Politics and Government Resources in Special Collections & Archives

Pierce (1804-1869, Bowdoin 1824), a New Hampshire lawyer, entered politics in 1829 as a member of the New Hampshire state legislature and served as its Speaker (1831-1832). He was elected to Congress as a Jacksonian Democrat, serving in the House (1833-1837) and the Senate (1837-1842). Pierce returned to private practice in his home state (1842-1852), but continued to be active in politics by managing state democratic campaigns (1842-1847) and supporting the Compromise of 1850. In 1852 Pierce was selected by an otherwise deadlocked convention as the Democratic candidate for president, and won all but four states in the election. During his presidency (1853-1857) Pierce worked to acquire new territories, including the successful Gadsden Purchase and the unsuccessful attempt to annex Cuba; and to calm rising tempers in Kansas. He retired from public life in 1857.

The small collection of 31 letters (1837-1869 and undated), documents (1854-1857), and essays (1823-1824), include many letters from Pierce to his friend Horatio Bridge, or from his wife, Jane A. Pierce, to her sister, Frances A. Packard. More than one-third of the collection is from his presidential term.

The collection focuses on the family and professional life of William Pitt Fessenden (1806-1869), senator from Maine and Lincoln's secretary of the Treasury from July 1864 to March 1865. Fessenden (Bowdoin 1823) was a lawyer in Bridgton, Bangor and Portland, Maine; a Maine legislator (1832, 1840, 1845-1846, 1853-1854), a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1841-1843); and a senator from Maine (1854-1864, 1865-1869). As an early member of the Republican Party, he opposed slavery. In the Senate he served as chair of the Finance Committee and, as a member of the Reconstruction Committee, voted against the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Several other family members are also represented in the collection.

The papers contain correspondence, professional and personal records, publications, articles, addresses, reports, lectures, memoirs, a diary, documents, receipts, accounts, clippings, photographs, genealogies, and biographical material related to the Fessenden family.

John Hubbard (1794-1869) and his son, Thomas Hamlin Hubbard (1838-1915, Bowdoin 1860), are the central figures of this collection which also includes material relating to other members of the family. Although Thomas was interested in politics, his father, John, was the principal political figure in the family. A physician with a practice in Hallowell, John Hubbard served as a Democratic governor of Maine (1850-1853), as special agent for the U.S. Treasury examining New England customs houses (1857-1859), and as U.S. commissioner negotiating the Reciprocity Treaty with Great Britain (1859-1861).

Among the correspondence, diaries and journals, account books, student notes and teacher records, business records, addresses, etc., is material relating to John Hubbard's political career. It includes letters to and from his family, his political colleagues, and individuals such as President James Buchanan, Secretary of the Treasury Howell Cobb, Maine governors Robert P. Dunlap, Anson P. Morrill, Lot M. Morrill and Samuel E. Smith, Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, and railroad official John Alfred Poor. There are also private and business account books, early records of the Maine Democratic Party, records relating to the negotiation of the Reciprocity Treaty, and other relevant materials.

This series, part of a larger collection, centers on the correspondence of William P. Mellen (1814-1873), supervising agent of the Treasury Department and a Special Agent of the Post Office Department, stationed in Cincinnati. Principal among his correspondents was Salmon Portland Chase (1803-1873), first secretary of the Treasury under Lincoln and chief justice of the United States.

The correspondence between Mellen and Chase is mostly from Chase's years in the Lincoln cabinet and deals largely with Treasury Department business, much of it related to the waging of the Civil War and the activities of the department agents in the Mississippi Valley.

William E. Lunt (1882-1956, Bowdoin 1904) spent most of his academic career as Walter D. and Edith M.L. Scull Professor of English and Constitutional History at Haverford College (1917-1952). Woodrow Wilson appointed Lunt chief of the Italian Division of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace at the Paris talks that ended the First World War (1918-1919). His responsibilities included developing the American position on the Italian-Yugoslav border.

Letters (1918-1919 and undated), documents, reports, maps, original or copied statistical charts, clippings, etc. (1918-1926 and undated), all concerning the American Commission to Negotiate Peace, the Italian-Yugoslav border, or the general peace negotiations. The letters include several from Lunt and other negotiators, many addressed to President Wilson.

