Overview
Papers of American diplomat and State Department official Jay Pierrepont Moffat.
Dates
- Creation: 1917-1943
Language of Materials
Collection materials are in English.
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on physical access to this material. Collection is open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
Any proposed publication based on the papers must be submitted to the Curator of Manuscripts and may be submitted for clearance to Historical Division, State Department.
Extent
10.5 linear feet (49 volumes)The bulk of the collection is Moffat's diplomatic journals and volumes of correspondence, 1922-1942, and memoranda, 1931-1942, documenting his career. The journals give a detailed picture of his work in the Hague, Warsaw, Berne, Washington D.C., Sydney, and Ottawa. One volume is on Turkish history. Also contains speeches, condolences, clippings, and other papers.
Biographical / Historical
Moffat was a U.S. diplomat and State Department official. He was private secretary to the U.S. minister to the Netherlands (1917-1919); secretary of the American legation in Poland (1919-1921), Japan (1921-1923), and Turkey (1923-1925); protocol officer at the White House (1925-1927); secretary of the American legation to Switzerland (1927-1931) where he became an expert on disarmament; chief of the Western European Division of the State Dept. (1932-1935); consul general in Sydney, Australia (1935-1937); chief of the new Division of European Affairs at the State Dept. (1937-1940); and U.S. minister to Canada (1940-1943).
Arrangement
Organized into the following series:
- I. Correspondence and memoranda
- II. Diplomatic journals and other papers
Immediate Source of Acquisition
55M-181. Gift of his father-in-law, Joseph C. Grew; received: 1956.
- Title
- Moffat, Jay Pierrepont, 1896-1943. Jay Pierrepont Moffat diplomatic papers, 1917-1943: Guide.
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou01201
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.
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