Overview
Correspondence of the American mathematician and Harvard professor Benjamin Peirce concerning astronomy, coastal surveys and other topics.
Dates
- Creation: 1835-1880
Language of Materials
Collection materials are in English.
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on physical access to this material.
Extent
18 linear feet (35 boxes)Chiefly manuscript letters to Benjamin Peirce from various correspondents, including Louis Agassiz, A. D. Bache, Jonathan Ingersoll Bowditch, Benjamin Apthorp Gould, Joseph Henry, Charles S. Peirce, and James Mills Peirce, among others. Letters concern the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Dudley Observatory, and U.S. coastal surveys. Also includes empty scrapbook covers that formerly housed letters.
Biographical / Historical
Peirce (A.B. 1829), mathematician and astronomer, was a tutor (1831-1833) and professor (1833-1880) at Harvard University, where he established the Harvard Observatory.
Arrangement
Arranged alphabetically by correspondent.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
54M-264 [in part] (for portion from American Academy of Arts and Sciences only).
Deposited by American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and by the Harvard University Archives. received: 1955.
Papers deposited by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences were combined with those kept at the Harvard University Archives in the summer and fall of 1966.
Processing Information
In the summer and fall of 1966, the two collections of Benjamin Peirce Papers held by the Harvard University Archives and the Houghton Library, which were on deposit from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, were united. A preliminary organization of the correspondence from both collections was carried out by Max H. and Ruth B. Fisch; this re-organization incorporated the results of a partial previous organization of the correspondence in the Houghton collection.
The finding aid lists names of persons and institutions, each represented by a folder, containing one or more letters or other communications from the person or institution named to Benjamin Peirce, or one or more letters or drafts of letters or other communications from Benjamin Peirce to the person or institution named, or both. In a few cases that are not indicated in this preliminary list, the communications are both from and to persons other than Benjamin Peirce, and are included in folders bearing their authors' names; and with the further exception of a few reference entries.
At the beginning of the first box of correspondence are two folders, marked A and B. Folder A contains indexes to the correspondence and other materials relating to the acquisition and listing of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences collection mentioned above.
A considerable number of letters had been removed from the scrapbooks before the collection was received. All the remaining letters have now been removed and distributed into folders. However, one volume of Bache letters has been preserved as mounted by Benjamin Peirce (Box 2). The other scrapbook covers are preserved in Boxes 14-18. Finally, a single subject-matter folder has been retained concerning the Dudley Observatory.
List of correspondents
- Abbe, Cleveland
- Abbot, Edwin H.
- Abbot, Ezra
- Abbot, Francis E.
- Abbot, Joseph Hale
- Acland, Sir Henry Wentworth
- Adams, John C.
- Adirondac Club
- Adler, J. G.
- Agassiz, Alexander
- Agassiz, Elizabeth Cary
- Agassiz, Louis
- Airy, George B.
- Albany (N. Y.) Young Mens Association
- Alexander, Henry M.
- Alexander, J. H.
- Alexander, Stephen
- Allen, J. H.
- Alvoord, Benjamin
- American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- American Association for the Advancement of Education
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
- American Insurance Company
- American Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics
- American Social Science Association
- Ames, Sarah Fisher
- Amory, J.
- Anderson, James
- Andrews, Edward R.
- Andrews, Stephen Pearl
- Andrews, William T.
- Appleton, Nathan
- Appleton, Thomas Gold
- Apthorp, Harrison Otis
- Archibald, Raymond Clare
- Armsby, J. H.,
- see Dudley Observatory
- Ashburner, Grace
- Ashmun, J. H.
- Association Française pour l'avancement des sciences
- Astronomical Journal
- Athenaeum (London)
- Atlantic Cotton Mills, Lawrence; Boyden, Uriah; Francis, James B.; Gray, William; Oliver, H. K.
- Avery, Charles
- Bache, Alexander Dallas
- (one scrapbook and seven folders) (see also Dudley Observatory)
- Bache, Evelin B. Coggeshall (Mrs. Henry Wood Bache)
- Bache, Nancy Cuyler (Mrs. A. D.)
- Bacon, Francis
- Bagley, A. P.
- Baird, Spencer Fullerton
- Bancroft, George
- Bancroft, Harriet,
- see James, Harriet B.
- Barbour, L. G.
- Barnard, Frederick A. P.
- Barnard, George M.
- Barnard, Henry
- Barnard, J. G.
- Barnard, James Munson, and Augusta (Mrs. J. M.)
- Bartol, Cyrus Augustus
- Barton, P., Jr.
- Batchelder, John M.
- Batchelder, Samuel
- Bates, William B.