Smith (1788-1860, Bowdoin boards) was admitted to the bar in 1812 and practiced in Wiscasset, Maine. He was a member of the Massachusetts General Court (1819) and, after the separation of Maine and Massachusetts, of the Maine Legislature (1820-1821). He served as chief justice of the original Court of Common Pleas of the Second District (1821), and after a reorganization of the court system, associate justice of the Maine Supreme Court (1822-1830). During three terms as governor (1832-1834), Smith oversaw the move of the capital from Portland to Augusta, and participated in the negotiations with New Brunswick and Great Britain over the location of the northeast boundary of the United States. Smith was later re-appointed to the Court of Common Pleas (1835) and served until his retirement in 1837.

The collection contains letters (1810-1880 and undated), documents (1786-1880), financial records (1830-1870?), and ephemeral material. The letters include many relating to the northeast boundary controversy.

John Hubbard (1794-1869) and his son, Thomas Hamlin Hubbard (1838-1915, Bowdoin 1860), are the central figures of this collection which also includes material relating to other members of the family. Although Thomas was interested in politics, his father, John, was the principal political figure in the family. A physician with a practice in Hallowell, John Hubbard served as a Democratic governor of Maine (1850-1853), as special agent for the U.S. Treasury examining New England customs houses (1857-1859), and as U.S. commissioner negotiating the Reciprocity Treaty with Great Britain (1859-1861).

Among the correspondence, diaries and journals, account books, student notes and teacher records, business records, addresses, etc., is material relating to John Hubbard's political career. It includes letters to and from his family, his political colleagues, and individuals such as President James Buchanan, Secretary of the Treasury Howell Cobb, Maine governors Robert P. Dunlap, Anson P. Morrill, Lot M. Morrill and Samuel E. Smith, Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, and railroad official John Alfred Poor. There are also private and business account books, early records of the Maine Democratic Party, records relating to the negotiation of the Reciprocity Treaty, and other relevant materials.

Ralph Owen Brewster (1888-1961, Bowdoin 1909) practiced law and then entered politics, serving in the Maine state legislature, winning the governorship, and eventually representing Maine in both houses of the U.S. Congress before losing his senate seat in 1952. In the Senate he sat on the Special Senate Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program (the Truman Committee), and the Joint Committee to Investigate the Pearl Harbor Attack. His views on race, and those of his constituents, informed his political posturing, particularly concerning the “Negro Vote” and Mainers’ affiliations with the Ku Klux Klan, which supported his successful run for Maine governor in 1924.

The records are largely office files concerning contemporary issues, events and local and national political and legislative initiatives; and general office correspondence spanning the years 1923-1961. Other categories of material include published and unpublished reports and records of legislative initiatives; nomination papers and campaign files from numerous primary and election campaigns; newspaper clippings from all phases of his career; and photographs of which most are official and concern his senatorial career.

This colonial and early American family's collection includes several items relating to Governor James Bowdoin of Massachusetts. Bowdoin, a member of the Massachusetts Council, was appointed to lead the Massachusetts delegation to the Continental Congress, but failed to attend because of ill health, was a president of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, and was the second governor of the Commonwealth (1785-1787), serving during Shays' Rebellion. He was an avid amateur scientist, and the author of several tracts, including A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston ...

The collection contains correspondence, documents, wills and their drafts, etc. (1687-1996). About 30 items (1750-1787) relate to James Bowdoin II and his gubernatorial term, including a message "to the Chiefs, Sachems, and Young Men of the different Tribes of Indians …", August 23, 1780; several appointments; and a warrant for the arrest of Daniel Shays and others, January 19, 1787.

Neal Dow (1804-1897), Union brigadier general and mayor of Portland, Maine (1851-1858), is best remembered as a temperance reformer and "father of the 1851 Maine Law." He was, throughout his life, deeply involved in temperance organizations and became the Prohibition Party's presidential candidate in 1880.

The collection consists almost entirely of letters, 1852-1887, concerning temperance. Most are from Dow, while mayor of Portland, to E.W. Jackson, a minister, temperance activist and, later, agent of the Maine Temperance Society.

Harold Hitz Burton (1888-1964, Bowdoin 1909) studied law at Harvard University (1912), working with various firms, then joining a Cleveland law firm in 1925. His political life included serving in the Ohio House of Representatives (1929), three terms as mayor of Cleveland (elected 1934, 1937 and 1939), and the U.S. Senate (elected 1940). In 1945 Truman appointed him to the Supreme Court where he served as associate justice until 1958. He staked out a moderate position but took the lead in favoring the extension of civil rights to for African‐Americans, most notably in the landmark desegregation case of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

The collection cosists of correspondence (1933-1964, n.d.); documents concerning and annotated drafts of judicial opinions (1945-1960); printed invitations and programs (1943-1963); speeches and notes (1927-1960, n.d.); and a few photographs.