Converted to EAD3 : Encoded Archival Description (EAD), Version 3 : Release: 1.1.1 : Release Date: 2019-12-16. Validating against latest version of schema.
Contact information: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mss.contact
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm77037093
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 Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress, were given to the Library of Congress by his daughters, Brenda Putnam and Shirley Putnam O’Hara, 1956-1963.
The papers of Herbert Putnam were described and arranged in 1977. The finding aid was revised in 2013.
Photographs and engravings received with the Putnam papers have been transferred to the Prints and Photographs Division where they are identified as part of these papers.
Additional Herbert Putnam papers from the period of his librarianship (1899-1939) are in the Library of Congress Archives. Material relating to the period when Putnam served as librarian emeritus (1939-1955) is contained in the Luther Evans Papers, also in the Manuscript Division.
The status of copyright in the unpublished writings of Herbert Putnam is governed by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S.C.).
The papers of Herbert Putnam 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, Herbert Putnam Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The papers of Herbert Putnam (full name George Herbert Putnam) (1861-1955) span the years 1783-1958, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1899-1939. The collection includes family diaries and journals, family correspondence, general correspondence, speeches and articles, scrapbooks, clippings, legal papers, genealogies, and miscellaneous printed matter. The papers are organized into eight series: Family Diaries and Journals , Family Correspondence , General Correspondence , Speeches and Writings , Clippings File , Subject File , Miscellany , and Oversize .
The Family Correspondence series and Family Diaries and Journals give the collection its essentially personal character and document the Putnam family’s many and varied interests. Herbert Putnam’s letters to his wife, Charlotte Elizabeth Munroe Putnam, to his grandmother, C. H. Putnam, and to his sister, Victorine Amy Putnam Pinhey, reveal his indecision regarding the choice of librarianship or the legal profession as his life’s work. Later letters to his wife and to his daughters, Brenda Putnam and Shirley Putnam O’Hara, document not only his ever-widening interests in all aspects of library work and early years as Librarian of Congress, but reveal his many intellectual interests and love of poetry as well. Other family members represented in the Family Correspondence file include Putnam’s sister, the historian Ruth Putnam; General Israel Putnam of Revolutionary War fame; Putnam’s son-in-law, the artist Eliot O’Hara; his father, George Palmer Putnam, founder of the publishing company that bears his name; and his sister, Mary Putnam Jacobi, one of the first women to graduate from 1' Ecole de Mèdecine, Paris, France.
The General Correspondence file and Speeches and Writings relate mainly to Herbert Putnam’s professional interests. His thoughts on library work can be found here, including his comments regarding Harvard Library policy and the examination for a librarian at the Chicago Public Library. Information is provided on such landmarks in the history of the Library of Congress as the purchase of the Otto Vollbehr Collection of incunabula, including the Gutenberg Bible; the decision to sell catalog cards; the establishment of the Library of Congress classification system; the initiation of interlibrary loans; and the establishment of the Trust Fund Board, which Putnam considered his greatest achievement as Librarian of Congress.
The Library of Congress Round Table guest books in the Subject File contain the autographs of statesmen, writers, kings, presidents, Supreme Court justices, and others who shared the hospitality of the librarian’s luncheon circle.
This collection is arranged in eight series:
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm77037093
Diaries and journals of Putnam family members.
Arranged alphabetically by name of person.
Letters sent and received. Includes a Ruth Putnam letterbook.
Arranged alphabetically by name of correspondent and therein chronologically.
Letters sent and received.
Arranged chronologically.
Handwritten, typewritten, and printed copies or drafts of speeches and articles.
Loose manuscripts arranged alphabetically by title and scrapbooks arranged chronologically.
Newspaper and magazine clippings.
Arranged chronologically.
Correspondence, guest books, reports, newspaper clippings, and printed matter.
Arranged by subject or type of material.
Legal papers, genealogies, general miscellany, and printed matter.
Arranged by type of material.
Appointments, honors, and other material.
Described according to the series and container from which the items were removed.