Search Results: Titles starting with P from The Raab Collection

24/11/1812. William Henry Harrison William Henry Harrison was named secretary of the Northwest Territory - a huge tract of land composed of most of the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin - by President John Adams in 1798. As the territory's first congressional delegate, Harrison helped obtain legislation that divided the land into the Northwest and Indiana territories, the latter of which he served as governor of from 1801 until 1813. As governor, Harrison oversaw the efforts to gain access to and control of Indian lands so settlers could extend their presence and establish new territories. The Indians usually resisted the process, so it became Harrison's task to take action against the Indians and defend the fledgling settlements.In 1809, the native populations became fierce in their resistance. They were led by Tecumseh, who proved to be a tenacious adversary. In 1811, Harrison received permission to attack Tecumseh and his confederacy. But before he could, on November… Read More

01/10/1782. John Adams This notification represents the first recognition of our independence by a European country that was not party to the war[embed]https://vimeo.com/881750021?share=copy[/embed] The Dutch Negotiations in The HagueSupport for the American Revolution was strong in the Netherlands, where the ideas of `The Age of Reason' were extremely popular and hopes for greater freedom were excited. After France recognized the new American republic in 1778 and declared war on England, a strong party developed that wanted the Dutch government to follow the same policy. But the Netherlands and Great Britain had been official allies for a hundred years and this pro-American policy was not universal. The Netherlands was composed of sovereign provinces that had united to form a federal government. Provincial legislatures controlled by long-established local families elected representatives and sent them to the States-General that was the parliament of the nation. The head of state, the… Read More

1200. Before 1300|All Medieval Historical Documents The “Sentences” were the most commented on piece of Christian literature of the era for four centuries, through the Reformation, and were lectured on by Martin Luther himself We found no record of another example of such early commentaries on Lombard using the text of Marchesinus.Often, we have the assumption that the great men of the Middle Ages came from royal families or important lines. The French romances, from which our modern pop culture derives so much, offer stories of men who come to nobility through bravery on the field of combat, are made knights, and their chivalry is supported by a long-lost connection to royalty. Ancient line established, ancient line continued, and so great, learned men beget great, learned men. The poor and illiterate fill the margins of medieval history with no room for upward mobility from nothing to greatness.Peter Lombard, Bishop of Paris, revolutionary of Christian theology, came from humble… Read More

Dec-89. George H.W. Bush We obtained this treasured letter from the Kirkpatrick family, and it has never before been offered for saleThe Malta Summit took place from December 2-3 1989. The Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and recently inaugurated President George H.W. Bush met on the cruise ship SS Maxim Gorkiy, which was moored in Marsaxlokk Harbour, Malta. It was the first meeting between the two men. Significantly, the summit took place around a month after the fall of the Berlin wall, and Communist governments in Eastern Europe were collapsing. Hungary had just opened its border with the West. After the fall of Communist leader Erich Honecker, the new East German government lasted just seven weeks.During the Summit, the two men discussed the cataclysmic changes sweeping across Europe after the collapse of the Berlin wall and the end of the Iron Curtain. They declared a planned reduction in troops within Europe and that a reduction in weaponry would be discussed at a meeting scheduled for June… Read More

Thomas Edison The Edison Pioneers was an organization composed of former employees of Thomas Edison who had worked with the inventor in his early years, and founded to keep alive Edison’s ideals and aims. Membership was limited to people who had worked closely with Edison before 1885. On February 11, 1918, the Edison Pioneers met for the first time, on the 71st birthday of Edison. There were 37 people at the first meeting. In time there were 100 members, counting descendants of Edison Pioneers who were allowed membership in later years.To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the invention of the light bulb, in 1927 the Pioneers commissioned U.S. Chief Engraver John R. Sinnock to create a piece of metallic art - a portrait plaque - that would symbolize this. He produced a work that has an engraving of Edison on the front, along with his name and the initials of the engraver. The reverse is inscribed: “1879-1929/ Edison Pioneers/ “The Light Once Lit/ Shall Never Dim/ But Through All Time/ Shall… Read More

1920. Christopher Morley Christopher Morley was a novelist, essayist and poet known for novels like Parnassus on Wheels and Kitty Foyle. The latter was one of the first books to openly discuss abortion and was turned into a Oscar winning movie starring Ginger Rogers.Autograph Letter Signed, no date but post 1920 as it is on his letterhead from Roslyn Heights, New York, to Mr. Bigelow. “If you are going to cultivate an appetite for ‘autographs’ let me give you a valuable suggestion; your victims will be more likely to come through if you send ‘em a stamped addressed envelope. This is not due to parsimony but a legitimate desire to save time and labor. Oh God, if you knew to what proportions this cruel lust has spread in our once untainted land! Anyhow, good luck.”Author of more than 100 novels, books of essays, and volumes of poetry, Morley is probably best known today for his first novels, Parnassus on Wheels (1917), The Haunted Bookshop (1919), and Thunder on the Left (1925).Morley was one… Read More

29/10/1947. Mahatma Gandhi ""We were all of and from one and the same God, no matter by what names we worshipped Him.""In August 1947, when, after three hundred years of rule in India, the British finally left, the subcontinent was partitioned into two independent nation states: Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. Communities, families and farms were cut in two. Immediately, there began one of the greatest migrations in human history, as millions of Muslims trekked to West and East Pakistan (the latter now known as Bangladesh), while millions of Hindus and Sikhs headed in the opposite direction. Across the Indian subcontinent, communities that had coexisted for almost a millennium attacked each other in a terrifying outbreak of sectarian violence, with Hindus and Sikhs on one side and Muslims on the other. In the middle lay Kashmir, now part of India but an area where the majority of people are Muslims.In Kashmir, on the border between the two new nations, the pro-India Maharaja Hari… Read More

