Archives Directory for the History of Collecting in America

Archives related to: Huntington, Archer M. (Archer Milton), 1870-1955

titleArcher Milton Huntington Papers, 1919-1957.
repositorySyracuse University Libraries
descriptionThe Archer Milton Huntington Papers contains correspondence, secretarial notes (memos, letters and daybooks), writings, legal and financial papers, and ledgers.

Correspondence (Boxes 1 through 9) has been entirely merged into the Correspondence-subject files for the Anna Hyatt Huntington Papers (see "Related Material" below). Boxes 1-9 no longer exist in this collection. Please refer to the Anna Hyatt Huntington Papers for a complete listing. Briefly, this material contains incoming and outgoing correspondence with both individuals and organizations.

Individual correspondents include painters (Edwin Blashfield), sculptors (Herbert and Adeline Adams, Gutzon Borglum, Donald De Lue, Gleb Derujinsky, James Earle and Laura Gardin Fraser, Harriet Whitney Frishmuth, Vincent Glinsky, Malvina Hoffman, Edward McCartan, Herman Atkins MacNeil, Paul and Isabel Manship, Brenda Putnam, Alma Spreckels, Katharine Weems), writers (Maxwell Anderson, German Arciniegas, Grosvenor Atterbury, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, Nicholas Murray Butler, Archibald Macleish). Organizations represented in the correspondence include universities (Chatham College, Clark University, Columbia University, Harvard University, Syracuse University), museums and galleries (Brookgreen Gardens, Burr Galleries, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Columbia Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Fogg Art Museum, Grand Central Art Galleries, Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, Mariner's Museum, Museum of the City of New York, ), and professional associations (American Geographical Society, American Numismatic Society, Federal Art Project, Hispanic Society of America, National Institute of Arts and Letters, New-York Historical Society).

Secretarial notes comprises memos, letters, and daybooks spanning more than thirty years. Writings contains literary gallies, poems and literary manuscripts. Properties consists of information relating to various pieces of real estate including Brookgreen and Arbutus.

Ledgers contain financial and business information; the main subdivisions are NY receipts, estate correspondence, estate documents, general correspondence, Bank of Central Hanover receipts, and payment statements.

Biographical History
Archer Milton Huntington (1870-1955) was an American philanthropist, art patron, scholar and poet. The son of Arabella Duval Huntington and her husband, railroad industrialist Collis P. Huntington, Archer made substantial contributions -- both scholarly and financial -- in his chosen fields, though he is particularly known for his work in Hispanic Studies. He wrote several scholarly works in the field and in 1904 founded The Hispanic Society of America in New York City, a museum and rare books library which he helped fill with an impressive collection of Hispanic paintings, decorative art, books, manuscripts, maps, prints, and photographs. At about this same time, Archer was named foreign corresponding secretary for the New-York Historical Society; he served in this capacity for several years and contributed to the funding of many of the society's publications.

His first wife, whom he married in 1895, was Helen Manchester Gates, an Englishwoman and author. For his second wife (married in 1923), sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington, Archer founded Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina where her works were displayed as well as those of dozens of other American sculptors. (She returned the favor, creating several Hispanic-themed works for the grounds of the Hispanic Society, including an equestrian sculpture entitled "The Cid.")

In 1936, Huntington donated an endowment which established the Chair of Poetry at the Library of Congress, now known as the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress; he also donated to the American Numismatic Society the funding and land for its headquarters and, later, a library. Together with Anna, he founded the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, Virginia, one of the largest and finest maritime museums in the world, and established the Archer and Anna Huntington Wild Life Forest Station in the Adirondacks of New York State.

Archer M. Huntington was awarded honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Kenyon College, and the University of Madrid. Among his other philanthropic positions, he was president of the American Geographical Society and a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History, the New-York Historical Society, the Museum of the American Indian, and the Heye Foundation. When he died in December of 1955, The Modern Language Journal published a biographical sketch which included the following praise:

In his passing, Hispanic studies in the United States, Spain, and Hispanic America have lost a generous patron who was also in his own right a scholar of distinction, a poet of charm, and in everything he did a good citizen." (The Modern Language Journal, Feb 1956, p. 59)
extent51.0 linear ft.
formatsCorrespondence Writings Legal Papers Financial Papers Ephemera
accessContact repository for restrictions and policies.
record linkhttps://library.syr.edu/digital/guides/h/huntington_am.htm
record sourcehttp://library.syr.edu/
finding aidOnline and in repository
updated03/16/2023 10:29:52
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titleHuntington Estate Papers, 1955-1976
repositorySyracuse University Libraries
descriptionThe Huntington Estate Papers consist primarily of legal and financial papers relating to the businesses and estates of Collis P. Huntington and his wife Arabella, and their son Archer Milton Huntingon and his wife Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington. The material includes bank statements, bills, correspondence, litigation documents, receipts, taxes, trust documents, wills, and similar material.

