COLLECTION GUIDES

1675-1910

Guide to the Microfilm Edition

Microfilm Note

Although most of the Edward Everett papers are included in this microfilm edition, the papers of Everett's daughters Anne Gorham Everett and Charlotte Everett Wise (Vol. 1-19) have not been microfilmed. Use the call number Ms. N-1201 to request these items.


Collection Summary

Abstract

This collection consists of the correspondence, letterbooks, speeches, and other papers of educator, statesman, and orator Edward Everett (1794-1865).

Biographical Timeline

11 Apr. 1794
Born in Dorchester.
1804
Attends Webster School; first meets Daniel Webster.
1805-1807
Attends Boston Latin School.
1807
Attends Phillips Exeter Academy; delivers Valedictory Latin Oration; enters Harvard College.
1811
Receives Harvard A.B. with highest honors.
1814
Receives Harvard A.M. in divinity studies; installed as pastor, Brattle Street Church (Unitarian), Boston.
1815
Appointed professor of Greek literature at Harvard.
1815-1819
Travel and study in Europe.
1817
Receives Göttingen Ph.D. (first doctorate awarded an American).
1819-1823
Edits North American Review.
1819-1825
Professor of Greek literature at Harvard.
1822
Marries Charlotte Gray Brooks.
1825-1835
United States representative from Middlesex District.
1836-1839
Governor of Massachusetts.
1836-1868
Publication of Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions in 4 volumes and numerous later editions.
1840-1841
Rest and travel.
1841-1845
United States minister to Court of St. James's.
1846-1849
President of Harvard University.
1850
Drafts letter to Hülsemann for Secretary of State Daniel Webster.
1852-1853
Secretary of state.
1853-1854
United States senator from Massachusetts.
1854
Resigns from Senate after failure to vote on Kansas-Nebraska Act.
1856-1860
Career as orator; composes famous lecture on George Washington; works to save Mount Vernon as national shrine; publication of The Mount Vernon Papers.
1860
Constitutional Union Party nominee for vice president.
19 Nov. 1863
Oration at Gettysburg.
1864
Presidential elector for Massachusetts.
15 Jan. 1865
Dies in Boston.

Sources

Brown, Cynthia Stokes. Discovery of the German University: Four Students at Göttingen, 1815-1822. Ph.D. dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University, 1964.

Christian, William Kenneth. The Mind of Edward Everett. Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State College, 1952.

Clark, Harry H. "Literary Criticism in the North American Review, 1815-1835." Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, Transactions, XXXII (1940).

Cohen, B. B. "Edward Everett and Hawthorne's Removal from the Salem Court House." American Literature, XXVII (1955), 245-249.

Edward Everett at Gettysburg. A Massachusetts Historical Society Picture Book. Foreword by Frank Freidel. Boston, 1963.

Frothingham, Paul Revere. Edward Everett, Orator and Statesman. Boston, 1925.

Gill, George J. Edward Everett, Minister to the Court of St. James, 1841-1845. Ph.D. dissertation, Fordham University, 1959.

Gill, George J. "Edward Everett and the Northeastern Boundary Controversy." New England Quarterly, XLII (1969), 201-213.

Goodman, F. J. "Pericles at Gettysburg." Midwest Quarterly, VI (1965), 317-336.

Keys, John W. Factors in the Training and Early Education of Edward Everett Accounting for His Ability as a Public Speaker. M.A. thesis, State University of Iowa, 1939.

Long, Orie William. Literary Pioneers: Early American Explorers of European Culture. Cambridge, 1935.

Phelps, Reginald H. "The Idea of the Modern University--Göttingen and America." Germanic Review, XXIX (1954), 175-190.

Read, Allen Walker. "Edward Everett's Attitude towards American English." New England Quarterly, XII (1939), 112-129.

Reid, Ronald F. "A Critical Study of the Oratory of Edward Everett." Speech Monographs, XXII (1955), 164-165.

Reid, Ronald F. "Edward Everett: Rhetorician of Nationalism." Quarterly Journal of Speech, XLII (1956), 273-282.

Reid, Ronald F. "Edward Everett's 'The Character of Washington.'" Southern Speech Journal, XXII (1957), 144-156.

Reid, Ronald F. "Newspaper Responses to the Gettysburg Addresses." Quarterly Journal of Speech, LIII (1967), 50-60.

Simpson, Lewis P. "Not Men, But Books." Boston Public Library Quarterly, IV (1952), 167-184.

Soulis, G. "American Travellers in Greece Before 1821." Athene, No. 1-2 (1949), 14-15, 46.

Stearns, Foster. "Edward Everett." In The American Secretaries of State and their Diplomacy, ed. Samuel Flagg Bemis, VI. New York, 1928.

Streeter, Robert. Critical Thought in the North American Review, 1815-1865. Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University, 1943.

