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Contact information: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mss.contact
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm81035055
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 John Callan O'Laughlin, politician, statesman, newspaperman, and publisher of the
The O'Laughlin Papers were processed circa 1965. The finding aid was revised in 2011.
The John Callan O'Laughlin Papers are described in the Library of Congress
The status of copyright in the unpublished writings of John Callan O'Laughlin is governed by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S.C.).
The O'Laughlin Papers 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.
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container number, John Callan O'Laughlin Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The papers of John Callan O'Laughlin (1873-1949) span the years 1895-1964 and consist mainly of correspondence supplemented by printed matter, reports, memoranda, and
O'Laughlin's career covered a variety of fields and interests, most of them well documented in the collection. Certain areas of his life, such as his newspaper reporting, his newspaper management, and his interest in military policy and in foreign affairs, are dealt with in great detail. Although active on the national scene for over fifty years, O'Laughlin often remained in the background, but his influence extended to the highest levels of the Republican Party.
The early years of his working life were spent as a newspaper correspondent in the United States, Europe, and South America. During this period, 1895-1912, he became closely associated with Theodore Roosevelt and often acted as an unofficial agent for the president. In 1909 he was rewarded for his services by being appointed first assistant under secretary of state for the last three months of the Roosevelt administration. The collection is weakest for this period of O'Laughlin's life, yet there is a sizable correspondence with such figures as Albert Jeremiah Beveridge, George W. Goethals, Frank B. Kellogg, William Loeb, Francis B. Loomis, Theodore Roosevelt, Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, Edward R. Stettinius, Freiherr Hermann Speck von Sternburg, William H. Taft, Baron Kogoro Takahira, Joseph P. Tumulty, and Leonard Wood.
In 1914 O'Laughlin directed the
In 1925, following a stint as vice president of the Lord and Thomas advertising agency in Chicago, O'Laughlin purchased the
Correspondents from the 1920s include Bainbridge Colby, Calvin Coolidge, Ira Copley, Charles Gates Dawes, Fred Morris Dearing, Hugh Gibson, Otis Allan Glazebrook, James G. Harbord, Will H. Hays, Charles Dewey Hilles, Herbert Hoover, Patrick J. Hurley, Hiram Johnson, Arthur Bliss Lane, Albert Davis Lasker, Henry Cabot Lodge, Dwight W. Morrow, Douglas MacArthur, James Clark McReynolds, Harry S. New, John J. Pershing, David Sarnoff, Reed Smoot, and Charles Pelot Summerall.
When the Democrats took office in 1933, O'Laughlin devoted less time to politics and more time to the
In 1933 O'Laughlin began the practice of sending a weekly newsletter to Hoover, Pershing, and Sarnoff. The newsletter was sent to inform them of inside developments in the Washington political scene and reflect his conservative philosophy and criticism of the New Deal. Copies of the newsletter are in the correspondence files of the recipients, with a nearly complete set in the Hoover letters. Others received it occasionally, usually on request, including military figures connected with the Republican Party such as Douglas MacArthur, George Van Horn Moseley, and Thomas Charles Hart.
O'Laughlin corresponded in the 1930s and the 1940s with individuals such as Camile Chautemps, Josephus Daniels, Thomas E. Dewey, Thomas Charles Hart, Theodore G. Joslin, Julius Klien, James G. Mitchell, George Van Horn Moseley, Kichisaburþ Nomura, Gifford Pinchot, Lawrence Richey, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Edith Kermit Carow, Roosevelt, Eleanor Butler Alexander Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Oscar S. Straus, Lawrence Sullivan, Harry S. Truman, David I. Walsh, William Allen White, Robert C. Wood, and Harry Hines Woodring.
Other topics covered in the correspondence include personal affairs, the growth of advertising in the United States, lobbying activities in Congress, the Venezuelean blockade of 1902, legislation affecting military matters, military policy during wartime, patronage, the Billy Mitchell court-martial trial, Washington social life, and Norwich University in Vermont.
The collection is arranged in four series:
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm81035055
Letters received and copies of letters sent.
Organized largely as received in four chronological groupings: 1896-1912, 1913-1918, 1919-1932, and 1933-1949.
Clippings, speeches, maps, war orders, reports, pamphlets, Christmas cards, calling cards, invitations, bankbooks, passports, awards, scrapbooks, and a letterpress book.
Arranged by type of material.
Income tax returns, manuscripts, sketches, reports, memoranda, financial papers, diaries, journals, an address book, drafts of articles, lists, notes, and a special file of material on the trip of Mrs. I. M. Brown to Europe in 1952.
Arranged by the type of material.
Accounts, legal documents, financial papers, circulation reports, constitutions, and related matter.
Arranged by type of material.