Biographical History
The Huntington family were businessmen, art collectors, and philanthropists in early 20th century New York. Collis P. Huntington was a railroad builder and financier; he and his wife Arabella Duval Huntington collected art and supported various charities. Their son, Archer Milton Huntington, was an American philanthropist and poet and together with his wife, noted sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington, became an enthusiastic patron of the arts.

extent12 linear ft.
formatsEstate Papers Financial Papers Legal Papers Inventories
accessThere are no access restrictions on this material.
record linkhttps://library.syr.edu/digital/guides/h/huntington_est.htm
record sourcehttp://library.syr.edu/
acquisition informationGift of Anna Hyatt Huntington.
updated04/29/2018 14:20:35
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titleAnna Hyatt-Huntington interview, [ca. 1964].
repositoryArchives of American Art
descriptionAn interview of Anna Hyatt-Huntington conducted by Dorothy Seckler for the Archives of American Art. Hyatt-Huntington speaks of having no formal art training; studying animals and their anatomy; first piece with her sister; Balchalx Circus; New York at age 24 sculpting and selling pieces; her stays in France and Naples; use of old Daubigny studio; sources of animals for models; New York studio; methods of work; process of enlarging pieces; period of illness; her marriage to Archer Huntington; sculptures, "Joan of Arc," "Don Quixote," "Touch of Arrow," "Lion"; realism in her work; travels in Spain, North Africa; and Thomas W. Lawson, Archer Huntington, and Brookgreen Gardens.
extentSound recording: 1 sound tape ; 5 in. Transcript: 53 p.
formatsSound Recording Transcript Online Transcript
accessContact repository for restrictions and policies.
record sourcehttp://www.siris.si.edu/
finding aidOnline transcript
acquisition informationThis interview is part of the Archives' Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
updated11/12/2014 11:29:51
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titleIsabella Stewart Gardner papers, 1760-1956.
repositoryArchives of American Art
descriptionLetters, business records, diary, and photographs.

REEL 380-413: Primarily correspondence, mostly Gardner's own, but including family correspondence and Gardner Museum correspondence.

Also included are misc. items and printed material. Correspondents include: Edwin Austin Abbey, Lyman Abbott, Brooks Adams, Alexander Agassiz, Elizabeth C. Agassiz, Louis Agassiz, Luigi Agostini, Hamilton Aide, Thomas B. Aldrich, Abram P. Andrew, Boris Anisfeld, George Arliss, Anne L. Balch, George G. Barnard, Grace Edith Barnes, Cecilia Beaux, Martin Birnbaum, William Sturgis Bigelow, William Phipps Blake, Edwin Howland Blashfield, Wilhelm von Bode, Martin Brimmer, J. Appleton Brown, Dennis Miller Bunker, Bryson Burroughs, Theodore Byard, Morris Carter, Paul Chalfin, Conrad Chapman, John Jay Chapman, Alfred Q. Collins, Frederick Shepard Converse, Walter William Spencer Cook, Archibald Cary Coolidge, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, Charles Townsend Copeland, Kenyon Cox, Ralph Adams Cram, Francis Marion Crawford, Raymond Crosby, Sally Cross, Ralph W. Curtis, Howard G. Cushing, Charlotte Cushman, Walter Damrosch, Richard Harding Davis, Elsie De Wolfe, Mary Dexter, Nathan H. Dole, John Donoghue, Ruth Draper, Duveen Brothers, J. S. Dwight, Theodore F. Dwight, Louis Dyer, Charles W. Eliot, Barry Faulkner, Gabriel Faure, Minnie Maddern Fiske, Daniel Chester French, Helen C. Frick, Roger E. Fry, Ossip Gabrilowitsch, John Lowell Gardner, William Amory Gardner, I. M. Gaugengigl, Richard Watson Gilder, Rene Gimpel, Edwin L. Godkin, Leon Gordon, Lady Augusta Gregory, Louise I. Guiney, Edward E. Hale,
Mary (Mrs. Richard Walden) Hale, Philip Leslie Hale, Mrs. Philip Hale, Richard Hammond, Walter Hampden, George C. Hazelton, Paul Helleu, Henry Lee Higginson, Thomas W. Higginson, Robert Hinckley, Malvina Hoffman, Edward W. Hooper, Harriet Hosmer, Julia W. Howe, Archer M. Huntington, Vincent d'Indy, Henry Irving, August F. Jaccaci, Clarence King, William Kittredge, Louis Kronberg, Petr A. Kropotkin, Anna C. Ladd, John La Farge, Charles Rollinson Lamb, Charles Lanman, Charles G. Loring, James R. Lowell, Dodge Macknight, Mary L. Macomber, Richard Mansfield, Paul Manship, Frank J. Mather, Francis John McComas, Nellie Melba, Francis Davis Millet, S. Weir Mitchell, Helena Modjeska, Pierre Monteux, John S. Mosby, Gilbert Murray,

