Grosvenor Family

A Register of Its Papers in the Library of Congress

Prepared by Grover Batts, David Mathisen, and Allan J. Teichroew
Revised and expanded by Bradley E. Gernand and Patrick Kerwin

Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

Washington, D.C.

2000

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

Finding aid encoded by Library of Congress Manuscript Division, 2005

Finding aid URL: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms005006

Table of Contents

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

Names:

Subjects:

Administrative Information

Provenance:

Processing History:

Transfers:

Copyright Status:

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Biographical Note

EDWIN A. GROSVENOR

ELSIE MAY BELL GROSVENOR

GILBERT HOVEY GROSVENOR

Scope and Content Note

Related Material

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

Part I of the papers of the Grosvenor family was given to or deposited in the Library of Congress between 1977 and 1982 by Mabel H. Grosvenor, Melville Bell Grosvenor, Gertrude Grosvenor Gayley, Lilian Grosvenor Jones, Carol Grosvenor Myers, Torfinn Oftedal, and Virginia Grosvenor Allee. Additional papers received in 1982 and 1984 by gift or purchase are described separately as Part II.

Part I of the Grosvenor Family Papers has been partially described in the Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress, vol. 35, no. 1 (Oct. 1978), pp. 254-256.

Photographs have been transferred to the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress where they are identified as part of these papers.

The seven donors listed above have dedicated to the public their share of copyright interests in the unpublished writings of the Grosvenor family in these papers and in other collections of papers in the custody of the Library of Congress.

Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: container number, Grosvenor Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Biographical Note

Scope and Content Note

Part I

Part I of the papers of the Grosvenor family spans the years 1827-1981, with the bulk of the items concentrated in the period 1872-1964. It is organized in two series, Family Papers and Personal Files, which are subdivided into the following generational units: Asa H. and Elizabeth Waters, Edwin A. and Lilian Waters Grosvenor, and Gilbert Hovey and Elsie May Bell Grosvenor. Lilian Waters, daughter of Asa H. and Elizabeth Waters married Edwin A. Grosvenor in 1873 and in 1875 gave birth to Gilbert. Gilbert Grosvenor married Elsie May Bell, daughter of Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone. Bell family papers constitute a small but significant part of the Grosvenor collection. Contained in the Family Papers series are diaries, correspondence, and miscellaneous material. The Personal Files include general correspondence, speeches and writings, financial records, social ephemera, and subject files.

The major portion of the collection concerns Elsie and Gilbert Grosvenor. Gilbert Grosvenor was born in Constantinople, Turkey, where his father, a seminary-trained university professor, taught history at Robert College. After graduating from Amherst College in 1897, Gilbert Grosvenor taught briefly at a private school and, on the recommendation of his future father-in-law, became associate editor of the National Geographic Society's monthly periodical, the National Geographic Magazine. Although his office files have remained at the National Geographic Society, his family's personal papers contain numerous items dealing specifically with his professional duties, perhaps best evidenced in personal correspondence with Alexander Graham Bell between 1899 and 1920 concerning the developing character of the National Geographic Magazine. Other files bearing on this subject are turn-of-the-century letters with Gilbert Grosvenor's parents and early production material, including a draft of Theodore Roosevelt's first address after his African safari, a manuscript by William Howard Taft, and writings and correspondence received from James Bryce. Grosvenor also corresponded frequently with his son, Melville Bell Grosvenor, about society matters, and his letters to and from his twin brother, Edwin Prescott Grosvenor, an assistant attorney general under Taft, contain numerous exchanges regarding legal and policy issues affecting the society between 1910 and 1930.

