Contents
These records contain approximately thirty-seven linear feet and one reel of microfilm of letters received by Notre Dame Presidents Sorin, Dillon, Corby, Lemonnier, Colovin, T. Walsh, Morrissey, and J. W. Cavanaugh during the years 1856-1906. A few additional Morrissey letters for the years 1904-1905 may be found in the J. W. Cavanaugh Presidential Records. Unfortunately, no letters survive for the years before 1856, and very few survive for the period prior to 1870. A complete body of letters probably does not exist until after 1894
The letters in this series are almost all directed to either the President or the Secretary Although we know that other University officers (such as the Treasurer and various faculty members) participated in day-to-day operations and therefore certainly had correspondence outside the University, practically none of their correspondence survives today. Thus, the Presidents' Letters gain additional importance as the primary records documenting Notre Dame's outside relations. The generally complete provincial records of the Congregation of Holy Cross should, on the other hand, provide some documentation of the internal administration and policy of the University. (These records are preserved in the Archives of the Indiana Province of the Congregation of Holy Cross. A microfilm copy is available in this repository.)
Besides one brief presscopy letterbook, occasional returned letters, and shorthand drafts of replies, there are no extant copies of the letters sent by the President or the Secretary. It is unknown whether any such copies were ever kept. Moreover, the shorthand notes, which are relatively few but most numerous in the years after 1890, are written in an unfamiliar script indecipherable to shorthandists today.
The letters in this series are predominantly from the parents, guardians, and friends of individual students and concern their admission, tuition, education, conduct, finances, and travel. Other correspondents include friends of the University, alumni, publishers, newspaper editors, school supply companies, banks and financial houses, the state, local, and federal governments, and prominent lay and clerical members of the Catholic Church. Typical topics include the purchase of school supplies, applications for positions, advertisements, recruitment, finances, settlement of accounts, insurance, invitations and replies, and the Laetare Medal. No letters concern the formulation of policy, and practically all the letters treat extremely specific topics (like the conduct of one boy or the purchase of a particualr textbook). The value of these letters therefore lies in the specific information they contain and the specific examples they provide.
Arrangement
Several different filing systems seem to have been used during the years that the letters were accumulated. There is no certain way, however, to determine how much of the original filing scheme survives today and how much of the current arrangement was introduced before 1980 by the various custodians of the records.
Before 1880 the letters are filed chronologically, though for a few years there are several undifferentiated chronological runs. Starting with 1880, there are several chronological runs for all years, but in most cases at least some attempt was made to organize the letters by the initial letter of the surname of the author or the subject of the letter. After 1895, almost all the letters are arranged by letter of the alphabet.
The letters arranged by initial letter of correspondent's or subject's name are filed in various ways. Most often the initial letter of the correspondent's name determines the placement of the document, though when the correspondent is a representative of a company writing about a product, it seems about equally likely that the letter will be filed under either the the indivivdual's or the company's name. Likewise, when the letter is from a guardian or friend of a student who does not share the correspondent's last name, it appears equally likely that the letter will be filed under either the student's or the correspondent's name. At times this creates confusion, especially when a letter is filed under a name which does not appear in the text of the letter. Often in such a case, however, the recipient has indicated in pencil under what name the letter should be filed.
It does not appear that letters were ever filed by subject content (as opposed to being filed by the name of a subject). Finding letters concerning textbooks or particular buildings therefore requires the researcher to know (or guess) the names of the persons and companies that corresponded about the books or buildings. A few boxes, however, contain specific types of letters:
Box 24: Historic Letters, 1880-1903.
Box 33A: Presscopy Book of Letters Sent, 1888-91.
Box 46: Jubilee Letters, 1895.
Box 112/1-2: Historic Letters, 1887,1894-1901.
Box 112/37: Letters from Rev. J.A. Nieuwland, 1912-19.
Box 111/38-44: Quinlan's File of Letters from Applicants in Chicago, 1900.
