Collections

Photographs and autographs of prominent persons of the World War I period, with correspondence, plates, negatives, cuts and clippings. Includes three large indexed volumes. Click here to see the scanned paper finding aid and container list (pdf).​ ​

A collection of printed portraits, topographical views, real estate advertisements, maps, and other ephemera associated with the English historian and collector Horace Walpole (1717-1797), his family, and their properties. The majority of the items are plates produced for publications, and over half of the collection is related to two of the family's estates, Strawberry Hill in Twickenham, Middlesex, and Houghton Hall near King's Lynn, Norfolk.

Letters and diary of Walter A. Chapman (1840-1865) describing his experience as a member of the 36th regiment, his participation in numerous battles (1862-1864), and the hardships of camp life due to shortages of food, clothing, and medicines. In 1864 he became lieutenant of a brigade of black troops and describes their conduct in a battle at Blakely, Alabama in April, 1865. The diary covers the period January, 1863 to March, 1864.

The papers consist of real estate and legal papers from Bridgeport, West Haven, Orange, Woodbridge, and Fairfield, Connecticut. Deeds and papers from the Burritt-Sherman family, the Smith family, and Walter A. Main are included.

Walter and Florence Lasinski were historians of the Polish National Catholic Church (PNCC) and Polish American life. They resided in New Jersey and were members of the PNCC, a reformed Roman Catholic Church started by Francis Hodur in 1897 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The collection includes extensive information about parishes (past and present) and clergy members in the PNCC from its creation.

Detailed correspondence and reports document American missionary work in the Philippines and Taiwan. Walter and Margaret Tong were missionaries serving under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Davao, Mindanao, Philippine Islands from 1931 to 1947. Following World War II Walter served as Candidate Secretary of the ABCFM and later they worked with Church World Service in Taiwan.

Letters, writings, and photographs document the life and work of Walter Taylor as an Episcopal missionary architect based in Wuhan, Central China from 1923 to 1927. Taylor's long distance courtship of his future wife Ruth Marie Smith, her eventual voyage to China to marry him in 1926, and their life in China during a politically turbulent time are well documented.

Correspondence and writings of Walter Bedell Smith, relating to My Three Years in Moscow, a book published in 1950.

The Walter Beinecke Papers consist of subject files containing correspondence, personal papers, autobiographical writings, and documents concerning the Beinecke family, the Sperry and Hutchinson Company, and Beinecke's business investments, book collecting, and work in Nantucket historic preservation; other correspondence, including correspondence with book vendor Howard S. Mott and family letters; other personal papers, such as financial and legal records, address books, and diaries; scrapbooks of clippings and other printed material; photographs, photograph albums, slides, and negatives relating to Beinecke's travels, the Beinecke family, and Nantucket; audiocassettes, videocassettes, and films, including interviews with Beinecke about Nantucket; and computer disks. Research strengths include the Beinecke family, the Sperry and Hutchinson Company, Beinecke's Barrie collection and other book collecting, and Beinecke's work in Nantucket investment and restoration.

The papers consist of correspondence, writings, photographs and family papers, and document Walter Camp's devotion to sports and in particular to football, which form he greatly modified. In his voluminous correspondence with Yale football stars, players at other universities, football coaches and sports associations, the interpretation of football rules forms one of the principal topics of correspondence. Prominent figures include George A. Adee, Thomas L. McClung, Vance D. McCormick, S. Brinckerhoff Thorne, Ray Tompkins, Alonzo Stagg and Fielding H. Yost. Camp's interest in physical fitness was put into action during World War I when he organized exercise programs for elderly men, a special program for Washington officials, and ultimately developed his "Daily Dozen" exercises for the Navy. These activities are reflected in his correspondence with Newton D. Baker, Josephus Daniels, John W. Davis, William G. McAdoo, Franklin D. Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. He also corresponded with Theodore Roosevelt, 1905 and 1908, in connection with a commission set up to investigate fatalities in football during the season of 1905. Approximately twelve feet of the papers are made up of Camp's writings, which include articles, rule manuals, reviews and books. Half the material is devoted to football and another large section is on physical fitness.