Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Guide to the Hartley Burr Alexander Papers
D.Mss.0010
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Title: Hartley Burr Alexander Papers,
Dates: 1834-2000
Date (bulk): 1908-1938
Collection number: D.Mss.0010
Creator:
Alexander, Hartley Burr,
1873-1939
Physical Description:
Extent: 23.5 linear feet
Repository:
Scripps College. Ella Strong Denison Library. Claremont, CA
91711
Abstract: Correspondence, typescripts, journal and newspaper
articles and clippings, photographs, notes, scrapbooks, original artwork, and other
materials, the bulk dating from 1908-1938, relating to the life and career of
educator, author, poet, and philosopher Hartley Burr Alexander (1873-1939). The bulk
of the collection relates to Alexander’s research on the philosophy, culture,
traditions, art, and music of Native North Americans, and includes original works by
Pueblo and Plains artists, and large-scale photographic reproductions of images from
the ledger of artist Amos Bad Heart Bull, which is no longer extant. The collection
includes correspondence, photographs, architectural drawings and blueprints,
newspaper clippings, and other materials documenting Alexander's non-academic career
as "thematic designer" of sculpture, inscriptions, and other ornamentation for large
public buildings, including the Nebraska State Capitol, Lincoln, Nebraska; the Los
Angeles Public Library; and Rockefeller Center, New York City. The collection also
contains typescripts and offprints of journal articles by Alexander on philosophy,
music, and the interpretation of symbols in art and architecture, as well as many of
Alexander's own literary works, including poetry, plays, pageants, and operas, many
based on Native North American themes. Other materials include extensive
correspondence files; papers documenting Alexander's teaching careers at the
University of Nebraska and at Scripps College; personal papers of the Alexander
family and Nathan Kirk Griggs; and photographs, including many of the Turlington W.
Harvey family and estate in Syracuse, Nebraska.
Language of Material: The materials in the collection are in English.
This collection is open for research with permission from Ella Strong Denison
Library staff.
All requests for permission to publish must be submitted in writing to Denison
Library.
[description of item], Box #, Folder #, Hartley Burr Alexander Papers
(D.Mss.0010). Ella Strong Denison Library, Scripps College, Claremont,
California.
Gift of Hubert Griggs Alexander, son of Hartley Burr Alexander, 1943.
No addition to the collection is anticipated.
Preliminary arrangement by library staff. Processed by History Associates
Incorporated (Series 5: Native American art, by Honnold-Mudd Special Collections
staff), 2005. Re-arranged and re-processed by Michael Palmer, Ella Strong
Denison Library, July-September 2015.
Hartley Burr Alexander, educator, author, poet, and philosopher, was born on
April 9, 1873, in Lincoln, Nebraska, the son of George Sherman Alexander, a
self-educated Methodist Minister and, later, newspaper editor, from
Massachusetts, and Abbey Gifford Smith. His mother died when he was three, and
he was raised in Syracuse, Nebraska, by his father and his artist-stepmother,
Susan Godding Alexander. Alexander attended Syracuse High School and the
University of Nebraska, graduating AB from the latter in 1897. He began his
graduate study at the University of Pennsylvania, with William Newbold, then
transferred to Columbia University, where he received his PhD in philosophy in
1901 with a dissertation titled,
The Problem of
Metaphysics and the Meaning of metaphysical Explanation: An Essay on
Definition
. Unable to secure a teaching position, Alexander moved to
Boston, to assist his aunt, Charlotte Morton Alexander (1843-1916) and her
colleague, J. Alden, whose photographic business was in financial difficulties.
In January 1903, he moved to New York to join the staff of
The New National Encyclopedia, published by Dodd,
Mead and Co. In September of that year, he was engaged by the Merriam publishing
company, Springfield, Massachusetts, on the revision of
Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, responsible for the definitions from
“bicycle” to “marriage” and rising to become second to the chief-of-staff. In
1908, Alexander was appointed Professor of Philosophy at his alma mater, the
University of Nebraska; he served as head of the department from 1918 to 1922..
