Ohio History Journal

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NOTES

NOTES

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HARDING PAPERS

 

1. Columbus Dispatch, October 11, 1963; April 26, 1964.

2. Henry F. May, "Shifting Perspectives on the 1920's," Mississippi Valley Historical

Review, XLIII (1956), 405-427.

3. John D. Hicks, Normalcy And Reaction: 1921-1933 An Age Of Disillusionment

(Washington, D.C., 1960), 1.

4. Andrew Sinclair, The Available Man (New York, 1965), was the first biography to

appear after the opening of the Harding Papers. Others are in preparation.

5. Samuel Hopkins Adams, Incredible Era (New York, 1964), 426; Kenneth W.

Duckett, "The Harding Papers: How Some Were Burned," American Heritage, XVI

(February 1965), 29-30.

6. Dictionary of American Biography (New York, 1932), VIII, 257.

7. Duckett, "The Harding Papers," 25-31, 102-110, is the source for the historical

background given on the Harding Papers where not otherwise stated.

8. The private, personal correspondence was stamped "P.P.F." and placed in the pri-

vate, personal file. Most of the material in the private office seems to have been cross-

referenced in the Executive Wing files.

9. In 1939, Adams, Incredible Era, 425, gave the impression that she also had access

to the Executive Wing files. However, in 1965 Duckett, "The Harding Papers," 26, 27,

103, 104, based on communication with Colonel Ora M. Baldinger, former aide to Presi-

dent Harding and assistant to Mrs. Harding during her sorting of papers at the White

House, maintains that she charged Christian with the job of packing the Executive

Wing collection for shipment to Marion and that instead he had it stored in the White

House basement where it was not discovered until 1929.

10. Adams, Incredible Era, 425.

11. Van Bibber's initialed notes on some of the typed copies give evidence of his

work in the Harding Papers. For example, see Box 700, Sheets 152191, 152647, Harding

Papers.

12. Boxes 693-704, Harding Papers.

13. Ibid., Archive Boxes 28, 29.

14. Ibid., Boxes 357-371, 655-656. Original letters of all of the typed copies have not

been located in the collection as yet, but it is thought that most of them are there.

15. Duckett, "The Harding Papers," 104.

16. The Executive Wing material was consulted during the presidency of Calvin

Coolidge. A few of the Harding letters were even misfiled with the Coolidge Papers and

in 1958 were found at the Library of Congress and restored to the Harding collection.

These are now in Box 357, Folder 2547: 1, Harding Papers.

17. The contents and filing arrangement of this material are outlined in a letter by

a Mr. Staiger to Christian, March 3, 1921. Box 113, Folder 63: 1, Sheets 55203 ff.,

Harding Papers.

18. Duckett, "The Harding Papers," 106. Boxes 498-641, Harding Papers.

19. Ibid., Boxes 641-647, 667-674.

20. Probably Boxes 353-356, 648-653, of the Harding Papers since no originals of

1925 typed copies have been found among the personal letters that they contain.

21. Duckett, "The Harding Papers," 106. The senatorial material, identified by its

yellow cross-reference sheets, is found in Boxes 371-497, 660-666, 675-683. The rest of this

Christian gift may have been some of the Republican National Committee correspond-

ence which he had kept out of the Executive Wing files, Boxes 211-228: and some

pre-convention and presidential primary correspondence, Boxes 684-692, Harding Papers.

22. Ibid., George B. Christian, Jr., to B. P. Adams, February 18, 1932. Archive Box 30,

Folder A.

23. Christian's obituary appeared in the Marion Star, February 9, 1951. In addition

to the senatorial material, Christian also gave Dr. Sawyer a collection of his own