Manuscript Collections

(1681-1982)

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia records include the extant official correspondence of all of the bishops and archbishops of Philadelphia up to the present. The bishops’ collections are rather small up to the episcopacy of Dennis Cardinal Dougherty (1918-1951), when the volume of his and subsequent collections increases significantly.

The manuscript collections contain the correspondence, diaries, business and legal papers, memoirs, memorabilia, and pictorial records of Catholics in America. Largest of these collections is the 90,000 item Martin I.J. Griffin Papers (1842-1911). Griffin was a journalist, historian, and promoter of Catholic organizations in Philadelphia who, as one of the principal founders of the American Catholic Historical Society and editor of its journal, was instrumental in encouraging Catholic historical studies in the United States. His collection consists of his personal correspondence and also a number of historical documents going back to colonial days which Griffin collected in the course of his life.

The William Franklin Sands Papers (1875-1945) illuminate the career of another prominent Catholic layperson. Nearly 4,000 items of Sands’ correspondence reflect his life as a career diplomat in Japan, Korea, and Central America, 1896-1910, as a businessman with international connections, 1911-1922, as a teacher of history and diplomacy at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, 1925-1937, and as the author of two books, Undiplomatic Memories (1930) and Our Jungle Diplomacy (1944) and many articles on both secular and religious subjects. His correspondents included several presidents of the United States and foreign dignitaries since Sands was in the Orient when the U.S., Russia, and Japan were angling for power there, in Central America at the time of the building of the Panama Canal, and in Europe during World War I.

The Rodrigue Family Papers (1743-1975) trace the history of a French Catholic aristocratic family who lost their sugar plantation and fled to Philadelphia as a result of the slave uprisings in the 1790’s on St. Dominigue in the Caribbean. Over 5,000 letters, notebooks, and household accounts shed light on the lives of masters and slaves in the late eighteenth century as well as on the operation of trade between the United States and France in the early nineteenth century.

Other manuscript collections dealing with Catholic laypersons include those of Thomas Lloyd (1756-1827), veteran of the American Revolution and stenographer to the first U.S. House of Representatives; Mark Anthony Frenaye (1808-1868), Philadelphia merchant, unofficial treasurer of the Diocese from the 1830s to the 1850s, and generous contributor to Catholic churches; Walter George Smith (1862-1924), lawyer, judge, President of the American Bar Association (1917), member of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief (1919), member of the U.S. Board of Indian Commissioners (1923), and prominent anti-divorce advocate; Doctors Joseph Walsh and Lawrence F. Flick, pioneers in tuberculosis research at the turn of the century and also promoters of Catholic historical research; and Elizabeth S. Kite (1865-1941), convert from the Society of Friends, author of six books on French participation in the War for Independence, and conductor of research on mental deficiency.

Catholic clergymen, of course, are also well represented in the manuscript collections. Francis X. Reuss (1847-1913), author of the Biographical Cyclopedia of the Catholic Hierarchy of the United States, spent over thirty years collecting the correspondence of bishops, abbots, priests, and nuns from all over the United States, and these papers now can be found in the Historical Collections. Here also will be found the papers of pioneer missionary Rev. Demetrius A. Gallitzin (1770-1840).

As in the case of laypersons, several converts to Catholicism are included among the clergymen represented, such as Rev. Edward Hawks (1878-1955), former Episcopalian, chaplain with the Canadian army in World War I, and correspondent in Spain for the Catholic Standard and Times during the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1938, and Rev. Thomas C. Middleton, O.S.A., (1883-1917), former Quaker, professor and President of Villanova College, and one of the founders of the American Catholic Historical Society.

Some manuscript collections include large amounts of printed records which have been retained in their original relationship with manuscript items. The Papers of Saint Mary’s Catholic Church in Philadelphia, 1760-1850, contain the legal and financial records of the early years of the church, trustee’s minutes, appeals and subscriptions, a large body of printed material on the Hogan-Conwell Schism, 1821-1827, and the papers of the St. Mary’s Total Abstinence Beneficial Society, 1842-1850. The Papers of Catholic Missions to the Negro, 1892-1916, contain some correspondence, but is composed mainly of circulars, booklets, and financial statements. The Fenian Brotherhood Papers, 1857-1870, contain some invitations and other printed material, but the bulk is the correspondence of Frank B. Gallagher, lawyer and member of the Fenian Senate.