Collection of autograph letters and documents, 1788-1932.

Format:

Other

Author/Creator:

Burr, Charles W. (Charles Walts), 1861-1944, collector.

Contributor:

Burr, William H., addressee.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Episcopal Church.

Episcopalians--United States--Autographs.

Episcopalians.

Presidents--United States--Autographs.

Presidents.

Great Britain--Kings and rulers--Autographs.

Great Britain.

Kings and rulers.

United States.

Genre:

Autographs.

Manuscripts, American.

Penn Provenance:

Gift of Charles W. Burr, 1927 (album gift date may be 1932).

Physical Description:

30 items (31 leaves + 2 volumes)

Other Title:

Burr autograph collection

Place of Publication:

1788-1932.

Biography/History:

Neurologist, psychiatrist, and professor emeritus of mental diseases at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, as well as a book collector who gave 19,000 volumes to the University Library in 1932.

Summary:

Aside from one letter to Charles Burr from William Frend De Morgan, this collection consists of documents collected by Burr or other members of his family for autographs. Individual documents filed alphabetically by author are signed by Robert Aitken, Aaron Burr, Rufus Choate, Frances Cleveland, Grover Cleveland, George Washington Parke Custis, Joseph Delaplaine, Frederic William Farrar, Millard Fillmore, Alexander Hamilton, and Edward Bulwer Lytton. Some newspaper clippings concerning the signers were filed with the documents. Oversize official documents, also filed by author, are signed by bishops at the Episcopal Church General Convention of 1883 (facsimile), Millard Fillmore, George III, Abraham Lincoln, and Queen Victoria. Many of these were purchased from dealers or at auction. One volume is a binder containing pages, in their original order, removed from a scrapbook. The scrapbook primarily contained letters received by Charles Burr's relative William H. Burr, who seems to have been an Episcopal clergyman. The scrapbook also contained clipped signatures of individuals such as Episcopal clergymen Philander Chase, George Emlen Hare, William Hobart Hare, and Henry Benjamin Whipple; literary figures Henry W. Longfellow and M. A. De Wolfe Howe; and soprano Clara Louise Kellogg and explorer Paul B. Du Chaillu. The second volume is the original binding of the scrapbook with some blank pages still attached.