The papers of journalist Horace Greeley (1811-1872) consist of 2,000 items (4,958 images) in seven containers, and span the years 1812 to 1928, with the bulk dating from 1860 to 1872. The collection includes correspondence, typescripts and transcripts of Greeley’s letters and writings; articles, notes, lectures, and speeches by and about Greeley; scrapbooks of newspaper clippings and other printed matter; and miscellaneous material. Incidents of Greeley’s boyhood, his early struggle in New York to maintain himself in the printing and publishing business, and the growth and success of the New York Tribune, the newspaper that he owned and edited, are related in letters from Greeley to Charles A. Dana, B. F. Ransom, Rufus W. Griswold, and others. Additional subjects include Whig politics and the slavery issue prior to the Civil War. There is little material relating to Greeley’s three-month term in Congress (1848-1849) or his senatorial aspirations in 1861 and 1867. Lecture requests, business and editorial matters concerning the New York Tribune, New York politics, family illnesses, Jefferson Davis’s bail bond, the Liberal Republican Party, and the presidential campaign of 1872 are also documented in the collection.

Prominent correspondents represented in the Horace Greeley Papers include Simon Cameron, William E. Chandler, Schuyler Colfax, William Maxwell Evarts, Hamilton Fish (1808-1893), Jessie Benton Frémont, John G. Nicolay, John Sherman, Gerrit Smith, and B. F. Wade.

A finding aid (PDF and HTML) to the Horace Greeley Papers is available online with links to the digital content on this site.

This collection is arranged alphabetically by type of material.