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Contact information: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mss.contact
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm77018382
Collection material in English
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the LC Catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically.
The papers of Arthur Huntington Gleason, journalist, editor, and social reformer, were given to the Library of Congress in 1968 by his widow, Helen Hayes Gleason Johnson.
The papers of Arthur Gleason were processed in 1977. The finding aid was revised in 2003.
Photographs have been transferred to the Library's Prints and Photographs Division where they are identified as part of these papers.
The status of copyright in the unpublished writings of Arthur Gleason is governed by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S.C.).
The papers of Arthur Gleason are open to research. Researchers are advised to contact the Manuscript Reading Room prior to visiting. Many collections are stored off-site and advance notice is needed to retrieve these items for research use.
A microfilm edition of these papers is available on eight reels. Consult reference staff in the Manuscript Division concerning availability for purchase or interlibrary loan. To promote preservation of the originals, researchers are required to consult the microfilm edition.
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container or reel number, Arthur Gleason Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The papers of Arthur Huntington Gleason (1878-1923) span the years 1863-1931, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1900-1923. Consisting of family correspondence, general correspondence, writings file, subject file, and miscellany including clippings and printed matter, the papers chart Gleason's career from his graduation from Yale University to his death from spinal meningitis in 1923. Letters and related material document his early years as an editor with
The papers in this collection focus chiefly on World War I. As a journalist and ambulance worker for the Red Cross in Belgium, Gleason became a proponent of the Allied cause. In addition to reporting on Allied soldiers and Belgium's defeated populace, he relayed stories of German atrocities back to the United States and served as an intermediary for English writers seeking to influence public opinion in this country in favor of the English position. Manuscripts of two of these writers, G. K. Chesterton and James Bryce, are among the articles and interview transcripts which Gleason sent to the United States from England for publication, and he retained them in his papers. Also in the collection are exchanges with Geoffrey B. Butler, J. J. Jusserand, the French ambassador to Washington, and Baron Eustace Percy of Newcastle on issues such as the Irish question, American isolationism, and the political and social ramifications of immigration to the United States. The impact of ethnicity on the American character, a frequent postwar theme of Gleason's, was a topic which he addressed in a series of articles on the status of Jews in America published by
Following his return to the United States in 1920, Gleason worked on behalf of the Bureau of Industrial Research and John Brophy of the United Mine Workers. Papers relevant to this aspect of his life are contained in the Correspondence series, in the Subject File under Bureau of Industrial Research, and the Writings File. Among the individuals who appear either as correspondents or in biographical sketches are John Blankenhorn, Bruce Bliven, John Brophy, Robert W. Bruère, Herbert David Croly, Andrew Furuseth, Frank Hodges, Vida Dutton Scudder, Robert Smillie, and Norman Thomas. After 1922 Gleason turned to writing about the new civilization he believed was emerging in the Southwest and to the varieties of religious experience he saw in California. He also underwent a personal crisis as a writer which is documented in private reflections he titled "The Darker Side." These and similar holograph notes are contained in the Writings File, as are transcripts of interviews he conducted with Percy Stickney Grant, Charles Proteus Steinmetz, Ili︠a︡ L'vovich Tolstoĭ, Charles Richard Van Hise, and others.
The family correspondence, although a relatively small part of the collection, is a source of biographical data. Letters Gleason sent his mother in 1906 include critical comments on Jane Addams's personality, and a file for 1915 contains descriptions of Gleason in action as a medic and reporter on the Western Front. Also in the family correspondence are letters sent and received by Helen Hayes Gleason during the war and a few exchanges which Gleason sent or wrote during boyhood. Letters of condolence to Helen Hayes Gleason after her husband's death are located in the general correspondence as are papers generated during her compilation of
Correspondents include Roger N. Baldwin, Edward William Bok, Geoffrey G. Butler, Edward C. Carter, Sir Winston Churchill, Fannia M. Cohn, Joe Cook, Eugene V. Debs, George Eastman, Walter Prichard Eaton, Richard Henry Edwards, Joseph Fels, Felix Frankfurter, Lewis Gannett, Armand Hammer, Norman Hapgood, Alfred Harcourt, Sidney Hillman, J. J. Jusserand, Paul Underwood Kellogg, Thomas Kirkup, Edward B. Krehbiel, Harry Wellington Laidler, Harold Joseph Laski, Ludwig Lewisohn, Walter Lippmann, Jack London, A. Lawrence Lowell, Julian W. Mack, Paul Elmer More, William Morrow, James Oppenheim, C. H. Parkhurst, Baron Eustace Percy of Newcastle, William Lyon Phelps, John S. Phillips, Charles Mulford Robinson, Edward Alsworth Ross, May Sinclair, William Andrew Spalding, Mark Sullivan, William Simon U'Ren, Lillian D. Wald, Andrew Dickson White, William Winter, and Stephen Samuel Wise.
This collection is arranged in five series:
Available on microfilm. Shelf no. 17,326
Letters sent by Gleason to his mother, letters to and from other relatives, and correspondence written and received by his wife, Helen Hayes Gleason.
Arranged alphabetically by name of person and chronologically therein.
Official and personal correspondence written and received by Gleason, including holograph drafts of letters composed by him. Also letters to and from Helen Hayes Gleason concerning her husband's death and the publication of a volume memorializing his writings and achievements.
Arranged chronologically.
Typescripts of articles, poems, and interviews by Gleason as well as notes, reflections, and drafts of articles. Arranged alphabetically by title.
Holograph and typewritten manuscripts of writings by others filed at the end of the series are arranged alphabetically by name of the writer.
Minutes, reports, notes, memoranda, contracts, and testimonials.
Arranged alphabetically by subject or name of organization.
Newspaper and periodical clippings, pamphlets, maps, calling cards, postcards, programs, and miscellaneous material.
Arranged alphabetically by type of material and topic.