Carl Schurz collection

Collection

Identifier: FVW-CSZ

Staff Only

Scope and Content

The Carl Schurz collection is organized into three series. The first and most substantial series is a collection of correspondences mostly written by Carl Schurz himself. The collection is comprised mostly of original documents; however, some of the correspondences are also photocopies and have been noted as such in the breakdown. Other authors in the collection include Abraham Lincoln and Gideon Welles. The addressees of the letters are incredibly varied and range from other statesmen like John Sherman and members of the Chamber of Commerce to school teachers asking if Carl Schurz would speak to their class. The majority of the correspondences are from his time after between the Civil War to his death in 1906 and a significant portion pertain to his attendance of social events. The second series is a collection of images, mostly photographs and engravings, of Carl Schurz over his lifetime. Other images include Carl Schurz stamps, and reproduced images of the University of Bonn and other nineteenth-century American Statesmen. However, the vast majority of the images depict Carl Schurz over his lifetime. The third and final series is comprised of two sources of ancillary information. The first is a collection of correspondences pertaining to the consolidation of the Carl Schurz collection around the early 2000s. The second is a collection of brief background information on some of the addressees contained in the first series. The third series is a tool for researchers to better understand the historical actors found in the first series.

Dates

1857 - 2001
Majority of material found within 1857 - 1906

Creator

Schurz, Carl, 1829-1906 (Person)

Biographical

Frank J. Williams was born on August 24, 1940 in Richmond, Rhode Island. Williams’s fascination with Abraham Lincoln began while he was in the sixth grade. Instead of purchasing food, Williams used his lunch money to buy books about Lincoln. This early interest inspired Williams to study law. After earning his undergraduate degree from Boston University, he obtained his law degree from Boston University School of Law. He also went on to earn a master’s degree in taxation from Bryant University. Later, he also served as a U.S. Army captain from 1962-1967 in Germany and Vietnam. During Williams’s legal career, he served as town moderator and town solicitor for Richmond, Rhode Island. He also was appointed to the Rhode Island Supreme Court in 1995, and in 2001 he was elevated to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He also served from 2003-2009 as the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Military Commissions under George W. Bush’s administration. Over the course of his career, Williams never lost his love for Lincoln studies and continued to collect books, artifacts, and memorabilia – a collection that is now valued at over $3 million. Williams has also published and co-authored books on Lincoln such as Judging Lincoln (2002), Lincoln as Hero (2012), The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views (2008), and the coedited book, The Mary Lincoln Enigma (2013). He is also the founding chair of the Lincoln Forum and served as president of both the Abraham Lincoln Association and the Lincoln Group of Boston.

Over the years, collecting Lincoln has become a family affair. His wife, Virginia Williams, assists in the collecting of Lincoln artifacts and books. V. Williams was born in Texas and graduated from North Texas State University. Working for the U.S. Department of Defense, she served as a teacher overseas and met F. Williams during his time serving in the military. She was a kindergarten teacher in Rhode Island for Cranston Public Schools for almost three decades and has been intimately involved with the Lincoln Forum since its inception. Together, Frank and Virginia Williams have amassed a large and impressive collection made up of more than 15,000 book volumes and 10,000 artifacts. These items were donated to Mississippi State University in 2017. To date, the couple continue to add to the collection and a large portion of these objects are on view at the Frank and Virginia Williams Collection of Lincolniana Gallery at Mitchell Memorial Library on Mississippi State University’s campus.

References

Allison Matthews, “Frank and Virginia Williams of Rhode Island gift extraordinary Lincoln and Civil War Collection to Mississippi State University,” Mississippi State University, Last Modified June 20, 2017.

“Frank Williams,” OAH: Organization of American Historians, Accessed April 2, 2019.

Historical

Carl Schurz was a nineteenth-century German-American Statesmen who had a notable impact on shaping American Politics in the middle third of the nineteenth-century. Carl Schurz was born on March 2, 1829 in Liblar, Prussia. As a young man he attended the University of Bonn in Bonn, Germany. While at Bonn he was mentored by Gottfried Kinkel, a noted German revolutionary. In fact, Schurz helped Kinkel escape prison during the political unrest in Europe in the 1840s. In 1848 many European states experienced civil unrest via a series of revolts that swept across the continent, and among the activists calling for change in Germany was a young Carl Schurz. After the Revolutions of 1848, Schurz, like many Northern Europeans emigrating from Europe, settled in the Northwest frontier lands of the United States. Schurz specifically settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Once in Milwaukee, Schurz established a legal practice and integrated himself into the town’s politics. Starting with the local level he continued to grow his political interests and began to influence policy decisions at the state level. In the late 1850s Carl Schurz joined the newly formed Republican Party. Schurz was a staunch anti-expansionist and routinely spoke out against the institution of slavery. His most notable anti-slavery speech was given on September 16, 1864. At this point in the Civil War Schurz was a Major General in Third Division of the Union Army. While in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania he gave his “For the Great Empire of Liberty, Forward” speech, where he urged Northerners to continue to support the United States’ war effort so the United States could crush the Confederacy and end slavery once and for all. Schurz would routinely join Lincoln whenever Lincoln campaigned with the Republican party across the Midwest in 1859 and 1860. Schurz was rewarded for his contributions to Lincoln’s nomination and election most notably his promotion to Major General. After the Civil War Schurz settled in Missouri and was elected to the United States Senate as a Representative of Missouri. Rutherford Hayes was elected to the Presidency in 1876, and Hayes then appointed Carl Schurz as Secretary of the Interior. A position Schurz reprised under James Garfield. After his time as Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz retired to New York City and lived out the rest of his life until he passed away in 1906 at the age of seventy-seven.