A gift of Civil War-era correspondence from the College's archives to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library will benefit scholars—and it was the right thing to do.
The Ramsay Archives holds the history of Wabash College in artifacts from the substantial to the mundane.
We have the minutes from the first meeting of the Board of Trustees; we have the first item of scarlet ever worn by a student athlete.
We have Caleb Mills’ sunglasses and President Byron Trippet’s academic regalia, including the old cough drops found in his pocket.
We have enough rare books to teach a course in the history of the book, including a leaf from a Gutenberg Bible.
Almost everything we have is donated, most of it by alumni, and entrusted to my care. I take that trust very seriously.
So you may be surprised to hear that I recently initiated a transfer of materials out, and not into, the archives.
A portion of the papers of Illinois Civil War Governor Richard Yates was donated to us in the late 1980s by the family of Professor Winfred Harbison ’24, who taught for many years at Wayne State University. He had been interested in writing a biography of Yates, who was governor in 1860, and a staunch supporter of President Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation. When Harbi-son met Yates’ granddaughter and she gave him several boxes of her grandfather’s papers, the professor’s book project took off. He had three chapters written when he died, and the papers were brought to Wabash for safekeeping, where they became what archivists call “hidden treasure”—they were rarely used.
Over the years through connections with researchers and visits from the Abraham Lincoln Papers Project, this collection became known to folks at the Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, IL, where the larger portion of Yates papers was held. Many items were official records of the state of Illinois created by Governor Yates. As time passed, it seemed that even though it went against an archivist’s first instincts, the prudent and responsible path was to return these items of immense historical importance to the place they belonged—with the rest of Yates’ papers.
So we began a year-long process of consultation that culminated in October with Lincoln scholar and Wabash Trustee Emeritus Roger Billings ’59 delivering the papers to the Lincoln Library. Loading them into Roger’s car felt a little like sending a child to summer camp or to college: that time when you know that this is the right thing to do while already missing what is going away.
Still, it felt good to know they will be well cared for.
Now researchers will be able to study the full historical record in one location. The Lincoln Library has a highly trained professional staff; they will catalog and care for the papers while making them more accessible to researchers. They have applied for a grant that will make the papers widely available on the Web. We look forward to the scholarship that will result.
Most important, the papers are where they belong, in Springfield, IL, where they were created.
The folks at the Lincoln Library are grateful.
“The donation makes this the most complete research collection regarding the man who served as Illinois governor from 1860 to 1865, one of the key American political figures of the mid 19th-century,” the Library announced. “It fills gaps that have always existed in our collection. Researchers will appreciate having these two collections united in one facility. We thank Wabash College for this generous and thoughtful gift.”
Every now and then, even for an archivist, it is better to give than to receive.