Harrison Griswold Dwight (AC 1898) Papers
Scope and Contents
The collection contains a sizable body of letters to Dwight from friends and publishers, as well as a group of letters from Dwight to several other friends. Also there are manuscripts of some of the articles he wrote for magazines and one of the projected books he worked on about L'Enfant, the planner of the city of Washington, DC. There is a miscellaneous section that contains various items of interest, such as family photographs, notes, etc.
Well known persons included in the correspondence (letters to Dwight) include John Dos Passos (4 letters), Gilbert Grosvenor, Willa Cather (13), Stark Young, Arnold Toynbee (5), Alice B. Toklas (3), Otis Skinner, Harold J. Laski (1), Archibald MacLeish (1), Edith Wharton (3), William Dean Howells (2), President Calvin Coolidge (1), President Herbert Hoover (1), Eleanor Roosevelt (1), Wendell Wilkie (1), Hugh Wiley (5), Talcott Williams (4), and Willa Cather to Mary Willard (2) (December 25, 1941 and Jan. 10, 1942, in letters to Dwight). Other correspondents are much more prolific, having as many as twenty to thirty letters in some cases.
Dates
- 1890-1959
Creator
- Dwight, H. G. (Harrison Griswold), 1875-1959 (AC 1898) (Person)
- Dwight, Henry Otis, 1843-1917 (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
In general, there is no restriction on access to the Harrison Griswold Dwight Papers for research use.
Conditions Governing Use
Requests for permission to publish should be directed to the Amherst College Archives and Special Collections. It is the responsibility of the researcher to identify and contact any copyright holders.
Biographical / Historical
Harrison Griswold Dwight, author, was born in Constantinople, Turkey on August 6, 1875. He was the son of missionaries Harrison Otis Dwight and his second wife Adele (or Ardelle) Maria Griswold. He prepared for Amherst College at the preparatory school of Robert College, Constantinople, with which his father was connected, and St. Johnsbury, Vermont Academy. After graduation from Amherst, he entered the consular service. In 1918 he was translator with the American Section of the Supreme War Council at Versailles. In 1919 he was secretary to General Tasker Bliss at the peace Conference in Paris.
For several years he was assistant drafting officer in the State Department, Washington, DC. Later he joined the protocol division. He was assistant director of the Frick Collection in New York from 1935 to 1947.
His published works include four volumes of short stories: "Constantinople, Old and New," (1913); "Stamboul Nights," (1916); "Persian Miniatures," (1917); "The Emperor of Elam and Other Stories," (1930); and numerous magazine articles in Harper's Monthly, The Atlantic Monthly, and National Geographic. One of his stories, "In the Pasha's Garden," was the subject of an opera produced by the Metropolitan Opera Company in 1934. His reviews of books and poems appeared regularly in magazines and newspapers.
Dwight died in Holyoke, Mass., on March 24, 1959.
Extent
8 Linear feet (16 archives boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
Correspondence, printed articles, manuscripts, notebooks, diaries, family photographs, and notes covering the life of Harrison Griswold Dwight, author and Amherst graduate. The bulk of the collection is made up of letters to Dwight from friends and publishers covering a period from 1897 to 1959. These include a number of letters from well-known persons ranging from Willa Cather to Eleanor Roosevelt.
Arrangement
This collection is organized into five series:
- Series 1: Correspondence, 1893-1959
- Series 2: Printed articles, 1925-1940
- Series 3: Manuscripts, 1890-1926
- Series 4: Notebooks and Diaries, 1897-1959
- Series 5: Miscellaneous, 1898-1958
- Authors, American Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Bacon, Leonard, 1887-1954
- Carter, Morris, 1877-1965
- Cather, Willa, 1873-1947
- Clapp, Frederick Mortimer (1879-1969)
- Diaries Subject Source: Library Of Congress Genre/Form Terms
- Dos Passos, John, 1896-1970
- Dwight, H. G. (Harrison Griswold), 1875-1959 (AC 1898)
- Dwight, Henry Otis, 1843-1917
- Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis), 1880-1956
- Morgenthau, Henry, 1856-1946
- Notebooks Subject Source: Library Of Congress Genre/Form Terms
- Rockefeller, John D., Jr. (John Davison), 1874-1960
- Saxton, Martha
- Toynbee, Arnold, 1889-1975
- World War, 1914-1918 -- Peace Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Young, Stark, 1881-1963
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Carol Trabulsi
- Date
- 2002
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Sponsor
- Encoding funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Repository Details
Part of the Amherst College Archives and Special Collections Repository
Amherst College Archives & Special Collections
Robert Frost Library
61 Quadrangle Drive
Amherst MA 01002-5000
(413) 542-2299
archives@amherst.edu