Gilbert and Elsie Grosvenor were related to or acquainted with many of the leading men and women of their day. In addition to family ties with Alexander Graham Bell, whose unfinished biography by Grosvenor is contained in these papers, the Grosvenors were also related to William Howard Taft. Correspondence with the Taft family of Ohio and with Delia C. Torrey, the "Aunt Delia" of the Taft administration, is scattered throughout the Family Papers. Also represented in the collection are individuals who knew the Grosvenors socially or professionally, such as writers Joseph Conrad and Sinclair Lewis, explorers Richard Evelyn Byrd, Fridtjof Nansen, Robert E. Peary, and Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, and scientists or inventors Auguste Piccard, W. M. Flinders Petrie, and Wilbur Wright. Still other prominent names in this segment of the papers are Amelia Earhart, George W. Goethals, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Helen Keller, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Charles A. Lindbergh, George C. Marshall, and Chester W. Nimitz. Besides William Howard Taft and his wife, Helen Herron Taft, the Grosvenors received letters from presidents Calvin Coolidge, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson of their families.

The Grosvenors were frequent travelers and included in their personal files are notes, manuscripts, and ephemera they compiled while on their tours. The collection also documents their civic and charitable involvements. Particularly in her younger years, Elsie was committed to community improvements. She marched on behalf of women's rights and headed a Washington, D.C., drive for pure milk. Among the many organizations which the Grosvenors supported, the best documented are the Clarke School for the Deaf, the Volta Bureau (founded by Bell), and George Washington University, where Gilbert Grosvenor was a member of the board of trustees. Social activities constituted another major interest, as did his lifelong attachment to Amherst College. Both of these subjects, together with detailed records of the management of family estates at Bethesda, Maryland, and Baddeck, Nova Scotia, Canada, form a substantial portion of of the papers.

Other family material includes files relating to Asa H. and Elisabeth Waters and Edwin A. and Lilian Waters Grosvenor. Between 1870 and 1890, while teaching in Constantinople, Edwin Grosvenor toured Europe and the Middle East in the cause of historical scholarship. He became a leading medievalist and Byzantine expert and in the 1890s he joined the faculty at Amherst College. Edwin and Lilian Grosvenor associated with diplomats, scholars, and philanthropists, including George Constantine, Samuel S. Cox, Wilcox Darwin, Abram S. Hewitt, Florence Nightingale, and Lew and Susan Wallace, all of whom appear in Edwin and Lilian Grosvenor personal files, along with Herbert Baxter Adams, Calvin Coolidge, whom Edwin Grosvenor taught at Amherst College, Alexander Meiklejohn, and Woodrow Wilson.

The largest part of Edwin and Lilian Grosvenor's papers deals with family matters. Both corresponded frequently with each other, their children, and their parents. Used in conjunction with other family correspondence, their letters are almost a daily record of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century family and social history. In addition to the purely personal, there is also information on Millbury, Massachusetts, the Waters family's ancestral home, and on scholarly and community affairs at Amherst College and the experiences of a nineteenth-century academic family living abroad. A speeches and writings file contains Edwin Grosvenor's sermons and many of his public and classroom lectures. Topics covered include educational concerns and international policy issues focusing on the Balkans and the Near East.

Other correspondents in Part I in addition to those already listed, include William Jennings Bryan, David and Marian Fairchild, A. W. Greely, Henry Holt, Julia Ward Howe, Ida M. Tarbell, and Lowell Thomas.

Part II

Part II of the Grosvenor Family Papers spans the years 1827-1965, with the bulk of the items concentrated in the period 1873-1965. The papers in Part II are arranged and described according to the organization of Part I and consist of two series, Family Papers and Personal Files. They include correspondence of David and Marian Fairchild and information regarding the purchase and development of the Grosvenor estate in southern Florida; the development of Alexander Graham Bell's estate, artifacts, and museum at Beinn Bhreagh, near Baddeck, Nova Scotia, Canada; and papers regarding the National Geographic Society. Various files detail Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor's dispute with John Henry Hyde, editor of the National Geographic Magazine, over the direction of the magazine. Grosvenor's personal papers also include correspondence with John Oliver LaGorce and Oscar Phelps Austin regarding the society.

Related Material

The Alexander Graham Bell family papers in the Manuscript Division include material relating to the Grosvenor family.

Organization of the Papers

The collection is arranged in two parts comprising four series:

• Part I
  • Family Papers, 1827-1968, n.d.
  • Personal Files, 1827-1964, n.d.
• Part II
  • Family Papers, 1827-1965, n.d.
  • Personal Files, 1873-1964, n.d.

Description of Series

Container List