- Baxter, Sallie S.
- Bayley, John P.
- Becker, George Ferdinand
- Bellows, H. A.
- Berry, Mrs. M. E.
- Bethune, George Amory
- Bigelow, Jacob
- Black, J. W.
- Blake, George Baty, and Blake, Stanton.
- Blatchford, John S.
- Board of Commissioners of Pilots, New York
- Bond, George Phillips
- (see also Dudley Observatory)
- Bond, William Cranch
- Book Club, The
- Booth, Edwin
- Borden, John
- Borlase, William C.
- Boston Daily Advertiser
- Boston Society of Natural History
- Boutelle, C. O.
- Bouvier, Hannah M.
- Bowditch, Charles P.
- Bowditch, Henry I.
- Bowditch, Henry P.
- Bowditch, Jonathan Ingersoll
- Bowditch, Nathaniel
- Bowen, Francis
- Bowron, John S., M.D.
- Boyden, Uriah
- (see also Francis, James B.)
- Boyle, Charles B.
- Bradford, John S., and Rosalie M. (Mrs. J. S.)
- Brandon, George H.
- Brine, Percival J.
- British Association for the Advancement of Science
- Bromberg, Frederick George
- Bryant, Charles
- Burgess, Edward
- Burnett, W. I.
- Burroughs, John C.
- Butler, William H.
- Byerly, William Elwood
- Caithness, Marie (Mariategui) Sinclair, Countess of
- Cambridge High School
- Cambridge Miscellany of Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy
- Cambridge Scientific Club
- Cambridge Social Union
- Canadian Journal
- Canfield, A. B.
- Carlton, Oliver
- Carpenter, Edward
- Cary, Emma Forbes
- Cary, Sarah Gray
- Cary, Thomas Graves
- Caswell, Alexis
- Cecil, Sackville A.
- Chase, D. K.
- Chase, Pliny Earle
- Chasles, Michel
- Chauvenet, William
- Cherriman, John Bradford,
- see Canadian Journal
- Chestnut Street Club
- Child, Francis J. and Elizabeth E. S.
- Choate, Charles F.
- Clark, Alvan
- (see also Sargent, Lucius Manlius
- Clark, William S.
- Clarke, James Freeman
- Clarke, John L.
- Coast Survey, U. S.
- (see also Bache, A. D.; Cooper, W. W.; Hilgard, J. E.; Patterson, C. P.)
- Coffin, J. H. C.
- Cogswell, Joseph Green
- Combescure, Edouard
- Concord Summer School of Philosophy and Literature
- Cooke, Josiah P., Jr.
- Coolidge, Jefferson
- Cooper, W. W.
- Cornell, Ezra
- Cotting, B. E.
- Curtis, Thomas B.
- Cushing, Caleb
- Cutts, Richard D.
- Cuyler, R. R.
- Dall, William H.
- Dana, James Dwight
- Dana, Richard H.
- Darwin, Sir George Howard
- Davidson, George
- Davies, Charles
- Davies, Gilman
- Davis, Charles Henry (Lt., later Adm.)
- Davis, Charles Henry Jr.
- Davis, Frank du Pont
- Davis, Mrs. G. T.
- Davis, H. L.
- Davis, James
- Davis, John, Judge
- Davis, Jonathan Thomas
- Desor, Edouard
- Devens, Samuel A.
- Devereux, George H.
- Dixwell, Epes Sargent
- Dixwell, Mary (Mrs. E. S.)
- Donaldson, Thomas
- Dudley, Blandina,
- see Dudley Observatory
- Dudley Observatory
- Du Pont, Mrs. S. F.
- Dwight, Edmund
- Dwight, John Sullivan
- Eastwood, George
- Eliot, Charles W.
- Eliot, Samuel A.
- Ellis, Alexander John
- Ellis, Rufus
- Ellis, William R.
- Emery, Horace L.
- Emory, Matilda W.
- Equitable Life Assurance Society, New York
- Espy, James P.
- Esty, William C.
- Eustis, Henry Lawrence
- Eustis, Caroline B. (Mrs. H. L.)
- Evans, Alexander
- Evans, E. W.
- Everett, Charles Carroll
- Everett, Edward
- Fairbairn, Andrew
- Farmer, J. Q.
- Farrar, John (& Mrs.)
- Fay, Amy
- Fay, Maria Denny
- Felton, Cornelius Conway
- Ferrel, William
- Ferrette, Bishop,
- see Ferrel, William
- Ferris, Walter M.
- Fields, Annie (Mrs. J. T.)
- Flügel, J. G.
- Foote, Fidelia C.
