The University of Chicago Library > The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center > Finding Aids > Guide to the Reuben T. Durrett Collection of Michael Walsh Cluskey Papers 1857-1871
© 2016 University of Chicago Library
| Title: | Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. Michael Walsh Cluskey Papers |
|---|---|
| Dates: | 1857-1871 |
| Size: | 0.25 linear feet (1 box) |
| Repository: |
Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center |
| Abstract: | Reuben Thomas Durrett (1824-1913), lawyer, manuscript and book collector, and Kentucky historian. This collection contains the correspondence of Michael Walsh Cluskey from the period between 1857 to 1871. There is a gap in the correspondence between 1860-1865. Prior to the Civil War, Cluskey served as postmaster for the national House of Representatives. Following the Civil War, he worked as a newspaper editor for the Memphis-based Avalanche and later for the Louisville Ledger. |
The collection is open for research.
When quoting material from this collection, the preferred citation is: Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. Michael Walsh Cluskey Papers, [Box #, Folder #], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.
The existence of the Durrett library first came to the attention of the University of Chicago through William E. Dodd, a professor of American history at the University who had consulted the library as a student. Like other faculty members of the Division of the Social Sciences early in the century, Dodd was concerned about the University's lack of extensive research materials for history and related subjects, and since he was aware of Durrett's advanced age, he persuaded A. C. McLaughlin, also of the history department, to accompany him to Louisville in June, 1910, to see the collection and to make discreet inquiries about plans for its disposition. The two found Durrett himself uncertain about his plans, but learned that the Durrett family opposed making a donation of the collection, and that they were in communication with Princeton University and the University of Illinois about selling the library.
Dodd himself was very enthusiastic about the research potential which Durrett's library represented, and won the support of many of his colleagues on the social science faculties in his efforts to persuade President Judson to consider the purchase by the University of the entire library, numbering some 30,000 volumes. Convinced that the collection would be a valuable addition to the University's holdings, but wary of the expense involved, Judson agreed cautiously to investigate the idea. Although Dodd and his colleagues were anxious to conclude the agreement quickly, fearing competition from other would-be purchasers or the dispersal of the collection upon Durrett's apparently imminent death, the task of deciding upon a fair offer was made difficult by the fact that the collection had never been adequately catalogued.
Durrett's own suggestion made in December, 1912 of $45,000 seemed high, so in February 1913, the University engaged Walter Lichtenstein, a Northwestern University librarian who had previously acted as purchasing agent for the University of Chicago libraries, to assess the value of the Durrett collection. Lichtenstein's report was submitted to President Judson on February 21, 1913, following a trip to Louisville to sample the collection.
The assessment, made on terms of commercial market value rather than scholarly significance, divided Durrett's library into four parts. Some 20,000 bound volumes (including 500 volumes of Kentuckiana) he estimated at $7,200. Two hundred fifty file folders of pamphlet material had no apparent commercial value. Numerous manuscripts and newspapers were difficult to assess but Lichtenstein thought they could be fairly purchased for $15,000. A collection of maps was estimated to have a value around $50. Lichtenstein's estimate, therefore, totaled $22,000-$22,500, considerably less than Durrett's own. When the University authorized Lichtenstein to make this offer to the Durrett family, however, they accepted it, apparently favoring Chicago as the repository of their collection. The purchase sum, which was too high to be taken from the University's ordinary budget, was raised among outside donors, and under Lichtenstein's supervision, the library was dismantled and shipped to Chicago by early May. It filled 287 large packing crates. Its arrival provoked considerable comment in the Louisville and Chicago press, and almost immediately the University began to receive research inquiries from scholars and requests from several libraries for copies of some of the Durrett material to add to their own collections.