(cont.) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Andrews Norton, Lily Norton, Richard Norton, William O'Connell, Kazuzo Okakura, Jean N. Oliver, William O. Partridge, Walter Pater, Anna Pavlova, Waldo Peirce, Joseph Pennell, Harper Pennington, Lilla Cabot Perry, Edward C. Pickering, Sophia L. Pitman, Matthew Stewart Prichard, John Quinn, Robert Reid, Amelie Rives, Elizabeth W. Roberts, Auguste Rodin, Denman Ross, Will Rothenstein, Lillian Russell, Paul J. Sachs, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Ruth St. Denis, Franklin B. Sanborn, Charles Sprague Sargent, John Singer Sargent, J.M. Sears, C. Arnold Slade, Irene Slade, Henry Davis Sleeper, F. Hopkinson Smith, George Warren Smith, Joseph L. Smith, Albert Spaulding, Maurice Sterne, William James Stillman, Julian Story, Thomas W. Story, Henry Swift,
John Addington Symonds, Ellen Terry, Celia Thaxter, Abbott H. Thayer, William R. Thayer, Mary A. Tiffany, Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer, Adelaide E. Wadsworth, Francis Amasa Walker, Mrs. Humphry Ward, Mrs. Fiske Warren, Edmund March Wheelwright, James McNeill Whistler, Margaret White, Sara de Prix Wyman Whitman, Wildenstein Galleries, Owen Wister, Charles H. Woodbury, Rufus F. Zogbaum, Anders Zorn, Mrs. Anders Zorn, and others.

REELS 631-632: Personal papers of Gardner and some records of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum including dealers' files containing invoices, notes, cancelled checks, and letters; a record book, "Prices Paid for Paintings," 1917; a record book, "Prices Paid for Works of Art"; 118 installation photographs of the museum as arranged by Gardner, 1924; a diary kept in Egypt, 1874, with sketches; a diary kept in Shanghai and India, 1883-1884; "Directions for my funeral," 1912; and "Suggestions for Running a Museum," 1913.

REELS 696-698: Letters from Bernard Berenson to Gardner, 1887-1924. Letters contain references to literary topics, Berenson's impressions of Europe, various paintings and artists, advice to Gardner on the purchase of paintings and information on their sale.

REEL 846: Checklist of Gardner's letters to Bernard and Mary Berenson, 1894-1924; typescripts of personal and official correspondence (originals found on AAA microfilm reels 696-698), 1887-1924.
extent40 microfilm reels. reels 380-413, 631-632, 696-698, and 846
formatsCorrespondence Financial Records Photographs
accessMicrofilm copies. Originals in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, Mass.
record sourcehttp://www.siris.si.edu/
finding aidReels 380-413: Finding aid available at AAA offices.
acquisition informationMicrofilm lent by Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for duplicating, 1972-1975.
updated11/12/2014 11:29:51
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titleArcher M. Huntington Art Gallery exhibition files, 1948-1981.
repositoryArchives of American Art
description621 exhibition files, 1948-1981, containing biographical data on artists, correspondence, photographs, exhibition checklists, price and sales lists, loan agreements, condition reports, shipping orders and receipts, exhibition announcements, catalogs and invitations, press releases and clippings.

Bio / His Notes:
Art gallery at the University of Texas at Austin.
extent51 microfilm reels. reels 2855-2865; 3100-3103; and 3386-3413
formatsExhibition Files Correspondence Photographs Financial Papers Ephemera
accessPatrons must use microfilm copy.
record sourcehttp://www.siris.si.edu/
finding aidList of exhibition files is available at AAA offices.
acquisition informationMicrofilmed as part of the Archives of American Art's Texas project. Lent for microfilming 1981-1984 by the Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery. Originals in: Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery.
updated11/12/2014 11:29:51
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titleBessie Potter Vonnoh papers, circa 1860-1987 bulk 1890-1955.
repositoryArchives of American Art
descriptionBiographical material, correspondence, notes and writings, a scrapbook, photographs, exhibition catalogs, clippings, and other printed material concerning the personal life and professional careers of sculptor Bessie Potter Vonnoh and, to a lesser degree, her husband, painter Robert William Vonnoh.