In 1909, he married Nelly Griggs (1875-1943), daughter of Nebraska lawyer,
legislator, and onetime US Consul in Chemnitz Saxony, Kirk Nathan Griggs
(1844-1910). Alexander In 1927, increasingly dissatisfied with the situation at
the University of Nebraska and concerned for his wife’s health, Alexander went
on leave, spending the winter semester teaching at the University of Wisconsin,
and the 1927/28 academic year as first Professor of Philosophy at the newly
founded Scripps College, in Claremont, California; he formally severed his
connection with the University of Nebraska in the spring of 1928, and remained
at Scripps until his death. He died at his home in Claremont on 27 July 1939, at
the age of 66. His posthumous honors included the creation of the Hartley Burr
Alexander Professorship in the Humanities at Scripps College, and induction into
the Nebraska Hall of Fame in 1989-1990.
Alexander was a polymath, and he wrote and lectured prolifically on philosophy,
religion, mythology, anthropology, poetry, and the interpretation of symbols. In
addition to his dissertation, published in 1902, his major philosophical works
include
Poetry and the Individual: An Analysis of the
Imaginative Life in Relation to the Creative Spirit in Man and
Nature
(New York 1906);
Liberty and Democracy
and Other Essays in War
-time (Boston 1918);
Letters to Teachers, and Other Papers of the Hour (Chicago 1919);
Nature and Human Nature: Essays Metaphysical and
Historical
(Chicago 1923);
Truth and Faith:
An Interpretation of Christianity
(New York 1929); and
God and Man’s Destiny: Inquiries into the Metaphysical
Foundations of Faith
(1936).
Alexander was particularly interested in Native North American art, lore,
mythology, and philosophy, and was the first non-Native North American to
seriously study and publish on Native North American art, mythology, and
philosophy. His earliest published book on Native North American themes was
The Religious Spirit of the American Indian, as Shown
in the Development of His Religious Rites and Customs
(Chicago,
1910), followed by
Mythology of All Races, Vol. 10: North
American
(Boston, 1916), which was awarded the Butler Medal by
Columbia University in 1917; and a companion volume,
Mythology of All Races, Vol. 11: Latin American (Boston, 1920). The
reception of these latter two volumes led to an invitation to deliver a series
of lectures at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1925; Alexander was made a Chevalier of
the Legion d’honneur, and the lectures were published as
L’Art et la philosophie des Indiens de l’Amerique du Nord (Paris,
1926). Later publications on Native North American themes include
Pueblo Indian Painting (2 vols.; Nice, France,
1932);
Sioux Indian Painting (2 vols.; Nice,
France, 1938); and
Mysteries of the North American
Indians
, unpublished at the time of his death, and published
posthumously as
The World’s Rim: Great Mysteries of the
North American Indians
(Lincoln, Nebraska, 1953). Alexander also
collected Native North American artwork, in particular of the Sioux and Pueblo,
and was responsible for preserving the record of the art of Amos Bad Heart
Bull.
Alexander also wrote literary works, in particular poetry and performances
pieces. His published poetry includes
The Mid Earth
Life
(Springfield, Massachusetts, 1907);
Odes
on the Generations of Man
(New York, 1910); and
Odes and Lyrics (Boston, 1922). Much of his literary
work is based on Native North American themes, including
Manito Masks: Dramatizations, with Music, of American Indian Spirit
Legends
(New York, 1925); and
God’s Drum and
Other Cycles from Indian Lore: Poems by Hartley Alexander
(New York,
1927). He also wrote libretti for several musical performance pieces, including
La Menuette (1924), a light opera, with music
by Henry Kirkpatrick;
Priscilla (1920, revised
1930 and 1932), a light opera, with music by Henry Purmort Eames; and
Minnewakan (1928-1932), an opera, with music by
Victor Hugo Kasper.
Alexander’s interests in philosophy, anthropology, and art were synthesized in
his study of symbols and their interpretation, which resulted in substantial
extra-academic careers, first as the principal creator of a series of patriotic
pageants staged in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska, between 1915 and 1922, intended
to stimulate state and national pride; and, from 1922, as a designer of
architectural inscriptions and ornamentation, in particular in cooperation with
the architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, the sculptor Lee Lawrie, and the
muralist Hildreth Meiere. The principal projects on which Alexander worked
included the Nebraska State Capitol, the Los Angeles Public Library, Rockefeller
Center, New York City, and several buildings at the 1933 Century of Progress
Exhibition in Chicago.