The "Historic Letters" are concentrations of correspondence from prominent lay and clerical members of the Catholic community. Additional letters from the same and similar correspondents, however, are also filed in the other boxes and folders of this series. The "Jubilee Letters" are most if not all of the extant letters offering and either accepting or declining invitations to attend Notre Dame's fiftieth anniversary celebrations. The "Presscopy Book of Letters Sent" is a xerox duplication of the few presscopies found in the original bound volume.
Occasionally there are attachments to the letters in this series. Most often these are either clippings, brochures, or returned letters. In other cases the correspondence with an individual over a period of months or years is brought together in one location, and at times the letters from different correspondents concerning one topic such as applications or defaulted accounts are attached to the correspondence of the individual assigned to pursue the matter. In all such cases, the letter and its attachments are filed under the name associated with the covering letter, so the attached letters are, from the point of view of someone searching for one of the attached letters, misfiled. Other misfilings and ambiguous filing situations occur as well, most often in the runs of letters before 1900.
Access
The first archival preservation of these letters occured sometime around the nineteen-forties when they were placed in McAvoy Boxes. Presumably, the original order of the letters, or at least the distinction between the contents of the various boxes, was maintained, though this is not certain. It does seem likely that later the letters were put into perfect chronological order within most (but not all) of the boxes. Item lists were then produced listing, in order within each box, the date, author, and recipient of each letter. The accuracy of the spelling of names on these lists varies tremendously. While being put into chronological order, it is certain that some related letters were separated from one another and that undated items were likewise disassociated from their dated neighbors. Futhermore, it is not clear whether the box numbers assigned to the McAvoy boxes corresponded to the order in which the letters were originally filed.
In 1984 the Archives initiated further work to these letters letters and make them more accessible. Maintaining the order of the boxes and the letters within the boxes, various workers have unfolded documents, removed straightpins, xeroxed deteriorating or poor quality items, compared the actual documents to the item lists, corrected some of the obvious misfilings, placed the documents in folders, and identified those folders on the item lists. Typically, each folder now contains about twenty letters. Wherever possible, the common letters of the alphabet under which the letters were originally filed (such as A, B, and C) were identified as well. But the original filing scheme has not always been perfectly rediscovered. Changes occured when folders were introduced and the letters more carefully boxed, so the placement of folders in boxes does not now correspond to the way they were filed in the old boxes. All folders are identified and treated, however, as if they were in their original boxes: 62/11- 15 refers to the eleventh through fifteenth folders of old box (and item list number) sixty-two, even though these folders are now actually found in the thirty-sixth box of the series.
Paper Finding Aids
Various indexes and lists have been compiled to facilitate access to the item lists. The first, "Chronological Access . . .", lists all of the old boxes which contain letters for each of the years between 1856 and 1906. It also identifies which of the old boxes are arranged by letter of the alphabet and which are not. To be certain to find all of an individual's correspondence in a given year, all the unarranged boxes for that year need to be checked in addition to the pertinent ones arranged by letter of the alphabet.
The next list, on blue paper, is the "Index" to the Presidents' Letters. It identifies which boxes and folders contain documents filed under each of the letters of the alphabet. Boxes and folders with no associated letters of the alphabet are listed chronologically at the beginning of the index. Box and folder numbers in parantheses indicate that there are very few references in that location. Again, to be comprehensive the researcher must examine lists with no associated letters as well as those organized by letter, especially when there is only a small number of folders listed under the letter for the particular year. Single box and folder references usually indicate either a few "misfiled" letters in that location or else a small group of undated, fragmentary, or differently dated letters located at the beginning or the end of a box. If there are no references to a particular letter of the alphabet (especially a seldom used one), it is often worthwhile to examine the references of neighboring letters (i.e. there are no "X's" listed for 1903, so look for them among the "Y's" for the same year).
The final list is the "Box Folder List." It records the folders in each of the boxes, showing the letters of the alphabet and the months and years associated with each. It is sometimes useful to look at this list before deciding to go to the item list itself, especially for single box and folder number references. Letters in parantheses indicate that there are very few documents filed under those letters. Boxes for which no folders are listed are organized strictly chronologically.