Overview
Jared Spark's personal papers.
Dates
- Creation: 1808-1866
Creator
- Sparks, Jared, 1789-1866 (Person)
Language of Materials
Materials are in English,
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on physical access to this material.
Extent
50 linear feet (86 volumes, 57 boxes, 11 envelopes, 3 cases, 2 folders)The Jared Sparks papers contain Spark's historical essays and compositions, published articles, letter books, diaries, account books related to his college days, professional research, and his tenure as College president.
Biographical / Historical
Jared Sparks (Harvard, AB 1815, AM 1818) was an American historian and editor, the McClean Professor of Ancient and Modern History at Harvard University (1839-1849), and its president (1849-1853).
Arrangement
Arranged into the following series:
- Series I: Correspondence
- Subseries I.A: Outgoing
- Subsubseries I.A.1: Letter books
- Subsubseries I.A.2: Copies of letters sent
- Subsubseries I.A.3: Letters to Ansel Young
- Subseries I.B: Record of Letters Sent
- Subseries I.C: Miscellaneous Letters and Papers
- Series II: Compositions and Works
- Subseries II.A. Lives of
- Subseries II.B. Articles, Reports, and Essays
- Series III: Research
- Series IV: Harvard College
- Series V: Business and Financial
- Series VI: Material about Jared Sparks
- Series VII: Personal and Miscellaneous
- Subseries VII.A: Journals and Diaries
- Subseries VII.B: Commonplace Books
- Subseries VII.C: Diplomas
- Subseries VII.D: Maps
- Subseries VII.E: Translations
Physical Location
b, f
Immediate Source of Acquisition
No accession number. Bequest of Jared Sparks; received: 1866 July 2.
Under his will, the manuscripts passed to his son, William Eliot Sparks (d. Sept. 1886), with a conditional reversion to Harvard University. However, on 2 July 1866, the Harvard College Library received the manuscripts in advance of the deaths of the legatees.
Bibliography
Processing Information
A project was undertaken in 2016 to describe the various titles that comprise the Jared Sparks Collection of American Manuscripts (MS Sparks 1-105) with individual finding aids for each.
Similarly, the Jared Sparks Personal Papers (MS Sparks 106-162) have been described in a separate finding aid.
Sparks's original organization, in bound volumes has been retained. Prior to this finding aid, access to the collection was through an online index, printed and manuscript lists, and a card index.
Processing Information
This finding aid was revised in April 2024 to address outdated and harmful descriptive language. During that revision, contextualizing processing notes were added to the description of two items. For more information on reparative archival description at Harvard, see Harvard Library’s Statement on Harmful Language in Archival Description.
Creator
- Sparks, Jared, 1789-1866 (Person)
- Title
- Sparks, Jared, 1789-1866. Jared Sparks personal papers, 1808-1866: Guide.
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou02771
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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