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Title: George Herbert Ryden papers
Dates: 1915-1941
Collection Number: 2010C51
Creator: Ryden, George Herbert, 1884-1941
Collection Size:
2 manuscript boxes
(0.8 linear feet)
Repository:
Hoover Institution Archives
Stanford, California 94305-6010
Abstract: Correspondence, reports, personal documents, photographs, and memorabilia, relating to relief activities in the Crimea during
the Russian Civil War. Includes correspondence with Grand Duchess Ol'ga Aleksandrovna.
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Archives
Languages:
English
Collection is open for research.
The Hoover Institution Archives only allows access to
copies of audiovisual items. To listen to sound recordings or to view videos or films during your visit, please contact the Archives
at least two working days before your arrival. We will then advise you of the accessibility of the material you wish to see
or hear. Please note that not all audiovisual material is immediately accessible.
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Archives.
[Identification of item], George Herbert Ryden papers, [Box number], Hoover Institution Archives.
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Archives in 2010.
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. To determine if this has occurred, find
the collection in Stanford University's online catalog Socrates at
http://library.stanford.edu/webcat . Materials have been added to the collection if the number of boxes listed in Socrates is larger than the number of boxes
listed in this finding aid.
George H. Ryden (1884-1941) was an American National Red Cross worker in Russia from 1918 to 1920. A native of Kansas City,
he interrupted his academic career to serve with the American Expeditionary Forces in Italy during World War I, was with the
Red Cross in the southern Russian city of Novorossisk in 1920, seeking to aid refugees during the civil war that followed
the Russian Revolution. While there he played a key role in helping the family of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, the sister
of the recently murdered Czar Nicholas II, escape to Turkey and subsequently to Europe. Ryden, a historian, later became the
state archivist of Delaware
Scope and Content of Collection
Correspondence, reports, personal documents, photographs, and memorabilia, relating to relief activities in the Crimea during
the Russian Civil War. Includes correspondence with Grand Duchess Ol'ga Aleksandrovna.
The twenty-three letters and postcards from the grand duchess were written from Denmark between 1923 and 1929. Several of
these postcards contain reproductions of her paintings, which Ryden helped sell in the United States during the 1920s and
1930s.
In addition to the correspondence with Olga Alexandrovna, Ryden's papers contain a variety of documents pertaining to Red
Cross operations in the Crimea and southern Russia, including correspondence, reports of visits to orphanages, and financial
records. Ryden and his colleagues received a number of honors from White Russian Army commanders, and his papers contain documents
concerning honors and medals that he and his colleagues were awarded, including Ryden's honorary membership in the Kuban Cossacks,
and medals that were bestowed on him by Generals Denikin and Wrangel. Following his service with the Red Cross, Ryden visited
Denmark in 1921 to meet once again with Olga Alexandrovna, as well as with her mother, the empress dowager Mariia Feodorovna,
who expressed her gratitude to Ryden with an inscribed photograph that read "In gratitude for what you did for my daughter,"
and signed simply "Marie."
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Soviet Union--History--Revolution, 1917-1921--Civilian relief.
International relief.
American National Red Cross.
Ol'ga Aleksandrovna, Grand Duchess of Russia, 1882-1960.