Edward J. Holmes collection of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. materials
Overview
Edward Holmes was Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr's nephew. The Edward J. Holmes collection of materials relating to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and his family consists of correspondence, estate matters, and various family documents.
Dates
- Creation: 1853-1944
Creator
- Holmes, Edward Jackson, 1873-1950 (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
Access to these papers is governed by the rules and regulations of the Harvard Law School Library. This collection is open to the public, but is housed off-site at Harvard Depository and requires 2 business-day advance notice for retrieval. Consult the Historical and Special Collections staff for further information.
Conditions Governing Use
The Harvard Law School Library holds copyright on some, but not all, of the material in our collections. Requests for permission to publish material from this collection should be directed to the Historical and Special Collections staff. Researchers who obtain permission to publish from the Harvard Law School Library are also responsible for identifying and contacting the persons or organizations who hold copyright.
Extent
1 linear feet (4 boxes)The Edward J. Holmes collection of materials relating to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and his family consists of correspondence, estate matters, and various family documents, with some of the family documents relating to Fanny Dixwell Holmes's (OWH's wife) family history. Edward Holmes was OWH's nephew and had inherited these documents that include a number of items regarding trusts and estates held in the family. The bulk of the items date from the 1860s to the 1930s, with one family document dating back to 1793.
Biographical / Historical
Edward J. Holmes, Jr. was born in 1873. He recieved an AB from Harvard College in 1895 and a LL.B. from Harvard Law School in 1899. He died in 1950.
Series List/Description
- Series I. OWH Correspondence, 1894-1935
- Series II. OWH Estate Matters, 1931-1939
- Series III. Holmes Family, 1793-1944
Within eachseries and/or subseries individual items or folders are identified by box and folder number. For example, the number 5-12 corresponds tobox 5, folder 12.
Physical Location
Harvard Depository
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Mr. & Mrs. Edward J.Holmes in May 1942 (from Houghton). Additional gift made by Estate of Mary Stacy Holmes (wife of Edward) in February 1965
Processing Information
In 2011 the collection known as the Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935), Papers 1637-1967, was reprocessed by Margaret Peachy. Five new collections were created from this one collection:
- The John G. Palfrey (1875-1945)Collection of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Papers, 1715-1938.
- The Mark DeWolfe Howe Research Materials On Oliver WendellHolmes, Jr., 1858-1968.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.,Addenda, 1818-1978.
- The Edward J. Holmes Collection of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Materials, 1853-1944.
- Letters from Holmes to Lady Castleton Small ManuscriptCollection.
The decision to reprocess the original Holmes papers was based primarily on two factors. First, the original Holmes donation (i.e. the material gathered by his executor John G. Palfrey) had been corrupted by the inclusion of additional material over many years from various sources, which combined to create a collection that misrepresented the original donation. Second, this practice of adding to the original collection resulted in a complex and difficult to use finding aid.
Processing Information
The entirety of the Edward J. Holmes Collection of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Materials, 1853-1944 has been digitized. The collection comprises part of the now retired Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Digital Suite , which brought together all of the digitized holdings of the Harvard Law School Library by or about Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. The suite is currently being migrated to the Harvard Library CURIOSity platform, and will be available some time in 2023.
In preparation for the migration, the finding aid was revised and updated up by HLSL Digital Lab staff in the summer and fall of 2022. This work included normalizing dates, minor changes in the intellectual arrangment of the collection, and in some instances, updating the titles of folders so they better reflect the contents within. Please see the "Processing Information" note for individual folders, when it is available, for more information.
Creator
- Holmes, Edward Jackson, 1873-1950 (Person)
Subject
- Brandeis, Louis Dembitz, 1856-1941 (Person)
- Cohen, Morris R. (Morris Raphael), 1880-1947 (Person)
- Frankfurter, Felix, 1882-1965 (Person)
- Hand, Learned, 1872-1961 (Person)
- Holmes, Abiel, 1763-1837 (Person)
- Holmes, Fanny Bowditch Dixwell, 1840-1929 (Person)
- Holmes, John, 1812-1899 (Person)
- Holmes, Mary Stacy (Person)
- Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809-1894 (Person)
- Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr., 1841-1935 (Person)
- Hughes, Charles Evans, 1862-1948 (Person)
- Kaneko, Kentarō, 1853-1942 (Person)
- Palfrey, John Gorham, 1796-1881 (Person)
- Pound, Roscoe, 1870-1964 (Person)
- Sargent, Amelia Jackson Holmes, 1843-1889 (Person)
- Stone, Harlan Fiske, 1872-1946 (Person)
- Taft, William H. (William Howard), 1857-1930 (Person)
- United States. Supreme Court (Organization)
- Wendell, Jacob, 1691-1761 (Person)
- Wigmore, John Henry, 1863-1943 (Person)
- Wu, Jingxiong, 1899-1986 (Person)
- Title
- Holmes, Edward J., Collection of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Materials, 1853-1944: Finding Aid
- Author
- Harvard Law School Library, Cambridge, MA 02138
- Language of description
- eng
- EAD ID
- law00243
Repository Details
Part of the Harvard Law School Library, Historical & Special Collections Repository
Harvard Law School Library's Historical & Special Collections (HSC) collects, preserves, and makes available research materials for the study of the law and legal history. HSC holds over 8,000 linear feet of manuscripts, over 100,000 rare books, and more than 70,000 visual images.
1545 Massachusetts Avenue
Langdell Hall
Cambridge MA 02138 USA
(617) 495-4550
specialc@law.harvard.edu