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NEW
YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY ACQUIRES PAPERS OF HISTORIAN AND KENNEDY PRESIDENTIAL
ADVISOR ARTHUR M. SCHLESINGER, JR:
08/11/2007 (MaximsNews Network)
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UNITED NATIONS - / MaximsNews Network /
- 26 November 2007 -- The
New York Public Library has acquired the papers of Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.,
the late American historian, social critic, and advisor to President John F.
Kennedy, announced Paul LeClerc, President of The New York Public Library.
"Arthur
Schlesinger was a pivotally important American in the last century. He was both
a brilliant historian and also a witness to, and participant in, most of the
significant events of his era," said Dr. LeClerc.
"Professor
Schlesinger also loved our Library, and we are privileged to have this truly
extraordinary collection with us. I'm sure that fascinating new interpretations
of our history will find their origin in Professor Schlesinger's papers,
correspondence, and journals," he said.
The Arthur Schlesinger papers consist of almost 300 linear feet of
correspondence, journals, manuscripts of his writings, research files, phone
logs, sound recordings, videos, date books, and clippings and will be housed in
the Library’s Manuscripts and Archives Division.
The
correspondence in Schlesinger's papers includes letters from nearly every
significant figure in American politics, as well as many prominent scholars,
thinkers, writers, and artists.
Examples
of prominent correspondents include Kofi Annan, Brooke Astor, Truman Capote,
Bill Clinton, Marlene Dietrich, Allen Ginsberg, Hubert Humphrey, Jacob Javitz,
Edward Kennedy, Edward Koch, Norman Mailer, Walter Mondale, Daniel Patrick
Moynihan, Ralph Nader, I.M. Pei, John D. Rockefeller IV, John Updike, Kurt
Vonnegut, and Caspar Weinberger.
Schlesinger’s journals begin with those he kept in the mid 1930s as he
traveled and end in 1998. His papers contain copies or drafts of nearly all of
his writings and speeches, including a draft of McGovern’s 1972 presidential
nomination acceptance speech and the typescript of his award-receiving book Age
of Jackson (c. 1945).
Filed
with copies of all of his articles are letters from prominent figures in
politics, journalism, and academia. Appointment books from 1966 – 1978 are
housed in the archive, as are chronological files from 1966-1994, which detail
Schlesinger’s day-to-day work and communication.
The documents in the papers present revealing perspectives from figures with a
privileged view of history-making events. In an October 1967 letter to George
Kennan at Princeton University, Schlesinger states “Your point that ‘no
outside power can hope to do more than the government of that country can do for
itself’ is, of course, absolutely crucial. Kennedy used to speak of it as
‘their war’; Johnson calls it ‘our war.’
And
you are right too in emphasizing that the administration has not tried seriously
to answer the question why the purpose and moral of the Vietnamese who oppose us
are so much firmer and better than the purpose and morale of the Vietnamese
[who] are on our side.”
U.S.
Senator Daniel Moynihan wrote to Schlesinger in a June 1984 letter: “I mostly
wanted to tell you how much I liked your WSJ article on Salvador. Can no one
save you understand that it is the elite that is in revolt. The graduates of the
Jesuit university and the like. Which doesn’t make them any the more likeable,
but does help in thinking about the subject. Despair.”
Schlesinger occupied a singular place in American cultural and political life.
He played the dual roles of participant and observer and is arguably the most
well-known and politically active American historian since WWII.
Schlesinger
is often referred to as the only advisor of President Kennedy who opposed the
Bay of Pigs Cuban invasion. He won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award
twice, each time for his scholarship and writing on United States
Presidents Andrew Jackson and John F. Kennedy. He also authored a three-volume
set on Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
After
his years in the Kennedy administration, he worked as an historian, a professor
of history at City University of New York (CUNY) and political journalist,
writing 19 books and hundreds of articles, essays, and reviews.
His
own participation in the events he was investigating and his unique access to
influential individuals and restricted documents give the notes, correspondence,
and even photocopied documents in his research files – especially those for
his book on Robert Kennedy – exceptional research value.
“The Library’s Manuscripts and Archives Division is a major resource for
primary documentation of American history,” said David Ferriero, the Andrew W.
Mellon Director of The New York Public Libraries.
“The
Arthur Schlesinger papers provide rich new resources for researching our
country’s politics in an era of dramatic change and civil unrest. In their
remarkable depth they form a new foundation of our collections documenting mid
and late twentieth century U.S. history and connect with numerous other
collections throughout the Library that shed light on this period.”
“The respect and confidence of the powerful and influential that Schlesinger
earned gives his interaction with the American political and cultural elite that
is documented in these papers a substance often lacking in the papers of
politicians and academics,” said William Stingone, Charles J. Liebman Curator
of Manuscripts at the New York Public Library.
“His
eyewitness experience of world-changing events, which he chronicles in lucid and
straightforward prose, will make the journals an essential historical source.
The correspondence includes carbons of Schlesinger's letters attached to the
letters he received, so researchers will have access to both sides of any given
exchange, which are often substantive and candid discussions of significant
issues and events of the day.”
In addition to the correspondence and the journals, the papers also include
Schlesinger's manuscripts for most of his books, as well as those for many
articles, reviews, and book introductions.
The
oral history interviews, notes, and research files that Schlesinger used as
sources for his own writing are important historical sources in their own right.
The papers document the man and his times and make Schlesinger's papers a
valuable historical resource for scholars studying a wide variety of topics for
decades to come.
The New York Public Library was created in 1895 with the consolidation
of the private libraries of John Jacob Astor and James Lenox with the Samuel
Jones Tilden Trust. The Library provides free and open access to its physical
and electronic collections and information, as well as to its services.
It
comprises four research centers - The Humanities and Social Sciences Library;
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; the Schomburg Center for
Research in Black Culture; and the Science, Industry and Business Library - and
87 Branch Libraries in Manhattan, Staten Island, and the Bronx.
Research
and circulating collections combined total more than 50 million items. In
addition, each year the Library presents thousands of exhibitions and public
programs, which include classes in technology, literacy, and English as a second
language.
The
New York Public Library serves over 16 million patrons who come through its
doors annually and another 25 million users internationally, who access
collections and services through its website, http://www.nypl.org.
Contact :Gayle
Snible, 212.592.7713, gsnible@nypl.org
Labels: United
Nations, U.N., Schlesinger
Journals, Arthur
M. Schlesinger, Jr., New
York Public Library, Stephen
Schlesinger
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