- Forbes, Ralph B.
- Force, M. F.
- Foster, L. F. S.
- Fowler, I. Smith
- Francis, James B.
- Frazer, John F.
- French, B. B.
- French, Francis Ormond
- French Spoliation Claims, see Nichols, Harry Peirce
- Gavit, D. G.
- Gibbes, Lewis R.
- Gibbs, Wolcott
- (see also Hall, James)
- Gill, Charles
- (and E. A. Gill his son)
- Gilliss, James Melville
- Gilman, Arthur
- Gilman, Daniel Coit
- Gilmore, Robert
- Godkin, E. L.
- Goodwin, W. W.
- Göttingen, Die Königliche Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu
- Gould, Benjamin Apthorp
- Gould, Benjamin Apthorp Jr.
- (see also Dudley Observatory)
- Gould, John Stanton
- Graham, J. D.
- Grant, George B.
- Gray, Asa
- Gray, George Zabriskie
- Gray, William
- Green, John
- Greenough, Frances B.
- Greenough, Henry
- Greenough, H. S.
- Gulliver, John P.
- Gurney, Ephraim W. (& Mrs.)
- Hale, Charles,
- see Boston Daily Advertiser
- Hale, Edward Everett
- Hall, Asaph
- Hall, Charles Francis
- Hall, James
- Hancock, Charles Lowell
- Harbor Commissioners' Office, Boston
- (see also Lunt, G.; Mitchell, H.; Quincy, Josiah; Whiting, H.)
- Harder, J.
- Hardy, W. F.
- Harvard College Class of 1829
- Harvard College (miscellaneous)
- Haskell, Daniel N.
- Hawley, Henry J.
- Hazeltine, Miss F. C.
- Hedrick, B. S.
- Hegermann-Lindencrone,
- see Fay, Maria D.
- Hendrix, E. R.
- Henry, Joseph
- (see also Dudley Observatory)
- Henry, Morton P.
- Higginson, Ida Agassiz
- Hilgard, Julius Erasmus
- Hill, Thomas
- Hillhouse, J. A.
- Hillhouse, W.,
- see Dudley Observatory
- Hinckley, Hargrove
- Holbrook, J. E.
- Holden, Edward S.
- Holland, J. B.
- Hooker, J. C.
- Hooker, Sir Joseph Dalton
- Horsford, Eben Norton (& Mrs.)
- Houghton, Osgood & Co.
- Howe, Julia Ward
- Howell, Robert
- Howison, George Holmes
- Humphreys, A. A.
- Hun, Thomas
- Hunnewell,
- Hunt, T. Sterry
- Huntington, Charles Phelps (& Mrs. Ellen G.)
- Huntington, Charles W.
- Huntington, E. H. Mills
- Huntington, Frederic Dan
- Huntington, Mary E.
- Iasigi, Joseph (& Mrs. & Oscar their son)
- International Life Assurance Society of London
- Irwin, Agnes
- Irwin, Sophia A.
- Jackson, Charles T.
- Jackson, I. W.
- (see also Runkle, J. D.)
- James, George Abbot (& Mrs.)
- James, Harriet B. (later Mrs. Bancroft)
- Jenkins, Thornton A.
- Johnston, John
- Jones, George
- Kane, John K.
- Kebler, John
- Kiev, University of St. Wladimir in
- King, Charles
- Kirkwood, Daniel
- Lane, Frederick A.
- Lane, George M. (Coast Survey)
- Lane, George M. (Harvand Professor)
- Lane, H. B.
- Lawrence, James
- Leavitt, Dudley
- Le Conte, John
- Le Conte, John Lawrence
- (see also Dudley Observatory)
- Le Conte, Josephine (Mrs. John)
- Lenhart, William
- Lesley, John Peter
- Lewis, J. W. P. (see also Forbes, R. B.)
- Library of Congress
- Light House Board
- Lincoln, David Francis, M.D.
- Little, Brown & Co.
- Lockyer, J. Norman,
- Lodge, Anna Cabot
- Lodge, Henry Cabot (& Mrs.)
- Longfellow, A. W.
- Loomis, Elias
- Loring, Edward Greely
- (see also McCulloch, Hugh)
- Loring, Harriet B.
- Loring, Mary B.
- Louisville Academy of Science
- Lovering, Joseph
- Lowell, Augustus
- Lowell Institute Lectures,
- see Black, J. W.; Cotting, B. E.; Lowell, Augustus)
- Lowell, John A.
- Lowell, Percival
- Lunt, George
- Lyman, Mrs. Anne Jean
- Magill, E. H.
- Maglathlin, Henry Bartlett
- Mallet, J. W.
