Helen Hunt Jackson Collection of Manuscripts and Letters: Finding Aid mssJacksonhh
Gayle M. Richardson
The Huntington Library
October 2023
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, California 91108
Business Number: (626) 405-2191
reference@huntington.org
Contributing Institution:
The Huntington Library
Title: Helen Hunt Jackson collection of manuscripts and letters
Identifier/Call Number: mssJacksonhh
Physical Description:
2.4 Linear Feet
(2 boxes)
Date (inclusive): 1852-1887
Date (bulk): 1871-1885
Abstract: A collection of material related to
Helen Hunt Jackson, American author and activist.
Language of Material: Materials are in
English.
Open for use by qualified researchers and by appointment. Please contact Reader Services at
the Huntington Library for more information.
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from
or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The
responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining
necessary permissions rests with the researcher.
[Identification of item]. Helen Hunt Jackson collection of manuscripts and letters, The
Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Purchased from Patrick Kevin Foley, November 1923; letters to Mary E. Sheriff Fowler: gift
of Mrs. Nellie Fowler Thacker and Mr. Frank H. Fowler, December 1934; letters to Richard
Egan: purchased from Heritage Bookshop, September 1980; letters to Mrs. D. J. Whipple:
purchased from Dawson's Book Shop, November 1986.
Helen Maria Fiske Hunt Jackson (1830-1885) was an American poet, author and activist for
the rights of Native Americans; she wrote A Century of Dishonor (1881), which condemned
state and federal Native American policies, and the novel Ramona (1884).
A collection of manuscripts and letters related to Helen Hunt Jackson. The autograph
manuscripts include 21 poems and three prose works entitled: "Bits of Travel at Home," "One
Woman and Sunshine," a draft of an article on Jeanne C. Smith Carr and the founding of
Carmelita, her home in Pasadena, California, and "The Story of Clotilde Danarosch." The
largest part of the correspondence is made up of Helen Hunt Jackson's letters to William
Hayes Ward, the editor of the New York Independent. Also included are seventeen letters to
Ray Palmer and his wife Ann Maria Waud Palmer; thirteen letters to Mary Elizabeth Fowler,
the first government schoolteacher at Soboba in the San Jacinto Valley; four letters to
Henry Chandler Bowen, the editor and proprietor of the Independent; four letters to Mrs. D.
J. Whipple who ran a boarding house in San Diego and later Los Angeles; two letters to
Richard Egan, a Los Angeles County supervisor; and two letters by William Sharpless Jackson
and Charles C. Painter.
Processed by Huntington Library Staff at different times between 1925 and 1990; in October
2023, Gayle M. Richardson created the finding aid. The Helen Hunt Jackson manuscripts and
letters were assembled at the Library from the collection acquired from Patrick Kevin Foley,
a noted bookseller and collector in 1923, supplemented by various gifts and purchases in
1934, 1980, and 1986.
Arranged chronologically.
Individual call numbers included in the collection: mssHM 7205, 7820-7836, 13907-13999,
14190-14218, 51165-51166.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Indians of North America -- Civil rights -- California
Women authors, American -- 19th century
Women civil reformers -- United States
California -- History -- 19th century
United States -- Intellectual life -- 19th century
West (U. S.) -- Intellectual life -- 19th century
Letters (correspondence)
Manuscripts (documents)
Poems
Jackson, Helen Hunt, 1830-1885
Bowen, Henry Chandler,
1813-1896
Carr, Jeanne C.
Smith
Egan, Richard, 1842-1923
Foley, Patrick
Kevin, 1856-1937
Fowler, Mary Elizabeth, 1841-1921
Jackson, William Sharpless, 1836-1919
Painter, C. C. (Charles Cornelius)
Palmer, Ann Maria Waud
Palmer, Ray,
1808-1887
Ward, William Hayes,
1835-1916
Box 1, Folder 1-53
Manuscripts, letters 1852-1873
Box 2, Folder 1-92
Letters 1874-1887