Mary's friends

[Rob Wick]

Quote:I would think tracking these down would not be an easy task. I do not know how one would begin. Maybe others on the forum have ideas.

The easiest thing to do initially is to simply Google "Mary Todd Lincoln Letters" although that will only bring you substantial collections and things that are generally well-known by scholars. Still, it's a good place to start.

The first place to start on a serious search would be the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections, which is available online. By typing in "Mary Todd Lincoln" it will bring up a number of individual and a few collections of letters either by her or to her that are available. Before the NUCMC (pronounced "nuck muck" by people who use it) was digitized, large bound volumes of card catalogues from repositories were available in all large research libraries.

The second step would be to contact archivists and manuscript curators in known substantial collections and ask if they are aware of lesser collections that might fly under the radar. People who have dedicated their professional careers to one subject or historical era would be likely to keep attuned to what else is out there and would have the professional contacts to do some inquiries.

As for finding letters written by others, the easiest step would be to collect the names of those who are known correspondents of MTL, find out where their papers are located, and either go to the repository and look through the letters they wrote to other people where they might have mentioned MTL while they were corresponding with MTL or hire a researcher to do it for you. As an example, I wanted to find out what Albert J. Beveridge had written about Ida Tarbell, Carl Sandburg and William E. Barton. I had my Washington, D.C.,-based researcher go through all of Beveridge's letters looking for references to their names. She was able to find nearly 150 letters in which they were mentioned. It's tedious work, and if you hire someone can be rather expensive, but its the only way to be sure that you've collected what you're looking for.

A third step would be to check the papers of past historians and biographers to see if they collected anything that might have since gone missing. When Michael Burlingame wrote his two-volume life of Lincoln, he scoured the papers of Ida Tarbell, William E. Barton, Albert J. Beveridge, Carl Sandburg and many others to look at items they had collected but did not use. I know for a fact in Barton's papers there are letters to and from MTL, although whether or not they've been published I am not sure. Another possible source along these lines would be the papers of Ruth Painter Randall, which are collected in the Library of Congress along with her husband, James G. Randall.

Finally, I would suggest corresponding with those who are currently working or who have recently worked on the topic. Present to them your project's overview and ask if they are aware of minute collections that otherwise could have gone unnoticed. Go to a major research university library and see what sits on their shelves (especially newer items, given that it's very difficult to stay on top of what comes from the presses on such a major topic as the Lincolns). Check out their bibliographies and see what manuscript sources they have utilized. Most scholars, especially those at the university level, are very happy to work with other writers who share an interest in something they themselves have studied for years. Rarely have I ever been disappointed by the reaction of an author for a request of help.

Hope this helps.

Best
Rob