27 March 1834

Webster, Daniel, 1782-1852

Autograph letter signed

Title: to D. Williams

Replies to a letter from Williams, a Boston lawyer, sent on 3 March 1834. Discusses the advantages gained by merchants and manufacturers due to "the cheapness of internal exchange."

GLC02505.43

4 March 1870

Tilden, Samuel J. (Samuel Jones), 1814-1886

Autograph letter signed

Title: to D. Miller

Letter of introduction of R.C. Root as Secretary of the Lebanon Springs (New York) Railroad Company to edit Miller's certificates on the consolidation agreement between Root's company and the B&R Railroad Company.

GLC02504.37

28 July 1950

Warren, Earl, 1891-1974

Typed letter signed

Title: to William H. Blenko

Thanks Blenko for a vase he gave him at the Governors' Conference in White Sulphur Springs. Signed as Governor of California. Addressed to Blenko at the Blenko Glass Company in Milton, West Virginia. A typed note with biographical information on Warren is pasted to the bottom of the letter.

GLC02504.39

18 April 1779

Livingston, Robert, 1708-1790

Autograph letter signed

Title: to James Duane

Writes to his son-in-law about the state and activities of his iron works, where they were producing pig iron for Colonel Hay, Colonel Lewis, and General Schuyler. Mentions an upcoming meeting with the Governor of New York, in which he will let him know that "in case of no assistance no blame shall fall on me this is doing all what in reason can be Expected of me by my Country, at this critical moment." Also mentions inflation and the price of foodstuffs.

GLC02537.02

10 May 1843

Benton, Thomas Hart, 1782-1858

Autograph letter signed

Title: to John C. Rivis

Written by Missouri Senator Benton. References Rivis's letter of 15 April. Says he is in Kentucky to check out a "Sawing enterprise" he recently purchased. Says he purchased one of Page's circular saws and has set it up on 800 acres of land near Versailles, Kentucky, about halfway between Lexington and Frankfurt. Says 500 acres of the land has the finest timber. Claims that practical men have told him that each acre can get 50,000 to 100,000 feet of lumber. Describes his day working at the mill and says he has "dinner at twelve (with the white part of the work people)." Does not want this to…

GLC02542.22

circa 1797

Document signed

Title: [Lottery ticket for the benefit of the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures]

Ticket for a lottery to be held in Paterson, New Jersey, to benefit the "Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures, erected by Virtue of an Act of the Legislature of the State of New-Jersey. -- Subject to a Deduction of 15 per Cent." Printed by John Woods. Illegible signature.

GLC08524

circa 1863

Pamphlet

Title: An Appeal to the Federal Soldiers

Written by "A New Englander, Now A Confederate Soldier." Dated from first line: "Two years of our sanguinary conflict..." Says he is going to lay aside "weapons of strife" and reason together on the lessons the war can teach. Says it was ill-will and sectional prejudice that led to the South's secession. Claims "Slavery was the apparent, though not the real cause of the war. That real cause lay in the diveristy of our interests." Claims the differences between urban commercialism and agrarian staple production caused the war. Says "Your politicians seized upon abolitionism as a convenient…

GLC08676

February 8, 1792

Pendleton, Edmund, 1721-1803

Autograph letter signed

Title: to James Madison re: suggestions for next Census, attack on Hamilton

The letter comments at length and unfavorably on Hamilton's report on manufactures.

GLC00099.149

June 10, 1848

Brown, John, 1800-1859

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Simon Perkins

In the letter, John Brown discusses his wool business. "Burlington" continues to make excuses for not paying, while at the same time pleading for wool to be sent to him. Burlington Mills Manufacturing Company in Vermont was one of Brown's clients in the wool business.

GLC00106

14 October 1936

Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945

Typed document signed

Title: Address of the President at Chicago, Illinois

Speech to businessmen signed at the end. Reports on the recovery the nation is experiencing since the Depression in many areas of business; banks, industry, railroads, farming, investments, etc. Criticizes the previous administration's focus on "high finance." Discusses the methods by which the government has improved business recently.

GLC00196.03

20 May 1846

Michigan, Legislature

Pamphlet

Title: Resolutions of the Legislature of Michigan relative to leasing of the mineral lands.

House document no. 204. 29th Congress, 1st session. Discusses Michigan state rights. Denies the right of the federal government to lease federal mineral lands if the state where the lands are located is opposed to it. Includes report of Flavius J. Littlejohn of the Judiciary Committee of the Senate of Michigan "in relation to the sovereign right of Michigan to the mines and minerals within her borders."

GLC00267.025

1857

Helper, Hinton R., 1829-1906

Book

Title: The Impending crisis of the South: How to meet it

First edition. Signed as presented by Samuel A. Winsor. Published by the Burkick Brothers, New York. Bookplate removed. In 1857, Hinton Rowan Helper, the son of a western North Carolina farmer, published one of the most politically influential books ever written by an American. 'The Impending Crisis of the South' argued that slavery was incompatible with economic progress. Using statistics drawn from the 1850 census, Helper maintained that by every measure the North was growing far faster than the South and that slavery was the cause of the South's economic backwardness. Helper's thesis…

GLC00267.074

1857

Helper, Hinton R., 1829-1906

Book

Title: The impending crisis of the South: how to meet it.

