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The main portion of the collection is made up of letters, documents, notes, manuscript and typescript articles and speeches, and scrapbooks and notebooks which are contained in 270 envelopes, folders, manuscript boxes, and bundles. Another 153 bundles, boxes, folders, and envelopes are devoted chiefly to clippings, tear sheets, pamphlets, and books and other printed matter. Proofs of the printing plates for one of Mr. Bancroft's works on Carl Schurz are preserved in eleven envelopes. Pictorial material includes two envelopes of photographs, one envelope of photostats, thirty-four photographs, and eighty-five framed photographs, many with manuscript letters by or relating to the subject of the photograph. The collection is rich in the papers and personal correspondence of Frederic Bancroft and includes notes and various other source materials for his books dealing largely with African Americans, the South, the Civil War, Seward, Calhoun, and the life and work of Carl Schurz. Also, a wealth of material by and about Edgar Bancroft (1857-1925), Frederic's brother and U.S. ambassador to Japan.

Letters between Pruyn and various individuals who were involved in an important case brought before the Supreme Court in 1864 to determine the rights of organizations to bridge navigable streams. Pruyn argued the case successfully for the Hudson River Bridge Company, for which he was counsel. The collection depicts Pruyn's activities on behalf of the company and includes his correspondence pertaining to the case with William Henry Seward, James Moore Wayne, and S.L. Fairchild.

Letters to Hamlin and to Charles Hamlin and Elijah L. Hamlin, letters of condolence, speeches, and newspapers clippings. Correspondents include James G. Blaine, Salmon P. Chase, Neal Dow, William Pitt Fessenden, Thaomas B. Reed, and William H. Seward.

Miscellaneous papers of the Morgan family. Correspondents include Cornelius N. Bliss, Charles Foster, Benjamin Harrison, Temple R. Hollcroft, Herbert Hoover, Levi P. Morton, William H. Seward, and members of the Morgan family. Also, early land deeds and newspaper clippings.

Letters written to Mrs. Josephine Sophie White Griffing relating to her interests in the emancipation of African-Americans, temperance, and woman's suffrage. It is evident that the letters have been preserved selectively from Mrs. Griffing's papers, all of them being from well-known contemporaries. Correspondents include Frederick Douglass, Charles Sumner, Horace Greeley, Henry Ward Beecher, Anna Dickinson, Lucretia Mott, William H. Seward, and John Greenleaf Whittier. Many of the letters relate to her efforts to have prominent people give lectures in support of women's suffrage. Also, a scrapbook of clippings about Mrs. Griffing's life and activities and the autograph book of George T. Driggs, a relative, which contains the signatures of prominent political and military figures, particularly members of Congress, during the late 1860s.

Letters and papers of Olcott. Among the subjects covered are the history of the Bank; banks and politics in New York during the Jacksonian era; the operations of the safety Fund Banking System; land acquisition in the West, particularly Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and western New York; the Boston and Albany Railroad; the Corning Land Company; and the building of the Union Pacific Railroad. The papers are divided into the following groups: letters received, including correspondence with Martin Van Buren, Samuel P. Chase, William Henry Seward, William B. Astor, Silas Wright, William Kent, J. Pierpont Morgan, and Horatio Seymour; documents including land deeds, wills, leases, bonds, sureties, orders to pay, checks, bank ledgers, partnership agreements, earnings reports, tax assessments, and land sales; household bills and receipts; bank notes including excellent examples of early American currency; miscellaneous account books, photographs, and printed material; patents for Michigan and Ohio lands to William Thompson, Thomas W. Olcott, and Garrit Denniston signed by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren (proxy signatures).

A collection of autographs of Latin American patriots and Hispanic loyalists living in the Viceroyalty of Perú during the 19th century. The collection provides a valuable look into daily life in the viceroyalty. Documents to and from military leaders on both sides of the War for Independence describe day to day events of the war (requests for supplies, mess, prisoner and hospital lists, etc.). Among the items by patriots represented in the collection are: a decree by Simón Bolivar, dated 1825, setting up a school system that "la debe igualmente a todos..individuos."; a decree by Tomas de Heres creating the coat-of-arms of Perú, and the heraldry and wording for silver and gold coins of the new government; a list by José Medina of the survivors of the "Vendedores" squadron after the battle of Ayachucho; a letter of José de San Martín to Francisco de Paula Otero; a letter by Antonio José de Sucre to Manuel Martínez de Aparicio; and a letter by José de La Mar to Joaquín de la Pezuela. Among the loyalists represented are: José Fernando de Abascal y Souza, Fernando VII, José Antonio de Areche, Jerónimo Marrón de Lombera, José de Mendizábal e Imaz, Joaquín de la Pezuela, José Manuel Goyeneche, and Manuel Quimper. Also in the collection are two letters by Secretary of State William H. Seward, and two 16th century documents signed by the "conquistadores" Francisco Pizarro and Juan de la Torre. A second box, added in 1980, contains printed and miscellaneous materials from the 1950s.

Papers of the Jay family and of those families related to the Jay family, including Bruen, Butterworth, Chapman, Clarkson, Dawson, Du Bois, Field, Iselin, McVickar, Mortimer, O'Kill, Pellew, Pierrepont, Prime, Robinson, Schieffelin, Von Schweinitz, Sedgwick, and Wurts. In addition to family and personal matters, the correspondence deals with anti-slavery, New York State civil service, repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the Civil War, the Blair Bill, international affairs, and New York City and State politics and government. There are letters from numerous prominent persons including George Bancroft, F.A.P. Barnard, Bismarck, William Cullen Bryant, Aaron Burr, James Fenimore Cooper, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Hamilton Fish, Albert Gallatin, Horace Greeley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Washington Irving, Frances Anne Kemble, Jenny Lind, Henry W. Longfellow, Seth Low, James Russell Lowell, John Stuart Mill, Alice Duer Miller, Clement Clarke Moore, J.P. Morgan, Thomas Nast, Commodore Matthew Perry, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Elihu Root, Carl Schurz, William H. Seward, William T. Sherman, Charles Sumner, and John Greenleaf Whittier.