- Mann, William
- Markoe, Francis Jr.
- Marston, William Staples
- Martin, Artemas
- Maryland Institute
- Massachusetts Teachers' Association
- Massachusetts, Survey of
- Maury, Matthew Fontaine
- May, Samuel
- Mayer, Alfred M.
- Mayo, J.
- McCabe, L. D.
- McClintock, John N.
- McCay, C. F.
- McCoy, A.
- McCulloch, Hugh
- McCulloch, Richard S.
- Meech, L. W.
- Meigs, M. C.
- Merrick, John Mudge
- Metropolitan Club, Washington, D. C.
- Miller, Lester A.
- Mills, Charles H. (& Mrs. Anna Cabot Lodge M.)
- Mills, James Kilby
- Mills, Sarah Coleman (Mrs. J. K.)
- Mills, William Kilby
- Mitchel, Ormsby MacKnight
- Mitchell, Henry
- Mitchell, Maria
- Mitchell, William
- Mittag, J. F. G.
- Moffat, T.
- Monson, Sir Edmund
- Monti, Luigi
- Morison, Nathaniel Holmes
- Morse, Alexander Porter
- Mory, Charles N.
- Moss, Lemuel
- Motley, Lothrop
- Moulton, Lillie Greenough (Mrs. Charles)
- Myers, Philip
- National Academy of Sciences
- National Intelligencer
- National Telegraph Memorial Association
- National University Association
- (see also Myers, Philip)
- Naval Observatory, U. S.
- (see also Davis, Charles Henry; Newcomb, Simon; Rodgers, John)
- Newberry, John Strong
- Newcomb, Simon
- Newton, Hubert Anson
- Nichol, John Pringle
- Nichols, Benjamin R.
- Nichols, Harry Peirce
- Nichols, Henry G.
- Nichols, H. P.
- Nichols, Herbert
- Nichols, Ichabod
- Nichols, John H.
- Nichols, John Taylor Gilman
- Norton, Charles Eliot
- Olmsted, Denison (see also Bowron, John S.)
- Olcott, Thomas W.
- (see also Dudley Observatory)
- Oliver, Henry K.
- Oliver, James Edward
- (see also Cornell, Ezra; Magill, E. H.)
- Osgood, George L.
- Osgood, Sam
- Oswego Convention on a Trans-Continental Railway,
- see Davis, H. L.
- Owen, W. P. W.
- Paine, John Knowles
- Paine, R. T.
- Palfrey, John G.
- Park, Miss E.
- Park, Roswell
- Parker, John A.
- Parkhurst, Henry M.
- Parkman, Mary E.
- Parsons, Anna (Mrs. T. W.)
- Parsons, S. B.
- Parsons, Theophilus
- Parsons, Thomas William
- Paterson, John
- Patterson, Carlile P.
- Patterson, Elizabeth (Mrs. C. P.)
- Peabody, Andrew Preston
- Peabody Institute, Baltimore,
- see Morison, Nathaniel Holmes
- Peirce, Benjamin Sr.
- Peirce, Benjamin Mills
- Peirce, Benjamin Osgood
- Peirce, Charles Henry
- Peirce, Charles Sanders
- Peirce, Harriet Melusina Fay (Mrs. C. S.)
- Peirce, Charlotte Elizabeth
- Peirce, Helen Huntington (later Mrs. William Rogers Ellis)
- Peirce, Herbert Henry Davis
- Peirce, James Mills
- Peirce, Lydia Ropes Nichols (Mrs. Benjamin Sr.)
- Peirce, Sarah Hunt Mills (Mrs. Benjamin Jr.)
- Perkins, George R.
- Perry, B. F.
- Peters, Christian Henry Frederick
- (see also Dudley Observatory)
- Peters, Thomas M.
- Phelps, C. H.
- Phillips, A. W.
- Phillips, George William
- Phillips, James
- Phillips, Willard
- Philosophical Society of Washington
- Pickering, Edward C.
- Pickering, Henry W.
- Pickering, John
- Pickering, Mary O.
- Pickering, Sarah S.
- Pierce, George Winslow
- Porter, Fanny
- Posi, Giulio
- (see also Secchi, P. A.)
- Pourtalai, Juliette
- (later Mrs. Charles S. Peirce)
- Pourtales, Count Louis François
- Powalky, C. R.
- Price, Bartholomew
- Pringle, William B.
- Pruyn, John V. L.
- Quimby, E. T.
- Quincy, Edmund
- Quincy, Fanny Huntington
- Quincy, Josiah
- (President of Harvard University)
- Quincy, Josiah.
