Laurance P. and Isabel S. Roberts papers

The papers in this collection document Laurance and Isabel Roberts's personal and professional life, their international travels, their vast network of contacts and relationships, and Laurance’s career, publishing projects, and involvement on boards and associations. The papers date from 1910 to 2005, with the bulk spanning the years 1937-2000. The documentation includes financial and health-related records, correspondence, diplomas, travel material, object lists, negatives, photographs, printed material, newspaper and journal clippings. All materials in the collection have been re-housed into archival folders and boxes. The original folder titles have been retained; any added information has been enclosed in square brackets by the processing archivist. Acidic documents have been isolated with archival paper and in some cases enclosed in mylar. Fragile materials have also been enclosed in mylar. Oversize materials have been filed in an oversize box and cabinet; separation sheets indicate their removal. These oversize materials may be consulted upon request, and their location is indicated in the detailed container list that follows. A group of 8 mm motion pictures, for the years 1958-1961, documenting trips of American Academy Fellows and of the travels of Roberts have been converted into DVD format. The collection is arranged in 8 series: Personal and Biographical; Diaries; Correspondence; Professional; Writings; Collected material; Negatives, and Photographs.

Series II Diaries and V Writings are subdivided into subseries titled to Laurance P. Roberts (LPR) and Isabel (Spaulding) Roberts (ISR). The other series have not been subdivided between LPR and ISR because the papers document a life shared in all its aspects. For example, for Professional series, both Laurance and Isabel worked for the Brooklyn Museum, even if in different periods, with Isabel taking on Laurance’s duties when he served in the army during World War II. Additionally, they formed a team in the Direction of the American Academy in Rome, as well as in other cultural commitments. Series III Correspondence is subdivided into 2 Subseries: Subseries 1 includes correspondence sent to ISR, LPR, or to both. Letters filed in this series cover many topics, personal and professional, and were organized by Isabel in groups, arranged by recipient, until the last years, when she stored them in chronological order. All the folders have been filed alphabetically. Subseries 2 includes two groups of letters sent from Laurance and Isabel to their respective mothers and families. Returned to the senders presumably at the recipients’ death, they were included in the archive upon its arrival to I Tatti. Letters originally held in other files (professional, financial) have been left in their original place: cross references have been made, and lists of correspondents are available for archive users. In Series V Writings, the entire material relating to publication (cards, drafts, and proofs) have been preserved for LPR’s The Guide to Japanese Museum (1967) and The Bernard Berenson Collection of Oriental Art at Villa I Tatti (1991): the first being LPR’s most important work, the second being strictly related to I Tatti history. Series VI contains a huge amount of printed documentation collected by ISR regarding Roberts’ friends and relatives, consisting of little publications or clippings. Series VI and VII includes mainly visual material taken by Isabel: negatives generally refer to their photographs owned. More than 40 albums created by ISR spanning the years 1910-1978 document the Roberts’s life, with their international travels, and their intense social life, noting with precision names of places, dates, and people. Sometimes the photographs show very important sites and monuments no longer existing.