Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Lanman, Charles
- Abstract:
- Charles Lanman (1819-1895) was an editor, librarian, and author. He also wrote travel accounts of his explorations in wilderness areas of the eastern United States, and is best known as the publisher of the Dictionary of Congress, first issued in 1859. The collection consists of holograph manuscripts of Lanman's published works, portions of two unpublished manuscript autobiographies, manuscripts of his works on travel in the U.S., and his biographical sketches.
- Extent:
- 2.0 linear feet (4 boxes)
- Language:
- Materials are in English.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Charles Lanman Papers (Collection 728). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
Collection consists of holograph manuscripts of Charles Lanman's published works, all with revisions for editions that were never published. Also includes portions of two unpublished manuscript autobiographies. Contains manuscripts of his works on travel in the U.S. and his biographical sketches.
The letters, papers and manuscripts of Charles Lanman (1819-1895) are scattered in a number of repositories throughout the United States. This small collection of Lanman's writings was purchased in 1960 from W.H. Lowdermilk & Company, booksellers, Washington, D.C., with the assistance of Dr. E. Maurice Bloch of the Department of Art, UCLA.
Lowdermilk & Company purchased the Charles Lanman Library, and apparently this collection of manuscripts was among the books in the library. The library has long since been dispersed, however, the manuscripts were retained and were discovered in 1960 by Dr. Bloch in the basement of Lowdermilk & Company, Washington, D.C.
The collection contains some of Lanman's published and unpublished works. Two Lanman letters, purchased by the Library in 1940, have been added to the collection. The following is a register with description of the items in the collection.
James V. Mink
- Biographical / historical:
-
Lanman was born on June 14, 1819 in Monroe, Michigan; worked ten years at a business in New York City before returning to Michigan to edit the Monroe gazette in 1845; the next year was the associate editor of the Cincinnati chronicle, and in 1847 was an assistant on the New York express; in 1849 he became librarian of the War Department in Washington, D.C.; in 1850 he became librarian of copyrights and private secretary of Daniel Webster, and in 1853 examiner of depositories for the southern states; from 1855-57 he served as librarian and head of the returns office in the Interior Department, in 1866 the librarian of the House of Representatives, and from 1871-82, secretary to the Japanese legation; wrote travel accounts of his explorations of wilderness areas of the eastern United States; best known as the publisher of the Dictionary of Congress, first issued in 1859; he died in 1895.
- Acquisition information:
- Purchased from W.H. Lowdermilk, 1960.
- Processing information:
-
Processed by James V. Mink.
Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
We are committed to providing ethical, inclusive, and anti-racist description of the materials we steward, and to remediating existing description of our materials that contains language that may be offensive or cause harm. We invite you to submit feedback about how our collections are described, and how they could be described more accurately, by filling out the form located on our website: Report Problematic Content and Description in UCLA's Library Collections and Archives.
- Arrangement:
-
Arranged in the following series:
- Eventide recollections, My ships of thought, or, A booklover's monologue (Box 1).
- Haphazard personalities, Curious characters and pleasant places (Box 2). "Presidential recollections," "Recollections of Michigan," "Octavius Perinchief," "Letters from a motley crew," "Literary ladies," "An quixotic Yankee," "The old Connecticut Academy," "Narrow escaper," untitled manuscript (Box 3).
- "Adventures of an angler in Canada," Letters from the Alleghany Mountains and the source of the Potomac, "A summer in the wilderness," "A tour to the River Restigouche," "A winter in the South," "From the River Potomac to Mount Desert," "In the evening twilight" (Box 4).
- Correspondence (Boxes 3-4).
- Physical location:
- Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Terms of access:
-
Property rights to the physical objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Charles Lanman Papers (Collection 728). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
- Location of this collection:
-
A1713 Charles E. Young Research LibraryBox 951575Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
- Contact:
- (310) 825-4988