In his report Lichtenstein had warned President Judson that considerable effort and expense would be required to process the collection once it was at the University. His warning proved to be justified. Aside from the massive undertaking of unpacking, sorting, and cataloguing the collection, much of the material was found to be in poor condition, requiring cleaning, repair, and binding or rebinding. To facilitate the efficient processing of the Durrett acquisition, the entire operation was assigned to Edward A. Henry of the library staff, who, with the help of his assistants, was to devote most of his attention to the Durrett project for some seven years. It was decided that duplicates should be disposed of, that a number of Filson Club possessions in Durrett's library should be returned to the Club, and that most of the non-manuscript material in the collection would be distributed according to subject matter among the University's various departmental libraries. On several occasions between 1913 and 1937, items of an official character were returned to Kentucky upon request, including records of Jefferson County, journals of Kentucky constitutional conventions, and certain manuscripts and photographs of the Filson Club identified by the club's president, R. C. Ballard Thurston. Most of Henry's time seems to have been devoted to preparing the material for this dispersal. His assignment was expanded in 1914 when the University purchased a collection totaling 436 volumes of Kentucky newspapers and miscellaneous books from Mrs. Joel R. Lyle, sister of Robert C. Boggs of Lexington, Kentucky. It was deemed appropriate to merge the Boggs-Lyle acquisition with the Durrett, and the two were processed together.
By the end of the 1915-16 academic year, about 9,000 of the Durrett and Boggs-Lyle volumes had been processed and distributed to the departmental libraries. It was then that Henry and his staff turned some of their attention to the manuscripts--that is, to the material comprising the Durrett Collection as described in this guide. At that time the Durrett manuscripts were apparently divided into four large groups--the Joel Tanner Hart Papers, the Joshua Lacy Wilson Papers, miscellaneous manuscripts, and miscellaneous separately bound items--either mounted in scrapbooks or bound together. A card catalog was compiled for at least the first three of these groups.
The Durrett Collection remained in this state until the mid-1950s. By then it had been incorporated within the holdings of the Department of Special Collections (1951), and it became clear that reorganization of the manuscripts was necessary. Paul Angle, a member of the staff of the Chicago Historical Society, who had surveyed the University of Chicago's manuscript collection as a consultant in 1944, had pointed out that the Durrett miscellaneous bound manuscripts in particular were of little use to scholars as they were then arranged and described. Moreover, the Special Collections staff had observed that the mountings and bindings done by Henry's staff were detrimental to the lives of the manuscripts, and that the existing catalog and descriptions provided inadequate access to the documents. The manuscripts, therefore, were removed from their bindings and divided into smaller and more coherent sub-collections.
In the 1970s, an effort was undertaken to edit the 1956 guide, to enhance the descriptions of the Durrett codices for greater detail and accuracy, and to differentiate between transcripts and original manuscript material bound together in the codices. Manuscript material also received conservation treatment. In 1983, another attempt was made to write a comprehensive guide to the entire collection. This guide remained in use until 2015. The current guide was completed in 2016.
Michael Walsh Cluskey was born in Savannah, Georgia in the early 1830s. His family relocated to Washington, D.C. when Cluskey was a young man. Cluskey served as postmaster of the national House of Representatives from 1852 to 1859. In 1857, Cluskey also penned the popular The Political Text-Book or Encyclopedia Containing Everything Necessary for the Reference of the Politicians and Statesmen of the United States. The work saw at least nine editions. In the late 1850s he moved to Memphis to take up a position as a junior editor with the Avalanche, an antebellum southern newspaper that favored states’ rights. With the coming of the Civil War in 1861, Cluskey joined the confederate army as a Lt. Colonel and served as quartermaster under General Preston Smith. He was seriously wounded at the battle of Shiloh and never fully recovered from his wounds. In 1864 he left the army and was elected to serve in the confederate congress until the body was dissolved the following year. After the war, Cluskey returned to Memphis, Tennessee where he again worked as an editor for the Avalanche. Some years later, he relocated to Louisville, Kentucky and took up editorial work with the Louisville Ledger. He died on January 13, 1873 in Louisville, Kentucky and was buried in Washington, D.C.
