Ray Stannard Baker

A Register of His Papers in the Library of Congress

Prepared by Katherine E. Brand and Wilhelmena B. Curry
Revised by Patrick Kerwin and Lia Apodaca

Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

Washington, D.C.

2006

Contact information: http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/mss/address.html

Finding aid encoded by Library of Congress Manuscript Division, 2006

Finding aid URL: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms006006

Table of Contents

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

Names:

Subjects:

Occupations:

Administrative Information

Provenance:

Processing History:

Transfers:

Copyright Status:

Microfilm:

Preferred Citation:

Biographical Note

Scope and Content Note

Additional Guides

Organization of the Papers

Description of Series

Container List

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Library's online catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically therein.

Administrative Information

The papers of Ray Stannard Baker, journalist and author, were deposited in the Library of Congress in 1939 and converted to a gift by Baker in 1943. An addition was received as a bequest in 1947, and other material was acquired by gift and purchase, 1951-1980.

The papers received by gift or bequest of Ray Stannard Baker were organized and described in 1954. The collection was reprocessed in 1982 and the finding aid revised in 2003. The Ray Stannard Baker Papers have been described in part in the Library's Quarterly Journal of Current Acquisitions, vol. 5, Aug. 1948, pp. 3-9.

Items have been transferred from the Manuscript Division to other custodial divisions of the Library. Some photographs have been transferred to the Prints and Photographs Division, and maps have been transferred to the Geography and Map Division. All transfers are identified in these divisions as part of the Ray Stannard Baker Papers.

Copyright in the unpublished writings of Ray Stannard Baker in these papers and in other collections of papers in the custody of the Library of Congress has been dedicated to the public.

A microfilm edition of part of these papers is available on ninety-seven reels. Consult a reference librarian in the Manuscript Division concerning availability for purchase or interlibrary loan.

Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container or reel number, Ray Stannard Baker Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Biographical Note

Scope and Content Note

The papers of Ray Stannard Baker (1870-1946) span the years 1836 to 1947, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1907 to 1944. The collection is organized as Personal Papers and a Woodrow Wilson File. The Personal Papers consist of diaries and notebooks, a correspondence file including letters between Edith Bolling Galt Wilson and Baker relating to Baker's biography of Woodrow Wilson, his role in the Paris Peace Conference, speeches and writings, and miscellany containing personal and professional material, some of it pertaining to the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and Baker's part in the making of the motion picture "Woodrow Wilson."

The Personal Papers document Baker's life as a boy, a college student, a young newspaper man, and a magazine editor. There are many exchanges with members of his family, especially with his father, Joseph Stannard Baker. This material later provided background information for Baker's autobiography.

Other correspondence treats Baker's work on the Chicago Record and McClure's Magazine and documents his emergence as a Progressive. Correspondence after 1920, which is considerably more extensive than that covering his years as a journalist and presidential assistant, note his work on the Wilson biography and his collaboration with the president's widow, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson.

The speeches and writings file in the Personal Papers series contains copies of Baker's works and research material for Following the Color Line, an examination of African Americans after the turn of the century; typescript drafts of La Follette's Autobiography, to which Baker contributed; and examinations of labor conditions and the development of industrialism. Files relate to his autobiographical writings and his studies of Wilson, and Baker's scrapbooks contain pieces for the Chicago Record assist in identifying Baker's early unsigned works. Although much of the material relating to work written under his pen name, David Grayson, is located at the Jones Library in Amherst, Massachusetts, similar material is included in this collection. A bibliography of his works by his daughter, Rachel Baker Napier, accompanies the Library's collection.

The Woodrow Wilson File consists of correspondence and other material assembled by Baker during the fifteen years he devoted to his biography of Wilson. A subseries of correspondence includes originals, transcripts, and photocopies of letters written to or by Wilson, transcripts of his letters to his first wife, Ellen Axson Wilson, and Baker's correspondence relating to Wilson as well as memoranda of interviews and printed matter. Other correspondents include Jane Addams, Albert A. Boyden, Frank Nelson Doubleday, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ernst H. P. A. Haeckel, Norman Hapgood, Ben B. Lindsey, Samual S. McClure, George Foster Peabody, John S. Phillips, Theodore Roosevelt, Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell, Booker T. Washington, and William Allan White. Chronological notes on Wilson's day-to-day writings and activities prepared by Baker's assistant, Katharine E. Brand, complete the series.

Additional Guides

Card indexes to selected material in the Woodrow Wilson File, including a chronological index to the letters of Woodrow Wilson and a subject index to the notebooks of Charles L. Swem, are available in the Manuscript Division Reading Room.

Organization of the Papers

The collection is arranged in two series:

• Personal Papers, 1875-1947
• Woodrow Wilson File, 1836-1941, n.d.

Description of Series

Container List