Included in the biographical material is an inventory and appraisal of Vonnoh's estate, 1955. Correspondence, 1896-1955, includes letters from Daniel Chester French, Hamlin Garland, Rupert Hughes, Archer Huntington, Larkin G. Mead, Jean Francois Raffaelli, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Vonnoh's cousin Lulette Jenness Thompson, Mrs. Woodrow Wilson (Ellen Axson) and her daughter, Jessie Wilson, Helen Woodrow Bones and others; letters from Vonnoh to her mother (mostly transcripts) regarding her trip to the Paris International Exposition, ca. 1900 and later trips to France, ca. 1907 and 1914; and letters from Bessie, referred to as "Betty" to her husband, Robert Vonnoh, "Bonny," ca. 1909-1928. Also included is correspondence of Lulette Jenness Thompson regarding Vonnoh's career, 1952-1985. Robert Vonnoh's correspondents (1899-1926) include Charles M. Carter, Daniel Chester French, William M. R. French, Charles Vezin, and others.
Photographs, ca. 1890-1950, (in a scrapbook and loose) include portraits of Bessie, Robert, the Vonnohs' and others, their home and environs in Lyme, Conn., and works of art by both Bessie and Robert. Printed material consists of exhibition catalogs for both Bessie and Robert, ca. 1911-1991, including joint exhibitions, 1913-1928, and clippings, 1901-1929.

Bio / His Notes:
Bessie Potter Vonnoh was a sculptor best known for her bronze fountains, portrait busts, and mother-and-child figure groups. Her husband, Robert William Vonnoh, was a painter specializing in portraits and landscapes. The bulk of their work was done during the last quarter of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th century.


Co-Creator:
Carter, Charles M., 1853-1929
French, Daniel Chester, 1850-1931
French, William M. R. (William Merchant Richardson), 1843-1914
Garland, Hamlin, 1860-1940
Hughes, Rupert, 1872-1956
Huntington, Archer M., 1870-1955
Mead, Larkin G. (Larkin Goldsmith), 1835-1910
Pons, Helen Woodrow
Raffaëlli, Jean François, 1850-1924
Sayre, Jessie Woodrow Wilson, 1887-1933
Skinner, Cornelia Otis, 1901-
Thompson, Lulette Jenness
Vezin, Charles, 1858-1942
Vonnoh, Robert William, 1858-1933
Wilson, Ellen Axson
extent0.8 linear ft.
formatsCorrespondence Notes Writings Clippings Ephemera
accessUse requires an appointment.
record sourcehttp://www.siris.si.edu/
acquisition informationDonated 1995 by Lulette Jenness Thompson, first cousin once removed of Bessie Potter Vonnoh.
updated11/12/2014 11:29:51
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titleHobart Nichols papers, [ca. 1895]-1958.
repositoryArchives of American Art
descriptionCorrespondence, printed material and photographs.

REEL D359: Correspondence, 1946-1958, with galleries, art associations and clubs including the Century Association, the National Academy of Design; also, one letter from Archer M. Huntington and 2 from Elihu Root; photographs of Nichols and his work; clippings; and exhibition announcements and catalogs.

REEL 64: Photographs, including 42 photographs of paintings by Nichols, 1 photograph of him, and 1 of the 1948 exhibition "Painting in the United States" held at the Carnegie Institute.

Bio / His Notes:
Landscape painter and illustrator; Bronxville, New York. Born in Washington, D.C. Studied at the Academie Julian. President of the National Academy of Design, 1939-1949, President Emeritus, from 1949; Vice-President and Director, Tiffany Foundation, New York; Assistant to Director of Fine Arts, United States Commission, Paris Exposition 1900.
extent0.2 linear ft. (on 2 partial microfilm reels) reels 64 and D359
formatsCorrespondence Printed Materials Photographs
accessPatrons must use microfilm copy.
record sourcehttp://www.siris.si.edu/
acquisition informationMaterial donated by Leonora Nichols, Hobart Nichols' daughter, 1968.
updated11/12/2014 11:29:51
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titleAxe found near old Presidio at Santa Cruz in Sonora, Mexico: and related papers, [1909-1951].
repositoryUniversity of California, Berkeley
descriptionCorrespondence with Herbert E. Bolton, Carl O. Sauer, Arthur Woodward and A.M. Huntington and note book entry concerning discovery of the 16th century battle axe.
extent23 items.
formatsCorrespondence
accessContact repository for restrictions
record sourcehttp://melvyl.cdlib.org
updated11/12/2014 11:29:53
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