- Redman, G. A.
- Reichenbach, O.
- Remsen, Ira
- Richardson, George W.
- Richardson, William A.
- Riddell, J. L.
- Riddle, George
- Rives, William C. Jr.
- Robbins, Chandler
- Roberts, Edward
- Rodgers, John
- Rodman, S. W.
- Rogers, Fairman
- Rood, Ogden N.
- (see also Stackpole, William)
- Ropes, William
- Royal Society of London
- Ruggles, Samuel B.
- Runkle, John Daniel
- Russell, Nathaniel Pope
- (see also Somerset Club)
- Russell, Samuel H. (& Mrs.)
- Russell, Thomas
- Rutherfurd, Lewis M.
- Sabine, Edward
- Safford, T. H.
- Safford, T. H. Jr.
- Sales, F.
- Salmon, George
- Saltonstall, Henry
- Saltonstall, Leverett
- Sanborn, Franklin Benjamin
- Sanders, Charles
- (see also Tuckerman, J. Francis)
- Sanders, Charlotte Nichols (Mrs. Charles)
- San Diego Society of Natural History
- Sands, Admiral B. F.
- San Francisco Academy of Sciences
- Sargent, Charles Sprague
- Sargent, Lucius Manlius
- Saturday Club
- Schlegel, V.
- Schott, Charles A.
- Scudder, Samuel H.
- Searle, George M.
- Sears, David Jr.
- Sears, Philip Howes
- Secchi, P. A.
- Sedgwick, S. J.
- Seymour, C. B.
- Shaler, Nathaniel Southgate
- Shattuck, Emily C. (Mrs. George O.)
- Sherwin, Thomas
- Shipley, Murray
- Sibenmann, F. A.
- Silliman, Benjamin.
- Silliman, Benjamin, Jr.
- Silsbee, E. A.
- Silsbee, Nathaniel
- Simmons, Daniel
- Simonin, L.
- Smalley, George W.
- Smith, August W.
- Smith, Elbridge,
- see Cambridge High School
- Smith, Francis H.
- Smith, H. L.
- Smith, J. Laurence
- Smith, S. V. C.
- Smyth, Joseph P.
- Somerset Club, Boston
- Sparks, Jared
- Stackpole, S. M.
- Stackpole, William
- Stearns, W. A.
- Steiner, Lewis H.
- Stillman, William James
- Stone, Ormond
- Storrow, C. S.
- Story, William E.
- Stringham, W. I.
- Strong, Theodore
- Student elective study applications, Harvard College
- Sturgis, Russell
- Sullivan, Henrietta (Mrs. Richard)
- Sumner, Thomas H.
- Swett, Samuel
- Sylvester, James Joseph
- Tait, P. G.
- Talcott, Andrew
- Tappan, Henry P.
- Taylor, Bayard
- Tennessee Historical Society
- Thayer, Alexander Wheelock
- Thayer, James B.
- Thursday Evening Club
- Thwing, George
- Tilton, McLane,
- see Dudley Observatory
- Tower, J. M.
- Treadwell, Daniel
- Trowbridge, John
- Tuckerman, J. Francis
- Twining, Alexander C.
- Underwood, F. H.
- United States Sanitary Commission
- Venable, Charles S.
- Walcott, Anna M.
- Waldo, Leonard
- Walker, James
- Walker, Sears C.
- Walling, H. F.
- Ward, Annie N.
- Ward, Samuel
- Washburn, Emory, Governor
- Watson, John Lee
- Watson,
- Watson, William
- Webber, Mary C.
- Webster, John White
- Wednesday Evening Club
- Western Rail Road Corporation
- Wheatstone, C.
- Whipple, Edwin Percy
- Whist Club, Monday Evening
- Whiting, Henry
- Whitman, S. W.
- Whitney, Josiah Dwight
- Whitney, Mary W.
- Whitney, William Dwight
- Williams, D. H.
- Williston, L. Richards,
- see Cambridge High School
- Willson, Robert W.
- Winlock, Joseph (& Mrs.)
- Winslow, S. E.,
- see Dudley Observatory
- Winsor, Justin
- Winthrop, Robert
- Witte, G. A.
- Woodman, Cyrus
- Woodman, Horatio
- Woodward, Dr.
- Wright, Elizur
- Wright, Fanny (Mrs. Frank)
- Wright, George W.
- Wright, W. I.
- Wyman, Lillie B. Chace
- Wyman, Morrill
- Young, John Henry
- Young, William H.
- Title
- Peirce, Benjamin, 1809-1880. Benjamin Peirce papers, circa 1835-1880: Guide.
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou01552
Repository Details
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