Cited as "Fourth thousand" above publisher information. Previous documentation indicates this is a first edition. Published by Burdick Brothers. Signed on inner front cover by B.B. Eldridge. Introduction states: "it has been no part of my purpose to cast unmerited opprobrium upon slaveholders, or to display any special friendliness or sympathy for the blacks... An irrepressibly active desire to do something to elevate the South to an honorable and powerful position among the enlightened quarters of the globe, has been the great leading principle... in the preparation of the present volume…

GLC00267.075

1867

Helper, Hinton R., 1829-1906

Book

Title: Nojoque; a question for a continent.

Published by George W. Carleton & Company. In the introduction, Helper states, "Were I to state here, frankly and categorically, that the primary object of this work is to write the negro out of America, and that the secondary object is to write him (and manifold millions of other black and bicolored caitiffs, little better than himself,) out of existence, God's simple truth would be told..." Includes several signatures and notes of ownership related to the Sperry family.

GLC00267.076

1918

Phillips, Ulrich B., 1877-1934

Book

Title: American negro slavery: a survey of the supply, employment and control of negro labor as determined by the plantation regime

Published by D. Appleton and Co, New York, London. Once the definitive and apologetic account of slavery impeding innovation. Phillips was a Professor of American History at the University of Michigan.

GLC00267.084

1929

Phillips, Ulrich B., 1877-1934

Book

Title: Life and labor in the old south

First edition. Published by Little, Brown, and Company, Boston.

GLC00267.085

1910

Nieboer, H.J., 1873-1920

Book

Title: Slavery as an industrial system; ethnological researches, by Dr. H. J. Nieboer

Second edition. Geared towards world-wide survey of slavery. Published by Martinus Nijhoff, the Hague.

GLC00267.086

February 13- February 14,1850

Davis, Jefferson, 1808-1889

Pamphlet

Title: Speech of Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, on the subject of slavery in the territories.

Senator Davis, future President of the Confederacy, speech made while a member of Congress. Responds to resolutions introduced by Senator Henry Clay pertaining to the Compromise of 1850. Davis asks, "...is there such incompatibility of interest between the two sections of this country that they cannot profitable live together? Does the agriculture of the South injure the manufactures of the North? On the other hand are they not their life-blood?"

GLC08461

February 25, 1862

Davis, Jefferson, 1808-1889

Pamphlet

Title: [Message of the Confederate President to the Confederate Congress]

State of the Union-like address to the Confederate Congress made in accordance with a constitutional provision. Admits that since the start of the Civil War they had "been so exposed as recently to encounter serious disasters." Discusses their limited manufacturing capability, arms procurement in Europe, the humiliating "surrender at Roanoke Island," and exaggerated "losses at Fort Donelson." Also discusses problems with the short enlistment periods occasioned by the popular belief that the war would not be long. Praises the financial system. Mentions reports being prepared by several…

GLC08503

February 5, 1839

Thompson, Waddy, 1798-1868

Pamphlet

Title: Speech of Waddy Thompson of South Carolina, in the House of Representatives of the United States, being in Committee of the whole on the state of the union.

Favors states' rights and criticizes former President Andrew Jackson as "a man who has done more to break down all the landmarks of the Constitution, and to consolidate all power in this Federal Government, than every other man who has preceded him." Opposes all programs favored by the industrializing North and West. Printed at the Madisonian Office, Washington, D.C.

GLC00267.024

April 28, 1820

Hale, Nathan, 1784-1863

Autograph letter signed

Title: to James Ronaldson

Hale requests, "...please inform me what will be your best terms for a set of types for my paper, the principal kinds to consist of, about three hundred and fifty weight of Bourgeois and nine hundred of Minion." Includes a pencil note at the bottom of the page, possibly referring to type ordered in 1816.

GLC00496.274

December 20, 1785

Wedgwood, Josiah, 1730-1795

Autograph letter signed

Title: to William Eden

Recipient inferred from seller's note at top of page 1. Thanks recipient for support regarding business concerns. Applauds progress of commerce treaty with France. Wedgwood was Queen's Potter and a Royal Society Fellow. William Eden, Baron Auckland, was a British spymaster during the American Revolution whose surveillance revealed an alliance between France and the patriots.

GLC00496.110

August 24, 1790

Jefferson, Thomas, 1743-1826

Letter

Title: to John Hancock

Thomas Jefferson asks Governor Hancock to collect data on the cod and whale fisheries. Seller's note reads: "an incomplete press copy of a contemporary transcript." First pages missing. Written while Jefferson was Secretary of State. Letter is incomplete.

GLC00496.175

December 27, 1860

Semmes, Paul Jones, 1815-1863

Autograph document signed

Title: [Contract with Tredegar Iron Works]

Semmes's autograph retained copy, marked as a copy. Contract with Joseph R. Anderson, owner of Tredegar Iron Works, in preparation for war. Semmes was acting as agent for the State of Georgia. Orders six 18 pounder cannons, 1500 rounds of solid shot, 200 spherical case shot, and 100 canister shot. Stresses the need to provide this order without delay. Details the price Georgia will pay. Tredegar provided the Confederacy with almost a thousand cannons during the war and was the Confederacy's most valuable manufacturer. "... This contract made and entered into... by and between General…

GLC00503

December 1860 - March 1861

Semmes, Paul Jones, 1815-1863

Header Record

Title: Paul J. Semmes archive regarding buying arms and military equipment [decimalized .01-.14]

14 copies of documents and letters, most in the hand of Paul J. Semmes about his efforts as agent to buy arms for the state of Georgia before the war. Contracts with Parrot for guns and DuPont for gunpowder.

GLC00508