappointment because their previous letters had not been answered. There are a few letters written by African Americans. William H. Miller, born on March 30, 1839 in Vicksburg, Miss., a "reputed" son of Sergeant Smith Prentiss and his slave and a minister assigned to preach to the Freedmen in East Tennessee. D.W. Lynch, writing from the Hampton Normal School (the future Hampton University), thinks that he could do much good "for my race" teaching literacy in Africa. Correspondents include John J. Flournoy (1808-1879), an advocate for the deaf; Sister Mary Francis Clare (Margaret Francis Cusack, 1829-1899), the founder of the Irish order of Poor Clares, and Stephen H. Taft (1825-1917), the founder of the Humboldt College (Iowa) and the town of Sawtelle, California.

A large portion of the authors are women – widows, including women who had lost their husbands in the Civil War, spinsters, wives of ill or alcoholic husbands, or young women seeking employment; a few correspondents propose a tryst or other "situation." There are also letters from various individuals claiming to be Stewart's long lost relatives, some admirers requesting an autograph, and even a prank letter written by two schoolgirls. One 1874 letter contains a bill in the amount of $3.38 for pies devoured by Stewart's "carriage dog" in 1866.

Related Material: Alexander T. Stewart correspondence at Manuscripts Division, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan.