Henry Cardwell Potter family papers

Death certificate, 1902 (Box 2, folder 17)
Collection Inventory
Date Range
1858-1943

The collection documents the lives of the members of the Potter, Guererro, James, and Lord families from the 1850s to the 1940s, beginning with Henry Cardwell Potter (1822-1902), a Philadelphia businessman who through his business dealings became Consul of Nicaragua for the city. Potter's daughter married into the Guererro and James families; her daughter married into the Lord family. The bulk of the collections consists of correspondence; a large portion of these letters are addressed to Mary Agnes Guererro from her fiancé John Carlisle Lord, a professional ball player. The collection also contains a large amount of business materials, including papers relating to Potter's office as Consul, Dr. James' medical practice, and the sale of the family estate, La Hacienda Santa Enriqueta. A large scrapbook, maintained by Dr. James, contains newspaper clippings, correspondence, and programs of social events. The collection is supplemented by a large collection of photographs, some of which have been identified.

Location
MC 1998.8

Charles Augustus Poulson Sr. family papers

Newspaper, 1817 (Oversized, folder 1)
Collection Inventory
Date Range
1809-1918

The collection documents several generations of the Poulson family and its role in publishing Poulson's American Daily Advertiser. It includes submissions, woodcuts, and sample issues from the Daily Advertiser; correspondence; genalogical materials; and financial and legal documents. Correspondents include Horace Binney, Benjamin Rush (1811-1877), Samuel Sartain, John Sargeant (1779-1852), and Noah Webster. The genealogical notes address the Poulson, Carlyle, Graham, Gurney, Knorr, and Wood families.

Location
MC 2006.2

Eli Kirk Price collection

Booklet, 1854 (Box 2, folder 2)
Collection Inventory
Date Range
1797-1937

The collection consists of correspondence, legal and financial materials primarily related to Price's law practice, his service in the Pennsylvania State Senate (1854-1856), and as a commissioner for Fairmount Park Association. Also included in the collection are papers concerning the Fisher's Creek Improvement Company and from the files of Eli Kirk Price, Jr., correspondence and applications for the Keene Home for Women, a retirement home in Bristol, Pa.

Location
MC 1999.13

Leon Cushing Prince papers

Program, undated (Box 4, folder 9)
Collection Inventory
Date Range
1790-1937

Leon Cushing Prince (1878-1937) graduated from Dickinson College in 1898 and received his law degree from the Dickinson School of Law and his masters from New York University. Prince returned to Dickinson in 1907 to become a professor of history, where he would teach for thirty years until his death. He was elected a Pennsylvania state senator in 1928 and served for two terms. The collection contains material dated 1898-1937, and includes correspondence, legal documents, literary materials, printed materials, and other memorabilia. The bulk of the collection centers around manuscripts of Prince's research notes, sermons, speeches, and writings. Other materials in the collection include newspaper clippings, correspondence with other professors regarding lecture appearances, and printed material on the Kiwanis Club.

Location
MC 1998.7

Public Interest Resource Center (PIRC) papers

Newsletter, 1980 (Box 1, folder 22)
Collection Inventory
Date Range
1978-1993

The Public Interest Resource Center (PIRC) collection consists of the various papers, newsletters, court dockets, and publications which were housed by PIRC in an effort to organize all efforts against the restart of Three Mile Island, following the near-meltdown on March 28, 1979. The PIRC was established as a liaison group between the major anti-nuclear groups formed in Central Pennsylvania, and their goal was to coordinate all efforts against TMI: legal actions, protests, and financial actions.

Time Period
Location
TMI-PIRC

Alexander Sharp papers

Essay, undated (Box 1, folder 6)
Collection Inventory
Date Range
1874-1880

The collection includes essays written by Alexander Sharp while he was a student at Dickinson College. Also included are grammar school essays written by Alexander and his sister Mary.

Time Period
Location
MC 2004.2

Eli Slifer papers

Letter, 1859 (Box 3, folder 10)
Date Range
1849-1871

This collection consists of folders in 13 manuscript boxes relating to correspondence and papers of Eli Slifer (1818-1888), an active figure in Pennsylvania politics and the Secretary of the Commonwealth under Governor Andrew Gregg Curtin, 1861-1867. Most of the letters were written during the Civil War and represent the pressures of local politicians, office seekers, and military men upon the Governor's office. There is much material on the enlistment and acceptance of military companies dated 1861 (e.g. Wiliam Foote of the "Lycoming Mountain Ears"), on the operation of the draft law, 1862-1864, on the soldier's vote, election of 1864, and on military surgeons and hospitals. The collection contains 47 letters and telegrams from Curtin, 1852-1866, and 61 from Col. Alexander Kelly McClure, 1851-1866. The political power of Simon and William Cameron is reflected. The political influence of the German and English press appears in letters of Israel Gutelius and his family. Other subjects discussed include banking, transportation, coal, iron, oil industries, military contracts, and the invasion of Pennsylvania.

There is a series of appendices that arranges the correspondence by Civil War Units, Military Affairs, Political Affairs, Business Affairs, and Miscellaneous Affairs.

Time Period
Location
MC 2003.4

James Gordon Steese family papers

Passport, 1925 (Box 3, folder 13)
Collection Inventory
Date Range
1882-1958

James Gordon Steese (1882-1958) was a member of the Dickinson College class of 1902. Among his many activities, Steese served as president of the Board of Road Commissioners for Alaska; the Steese Highway in Alaska is named for him. He later was involved with the development of railroads in both Alaska and Maryland and with several oil companies. Diaries and journals chronicle Steese's military service and his later years. The collection contains mostly professional correspondence, pamphlets, and reports on the Alaskan Road Commission and Steese's military service. Also included are several newspaper articles, maps, charts, and correspondence with Steese's family. A large photograph collection, mainly in the form of photo albums, supplements the document collection.

Location
MC 2002.4

Wilbur Morris Stine papers

Notebooks, 1895-1905 (Box 6, folder 1 and 4)
Collection Inventory
Date Range
1889-1913

Wilbur Morris Stine (1863-1934) graduated with Dickinson College's class of 1886 and later received advanced degrees from both Dickinson College and Ohio University. He served on the engineering faculty at Ohio University, the Armour Institute of Technology, and Swarthmore College. Stine also received national recognition for his research with x-rays. These papers include documents dealing with his 1891 battery patent application and clippings of articles written by Stine on electricity, x-rays, and science education. The collection also includes some correspondence pertaining to Stine's short involvement with the Swarthmore College Press, as well as 30 literary notebooks containing typescripts of essays, poems, speeches, and stories written by Stine.

Time Period
Location
MC 2005.7

Robert Swift papers

Poster, 1979 (Box 1, folder 13)
Collection Inventory
Date Range
1979-c.1990

Robert Swift was a Pennsylvania statehouse reporter during the accident at Three Mile Island. As such, he not only covered the numerous press conferences held to discuss the incident, but also reported from TMI the first night of the accident. The Robert Swift collection consists primarily of press releases, official statements, and testimony from the period immediately following the March 28, 1979 accident at Three Mile Island. The bulk of these materials originated from Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh's office.

Time Period
Location
TMI-Swift

Roger Brooke Taney legal papers

Legal brief, 1815 (Box 3, folder 1)
Collection Inventory
Date Range
1770-1834

Roger Brooke Taney graduated from Dickinson College in the class of 1795. He served as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, a state senator, Attorney General of both Maryland and the United States, and Secretary of the Treasury before becoming Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court in 1831. Taney is best known for his landmark decision in the Dred Scott case. The collection contains financial and legal papers relating to his law practice in Frederick, Maryland; there are more than 2000 legal documents alone in the collection representing over 700 individual cases. The material ranges in date from 1770 to 1834, with the bulk of its contents being dated between 1800 and 1820.

Note: All of the items in this collection have been digitized. For more information about accessing them, please contact the Archives staff.

Subject
Location
MC 2002.3

Three Mile Island Alert (TMIA) papers

Newsletter, 1979 (folder 1.4.3.1)
Collection Inventory
Date Range
1979-1994

Three Mile Island Alert (TMIA) collection consists of the various papers, government documents, legal documents, transcripts, and publications collected and maintained by Three Mile Island Alert, a not-for-profit citizens' organization dedicated to promotion of safe-energy alternatives to nuclear power. The bulk of this collection consists of reports and legal papers pertaining to the accident at Three Mile Island Unit-2, its cleanup, and the restart of TMI Unit-1. Due to the size of the collection, an outline of the collection has been provided to serve as a guide to the full register. The processing of this collection was funded, in part, by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

Time Period
Location
TMI-TMIA

Ruth Trout family papers

Photograph, c1945 (Photographs, folder 52)
Collection Inventory
Date Range
1860-2003

Ruth Agnes Trout graduated from Dickinson College with the class of 1936. In 1983, she and her sister, Helen Elizabeth Trout, established the Trout Gallery at the college in honor of their parents, Brook and Mary Agnes Cook Trout. This collection of papers documents Trout's relationship with the college, primarily as an alumna. It contains correspondence with college officials and financial documents that particularly emphasize her support of the Trout Gallery. This collection also includes a record of her family's history back to approximately the Civil War. Family-related materials include correspondence, genealogical materials, photographs, legal and financial documents, and memorabilia from important life events. Surnames represented in the collection include Brindle, Cook, Dale(s), McCall, Ritter, Stringer, and Trout.

Location
MC 2005.1

Morris King Udall papers

Letter, 1983 (Box 2, folder 11)
Collection Inventory
Date Range
1976-1985

Morris King Udall served as a Congressman from Arizona for thirty years. From 1977 to 1991, he chaired the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs where he was instrumental in launching the investigation into the March 1979 accident at Three Mile Island. The Morris King Udall collection consists mostly of correspondence and reports collected by Morris while he was chairman of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. This collection was donated to Dickinson College in 1982 by Henry Myers, a staff member in Congressman Udall's office.

Time Period
Location
TMI-Udall

Cornelius Vanderbilt Family papers

Letter, 1809 (Box 2, folder 12)
Collection Inventory
Date Range
1766-1897

The collection consists of the papers of the families of Jacob and Cornelius Vanderbilt, farmers and tax assessors of Newton Township, Cumberland County, Pa. Accounts of the Civil War are included among family correspondence, bills, accounts, and tax lists. Also included in the collection are a Psalm book and a small Civil War photograph.

Location
MC 2001.14

Isaac Wayne papers

Map, undated (Box 1, folder 7)
Collection Inventory
Date Range
1797-1841

This collection is comprised of letters written to Isaac Wayne, Dickinson College Class of 1792 and Pennsylvania statesman, on various subjects ranging from biographical information on his father (General Anthony Wayne) to Wayne's service in Congress. Also included are a few letters written by Wayne to others; of note are the letters of 1797 dealing with the settlement of his father's estate. Also included are miscellaneous items pertaining to family matters, including a map of the family estate at Waynesborough.

People
Location
MC 2001.11