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Correspondence, diaries, letterbooks, financial papers, writings, scrapbooks, and memorabilia of the Farnam family of New Haven, Connecticut, 1721-1929. The papers of Henry Farnam (1803-1883), and two of his sons, Henry Walcott Farnam (1853-1933) and William Whitman Farnam (1844-1929) form this collection. The papers of Henry Farnam include personal and professional correspondence concerning his family, life in New Haven, and the building of several canals and railroads in Connecticut and the Midwest. Materials documenting the New Haven and Northampton Company, Chicago and Rock Island Railroad, Mississippi and Missouri Valley Railroad, Northern Indiana Railroad, and Peoria and Bureau Valley Railroad is arranged here. The papers of Henry Walcott Farnam include personal and professional correspondence, financial papers, writings, subject files and scrapbooks relating to his family, life in New Haven, student and teaching experiences at Yale, membership in local, state, and national academic and reform organizations, and philanthropic activities on behalf of educational and charitable institutions. The papers of William Whitman Farnam include correspondence and topical files relating to family matters, Yale University, and New Haven Park Commission activities.

Correspondence, writings, teaching materials, clippings, photographs and memorabilia reflecting Conover's activities as a political science professor, an author, a temperance and prohibition advocate and a 1932 candidate for United States Senator as an Independent Republican in Connecticut.His correspondents include close family members and colleagues at the Brookings Institution in Washington, Yale University and Dickinson College, as well as political scientists on other campuses. The professional correspondence is largely concerned with administrative and technical matters connected with teaching. In his political correspondence as senatorial candidate in 1932 and through his lifelong interest in prohibition, he was in touch with Alfred Abrahamson, William J, Pape, Albert Levitt, Allen B. Lincoln, Nathan B. Stone, Charles Beard and Albert Bushnell Hart. In his attempt to found the Commonwealth Party, ca. 1933, he corresponded with Edward F. Blake, Patrick H. Callahan, Edwin C. Dinwiddie, Howard L. Holmes, Clinton N. Howard, Raymond E. Mendhall, Howard Hyde Russell, Robert P. Shuler and William R. Varney. He also corresponded with a mumber of leaders of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, among them Nellie Scott Coleman, Helen G. H. Estelle, Ida B. Wise Smith and Mary Welles.