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Oliver Wendell Holmes correspondence

 Collection
Call Number: MS P147

Overview

Collection includes letters to and from American physician and humorist Oliver Wendell Holmes. Correspondents include a Miss Willis of Boston and E. Lakin Brown [(1809-1899), of Michigan?]

Dates

  • Creation: 1872 - 1890

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

No access restriction

Conditions Governing Use

Spencer Library staff may determine use restrictions dependent on the physical condition of manuscript materials.

Biography of Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)

Oliver Wendell Holmes was born in Cambridge Massachusetts and studied law at Harvard University before changing career paths, thereafter studying medicine at both Harvard and in Paris and receiving his medical degree from Harvard in 1836. Holmes had a private medical practice for 10 years and then taught anatomy for two years at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire before becoming a professor of anatomy and physiology at Harvard in 1847. Holmes later became dean of Harvard's medical school and held that post until 1882.

Holmes was perhaps better known as a humorist poet than as a medical doctor, earning national acclaim as early as 1830 for his poem "Old Ironsides." He contributed "Breakfast-Table" papers regularly to the Atlantic Monthly beginning in 1857, which he turned into several publications.

[Information retrieved from britannica.com.]

Extent

2 folders (5 sheets + 1 photograph)

Language of Materials

English

Physical Location

MS P147

Custodial History

Probable Source for MS P147A: McCullough collection (MS E68)– Annie Willis McCullough was a journalist active in 1889 & 1890; the tear marks on the June 1890 letter and the portrait seem to come from a pair of facing pages in MS E68.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

MS P147B: Gift, Mrs. C.F. Nelson.

Title
Guide to the Oliver Wendell Holmes Collection
Subtitle
Oliver Wendell Holmes correspondence
Author
Finding aid prepared by am, 1961. Finding aid encoded by skt, 2006. Finding aid revised by mwh, 2020.
Date
2006
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
Finding aid written in English.
Finding aid permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/10407/4641638252
Preferred citation
Oliver Wendell Holmes correspondence, Department of Special Collections, MS P147, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas

Repository Details

Part of the University of Kansas. Kenneth Spencer Research Library Repository

Contact:
1450 Poplar Lane
Lawrence KS 66045-7616 United States
785-864-4334