Helen Taft Manning and Frederick Manning Papers

This collection contains personal and professional documents, correspondence, and newspaper clippings, with dates from 1862 to the 1980s (bulk dates from 1907-1960s). The materials relating to Helen Taft Manning are mostly from after her days as a college student at Bryn Mawr, i.e from after the 1920s. The materials relating to Frederick Manning on the other hand range from his years as a student at Yale University, his brief military service as an artillery officer in the First World War, to his teaching career at Swarthmore from the 1925 to the 1950s. This collection also houses extensive personal correspondence between the Taft Manning family and their friends over this time period. Finally, the papers of Elbridge Gerry Manning Jr. from the civil war era are an outlier to the dates of the other materials in this collection, though most of the letters in this collection are transcribed so were probably put together well after his life and death.

Following the Helen Taft Manning Papers Collection, this collection can be arranged into four series I. “Helen Taft Manning, Personal (Bulk, 1907-1960s,)” II. “Helen Taft Manning, Papers on Bryn Mawr (Bulk 1915-1987,)” III. “Frederick J. Manning Papers (Bulk 1915-1960s,)” IV. “Phelps Putnam’s Writings (bulk 1915-1940s,)” V. “Elbridge Gerry Manning Papers (1862 to 1867,)” Series VI “President Taft Documents,” Series VII “Photo Albums (Undated,)” pictures, and Newspaper Clippings.

The bulk of this collection’s material is personal. In addition to the memorabilia, the letters in this collection speak primarily about personal affairs and private recollections. Although these letters belong to people who were prominent in both American national and state politics, very few of the letters actually touch on their political careers and instead focus on personal matters. Some of the letters addressed to Frederick Manning shed some light on his teaching career at Swarthmore.