The collection is organized in ten series:
- Series 1. Personal and biographical material
- Series 2. Correspondence
- Series 3. Academic administration and teaching
- Series 4. Native American research
- Series 5. Native American art
- Series 6. Inscription, mural, and sculpture Project Files
- Series 7. Writings
- Series 8. Writings by others
- Series 9. Photographs
- Series 10. Realia
Scope and Contents of the Collection
The Hartley Burr Alexander Papers consist of correspondence, typescripts, journal and
newspaper articles and clippings, photographs, notes, scrapbooks, original artwork,
and other materials relating to the life and career of educator, author, poet, and
philosopher Hartley Burr Alexander. The bulk of the collection relates to
Alexander’s research on the philosophy, culture, traditions, art, and music of
Native North Americans. These materials include extensive correspondence with other
researchers and with staff at the Smithsonian Institution; unique photographs of
Native North American rituals; original works by Pueblo and Plains artists, in
particular the Oglala Sioux, Kills Two; and large-scale color reproductions from the
ledger of Oglala Sioux artist Amos Bad Heart Bull, which is no longer extant. The
materials also include an unpublished
Indian Primer,
or
Stories About Indians For Youthful Readers;
articles on Native North American philosophy; and Alexander's draft texts for, and
extensive correspondence relating to,
Pueblo Indian
Painting
(1932) and
Sioux Indian Painting
(1938).
The second most significant part of the collection consists of correspondence,
photographs, architectural drawings and blueprints, newspaper clippings, and other
materials documenting Alexander's non-academic career as "thematic designer" of
sculpture, inscriptions, and other ornamentation for large public buildings, the
most important of which were the Nebraska State Capitol, Lincoln, Nebraska; the Los
Angeles Public Library; Rockefeller Center, New York City; and several buildings at
the 1933 Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago. The collection includes
particularly extensive correspondence with architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, the
sculptor Lee Lawrie, and the muralist Hildreth Meiere.
The collection contains an extensive number of typescripts and offprints of journal
articles by Alexander on philosophy, music, and the interpretation of symbols in art
and architecture. It also contains many of Alexander's own literary works, including
poetry, plays, pageants, and operas. Many of these--such as
Taiwa, the opera
Minnewakan (libretto by
Alexander, music by Victor Hugo Kasper), the light opera
Priscilla (music by Henry Purmort Eames), and the pageants designed,
authored, and produced by Alexander in Nebraska between 1915 and 1929--are based on,
or make extensive use of, Native North American themes.
The collection also contains extensive correspondence between Alexander and his
friends and colleagues from his editorial career with Dodd, Mead and Merriam
publishing companies, his academic career at the University of Nebraska and Scripps
College, his research on Native North Americans, and his extra-academic career as a
designer of architectural inscriptions and ornamentation, as well as with members of
his family, in particular his brother Arthur.
Few papers survive relating to Alexander’s teaching careers at the University of
Nebraska and at Scripps College. Those relating to the University of Nebraska
primarily concern his relations with the administration and his resignation from the
faculty; those relating to Scripps College primarily concern curriculum
development.
The majority of photographs in the collection can be traced to Alexander's elder
brother, A. D. (Arthur Davis) Alexander, and his career as a photographer in
Syracuse, Nebraska, and include a large number of photographs of the Turlington W.
Harvey family and estate.
The materials relating to the personal lives of Hartley Burr Alexander and members of
his family include his 1935 curriculum vitae and bibliography, a manuscript of his
early memories, and a series of scrapbooks, arranged chronologically, of clippings
and other documents relating to his life and activities from 1882 to approximately
1935. The Alexander family papers consist largely of obituaries; the Griggs family
papers include Nathan Kirk Griggs' admission to the Nebraska State and Federal bars,
several addresses and songs, and papers relating to his position as United States
Consul in Chemnitz, Saxony.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
library’s online public access catalog.
Alexander, Hartley Burr, 1873-1939
Alexander, Hartley Burr, 1873-1939--Archives
Architectural inscriptions--United States
Archives
Blueprints
Clippings (Books, newspapers, etc.)
Correspondence
Decoration and ornament, Architectural--United States
Indian art--North America
Indian painting Great Plains
Indian painting--North America
Indians in art
Indians of North America
Indians of North America--Great Plains
Los Angeles Public Library
Manuscripts
Musicals--United States
Nebraska State Capitol (Lincoln, Neb.)
Nebraska--History
Pageants
Photographic postcards
Photographs
Postcards
Programs
Pueblo Indians
Pueblo painting
Rockefeller Center
Scrapbooks
Scripps College
Scripps College (Claremont, Calif.)--Archival resources
Scripps College--Faculty--Archives
Sketches
Universities and colleges--Faculty
University of Nebraska--Lincoln
Watercolor painting