The collection contains printed materials and correspondence from 1857 to1871. Some of the correspondence prior to 1859 pertains to Cluskey’s duties as postmaster. Some of the later correspondence intersects with Cluskey’s work for the Avalanche and the Louisville Ledger.
There is a large gap from 1860 to 1865 that corresponds with Cluskey’s involvement in the Confederate Army and the Confederate Congress.
The following related resources are located in the Department of Special Collections:
Researchers interested in topics represented in the Durrett Collection should check the author, title, or subject headings relevant to their interests in the Library catalog for potentially useful books and pamphlets from the Durrett Library, which were dispersed among the existing departmental libraries at the time of acquisition. Some of these items have since been transferred to the Rare Books collection and to the Reuben T. Durrett Collection of Broadsides, Pamphlets, and Leaflets, in the Special Collections Research Center.
The Durrett rare book collections include works of literature, travel and description, early histories of Kentucky such as Mann Butler's, biographies, legislative acts, and other legal documents.
Examples include Henry McMurtrie's Sketches of Louisville and Its Environs (1819); a collection of humorous verses, The Kentucky Miscellany, by Thomas Johnson, Jr. (1821), one of two known copies of the fourth edition, the first known to survive; and The Confession of Jereboam O. Beauchamp ... (1826).
Among the newspapers are 135 titles published in Kentucky, beginning in 1788 with the Kentucky Gazette, the first newspaper established in the state. Other important titles include the Mirror, the Palladium, the Guardian of Freedom, the Farmer's Library or Ohio Intelligencer, and numerous campaign newspapers such as The Patriot and The Spirit of '76 from 1826.
Included in the American Paper Currency Collection in the Special Collections Research Center is Durrett's collection of confederate currency, among which are many examples of notes issued by the Bank of Commonwealth of Kentucky.
Correspondence, reports, and clippings concerning the acquisition of the Reuben T. Durrett Collection for the University of Chicago are found in the University of Chicago Library Records Addenda.
In addition, the following collections contain material related in subject matter to various portions of the Durrett Collection:
Codex MS 798 Lettres de Mr. Cahusac, Américain, juge de paix à Fleurance, 1806-1836
Church History Documents Collection
Codex MS 790, Letters to Virgil David, 1828-1838
Douglas, Stephan A. Papers
English, William H. Papers
Ethno-History Collection
Lafayette Manuscripts
Lafayette-Bonaventure. Collection
Lane, Ebenezer, Family. Papers
Lewis, Fielding. Papers
Robertson, Wyndham. Papers
All Durrett sub-collections are as follows:
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. Boggs Family. Papers
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. Boone Family. Papers
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. Broadsides, Broadsheets, Pamphlets, and Leaflets
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. Christopher Columbus Graham. Papers
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. George and William Croghan. Papers
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. George Nicholas. Papers
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. George Rogers Clark. Papers
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. Government Records
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. Edmund Lyne Estate. Records
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. James Wilkinson. Papers
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. Joel Tanner Hart. Papers
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. Joshua Lacey Wilson. Papers
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. Lewis Family. Papers
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. Louisville, Kentucky Board of Trustees. Records
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. Mann Butler. Papers
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. Michael Walsh Cluskey. Papers
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. Miscellaneous Manuscripts and Codices
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. Portraits, Illustrations, and Cartographic Material
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. Reuben T. Durrett. Papers
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. Richard H. Collins. Papers
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. Richard Jouett Menefee Collection on Matthew Harris Jouett
Durrett, Reuben T. Collection. Shelby Family. Papers
| Box 1 Folder 1 | Song lyric pamphlets, 1865-1870 |
| Box 1 Folder 2 | Correspondence, 1857-1858 |
| Box 1 Folder 3 | Correspondence, 1859 |
| Box 1 Folder 4 | Correspondence, circulars, 1858-1869 |
| Box 1 Folder 5 | Correspondence, 1866-1869 |
| Box 1 Folder 6 | Correspondence, 1869-1870 |
| Box 1 Folder 7 | Correspondence, circulars, 1870-1871 |