Overview
Papers of American painter William James.
Dates
- Creation: 1857-1960
- Creation: Majority of material found in 1911-1959
Language of Materials
Collection materials are in English.
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on physical access to this material.
Extent
3.5 linear feet (7 boxes)The bulk of the collection consists of personal letters to William or Alice James from friends in their large social/intellectual/artistic circle. Includes letters to William concerning his portrait painting and articles, his illustrious father and uncle, and Alice's death in 1957. Compositions consist of poems by poet friends and William James's manuscript on Langdon Warner, curator of Oriental art at the Fogg Museum. Third party correspondence is mostly of earlier family members.
Daniel Lewis Gibbens' papers contain correspondence, including 15 letters to his daughter Alice Howe (Gibbens) James written during the Civil War when he was employed by the U.S. military government in the South as secretary to the New Orleans mayor and assistant supervising special agent of the Treasury Department in Mobile, Ala. Also includes his commonplace book, 1857-1859, and notes on his life and suicide compiled by his grandson Henry James III.
Biographical / Historical
James, an American painter, was associated with the school at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts as critic of painting (1913-1925) and acting director (1930-1937). He was son of the psychologist William James. Alice Rutherford Runnells James was his wife.
Arrangement
Organized into the following series:
- I. Letters to William James, Jr.
- II. Letters to Alice (Runnells) James
- III. Other letters
- IV. Compositions
- V. Daniel Lewis Gibbens papers
Physical Location
b
Immediate Source of Acquisition
*76M-51. Deposited by Mrs. John S. R. James, Stockbridge, Massachusetts 01262; received: 1977.
- Title
- James, William, 1882-1961. William James Jr. papers: Guide.
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou00577
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
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