Streeter, Robert. "Hawthorne's Misfit Politician and Edward Everett." American Literature, XVI (1944), 26-28.

Stripp, Fred. "The Other Gettysburg Address." Civil War History, I (1955), 161-173.

Collection Description

The Edward Everett papers consist of the correspondence, letterbooks, diaries, speeches, and other papers of Edward Everett (1794-1865). Among the correspondence are letters collected by Everett of early American statesmen George Washington, James Madison, John Adams, and many others, as well as letters and other material relating to Everett's studies in Europe and his careers as a Harvard professor, Massachusetts senator and governor, and orator. Included are diaries kept by Everett while studying and traveling in Europe, 1815-1819, and almost daily in Cambridge, Mass., Washington, D.C., and other homes, 1825-1865, as well as manuscript drafts of his speeches and articles, sermons, newspaper clippings, and printed works. The collection also contains the diaries and other papers of two of his daughters, Anne Gorham Everett (1823-1843) and Charlotte Everett Wise (1825-1879).

Other family members represented in the collection are: Everett's wife Charlotte Gray Brooks Everett, his brother Alexander Hill Everett, his father-in-law Peter Chardon Brooks, his brother-in-law Charles Francis Adams, and his son-in-law Henry A. Wise. Other individuals represented include: Daniel Webster, Robert C. Winthrop, John Quincy Adams, and many others.

Arrangement

The bulk of the Edward Everett papers was given to the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) in 1930, and their arrangement was largely maintained for the present edition. However, a few additional items have been incorporated into the collection: Everett items received after 1930, microfilmed following Vol. 279; a few typewritten copies of Everett materials from other MHS collections, inserted chronologically into his general correspondence, including some documents on Everett at Gettysburg in 1863 on Reel 18; and a substantial number of Edward Everett's diaries and letterbooks, which had been microfilmed previously.

The first 38 volumes of this collection have been disbound and rehoused in document boxes.

Acquisition Information

Gift of Grenville Norcross, 1914; Mrs. Archibald Hopkins, 1920, 1930s; and Mrs. John Downes, 1924.

Microfilm Note

Although most of the Edward Everett papers are included in this microfilm edition, the papers of Everett's daughters Anne Gorham Everett and Charlotte Everett Wise (Vol. 1-19) have not been microfilmed. Use the call number Ms. N-1201 to request these items.

Other Formats

Extracts of Everett's diary have been transcribed as "Selections from Edward Everett's diary, 1825-1865, selected and annotated by Irving H. Bartlett." This transcription is located in the MHS printed collection (call number: E340.E8 .B3 2000).

Detailed Description of the Collection

Expand all

II. Everett family volumes, 1834-1847

This series consists of the diaries, letterbooks, and other volumes of two of Everett's daughters, Anne Gorham Everett and Charlotte Everett Wise.

Note: The volumes in this series have not been microfilmed. Use the call number Ms. N-1201 to request these items.

Close II. Everett family volumes, 1834-1847

III. Correspondence (bound), 1840-1853

This series primarily consists of letters from Everett, but also contains some letters to him.

A. Letters of introduction, 1840-1845

This subseries contains letters of introduction written to Everett by various correspondents. Each volume has two indexes, one of the writers of the letters, the other of the people introduced. Correspondents include Mrs. John Quincy Adams, Peter Chardon Brooks, John C. Calhoun, Lewis Cass, Rufus Choate, Henry Clay, Caleb Cushing, C. A. Davis, W. W. Ellsworth, N. L. Frothingham, Abbott Lawrence, William H. Seward, Jared Sparks, John Tyler, Daniel Webster, Robert C. Winthrop, Nathan Hale, William R. King, Martin Van Buren, and others.

Reel 20Vol. 39

1840-1843

Reel 20Vol. 40

1844-1845

Close III. Correspondence (bound), 1840-1853

IV. Personal journals, 1814-1865

This series contains the personal journals of Edward Everett, including a few letters and other documents.

Close IV. Personal journals, 1814-1865

Preferred Citation

Edward Everett papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

Access Terms

This collection is indexed under the following headings in ABIGAIL, the online catalog of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related persons, organizations, or subjects should search the catalog using these headings.

Persons:

Adams, John Quincy, 1767-1848.
Adams, John, 1735-1826.
Allston, Washington, 1779-1843.
Everett family.
Madison, James, 1751-1836.
Washington, George, 1732-1799.

Organizations:

Harvard University. Faculty.
Massachusetts. Governor (1836-1840 : Everett).

Subjects:

Autographs--Collections.
Europe--Description and travel--1800-1918.
Legislators--Massachusetts.
Orators--Massachusetts.

Materials Removed from the Collection

Photographs from this collection have been removed to the MHS Photo Archives (oversize).

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