27/12/1855. Jefferson Davis Rose O’Neal Greenhow was born into obscurity, but became one of the most powerful women in Washington, D.C. and in time became a famous Confederate spy._ Arriving in Washington at the age of fourteen, she became fascinated with the Washington socialite scene and attempted to gain acceptance by the well-to-do Washingtonians. Even though she was mocked for her low birth, she eventually caught the eye of Dr. Robert Greenhow, a federal librarian and translator with medical and law degrees. The couple married on May 26, 1835 and, with her new husband, Rose gained acceptance into high society and socialized with famous Washingtonians, like First Lady Dolley Madison. She became friendly with South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun, whose views influenced her. In fact, she nursed Calhoun on his deathbed. She also met and socialized with her future leader, Jefferson Davis. By 1854 she was a widow with a pension from the Federal government; she bought a house four blocks north of… Read More

1830. Andrew Jackson On May 10, 1800, Congress passed an “Act supplementary to the act, entitled ‘An act to establish the Treasury Department’”, which required the Secretary of the Treasury to report annually the receipts and expenditures of the United States government. The purpose cited by the act was to give “information to Congress in adopting modes of raising money requisite to meet the public expenditures.” In other words, Congress required this information to know how to manage the country’s finances. The information was compiled by the Treasury, generally on a quarterly basis.But presidents also made use of this information. It governed their own conduct, and they also used it to provide Congress with interim information of importance to their programs and policies. Sometimes it would appear in their State of the Union addresses.With the time for the 1830 State of the Union address approaching, President Jackson wrote his Secretary of the Treasury, Samuel Ingham, requesting the… Read More

26/12/1899. William McKinley In March 1899, John C.W. Brooks, an army officer who had been serving in the west, was ordered to report for examination for promotion at Governor's Island, New York City. He passed the exam, and later that year he was promoted to captain.Document signed, with an engraved eagle, Washington, December 26, 1899, promoting Brooks to captain. A few years later Brooks took a position on the faculty of the Department of Military Science and Tactics at Carnegie Mellon University. He also founded the ROTC program at that university. An interesting juxtaposition between the army and academia.

29/05/1956. Dwight D. Eisenhower Abraham J. Feldman was born in Kiev, Ukraine and came to the U.S. in 1906 at age 11. In 1918, he was ordained as a rabbi at the Hebrew Union College, and then served as fellowship assistant for Rabbi Stephen S. Wise at his Free Synagogue in New York. A year later, Feldman went on to Congregation Children of Israel in Athens, Ga. and then spent five years as rabbi to the Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Philadelphia. In 1925 Feldman was selected as rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in West Hartford, CT, where he remained until retiring in 1977. While at Beth Israel, Feldman was a leader not only in Connecticut Jewish life, but also in ecumenical and secular organizations. In 1929 he was a co-founder of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger, of which he remained editor until 1977.Feldman was prominent in Jewish organizations at the national level, as well. He was a member of the Board of Governors of Hebrew Union College and served on the executive council of the Union of… Read More

22/04/1864. Abraham Lincoln President Lincoln called a Cabinet meeting on April 22, 1864. The Diary of Navy Secretary Gideon Welles indicates “Cabinet meets. Secs. Seward, Chase, and Stanton absent.” Also on that day, the President approved a bill placing the inscription ""In God We Trust"" on coins. This was first used on 2-cent pieces. That day he also discussed some promotions to general forwarded by Stanton. The meeting’s purpose might have been to discuss the change in coinage or the promotions.Autograph note signed, Washington, April 22, 1864, to Secretary of State William Seward. “Hon. Sec. of State, please call and see me at 9 this morning. A. Lincoln.” As Sec. of the Navy later complained, Seward was not present. It would be interesting to know why Seward could not make the meeting.Seward and Stanton looked on the State and War Departments as their fiefdoms, and Lincoln had to be careful about how he dealt with matters touching on those departments. Various letters and notes shows… Read More

19/08/1898. William McKinley This marked the end of four centuries of Spanish Imperial occupation, and resulted in exit of the last forces potentially hostile to the U.S. in the hemisphere The beginning of U.S. sovereignty at the dawn of what has been called the American CenturyChristopher Columbus reached the island that would become Puerto Rico, then home to the Taino people, in 1493, ushering in more than four hundred years of Spanish rule. It became a critical military outpost, allowing Spain to defend its New World colonies against other European powers. By the eighteenth century, Puerto Rico had become a major exporter of tobacco, coffee, and sugarcane. Yet discontent with colonial rule led to a growing independence movement on the island. So in 1897, in a desperate effort to hold on to its last two possessions in the Americas, Spain granted Cuba and Puerto Rico a broad array of rights including those under Title I of the Spanish Constitution, which bestowed all the rights of Spanish… Read More

16/04/1940. Franklin D. Roosevelt Just before the turn of the 20th century, international rivalries between Britain, Germany and the United States were settled by the Tripartite Convention that partitioned the Samoan Islands into two parts: the eastern island group became a territory of the United States today known as American Samoa; the western islands became known as German Samoa (they are now the nation of Samoa). In return, Germany gave up claims it had in Africa to Britain. On April 17, 1900, the Treaty of Cession of Tutuila was signed between several chiefs of the island of Tutuila and the United States, whereby the chiefs on that island swore allegiance to, and ceded the island of Tutuila to, the United States. Now American Samoa was essentially complete and became a Protectorate of the United States. In 1940, it would celebrate its 40th anniversary under the American flag. Navy Capt. Edward W. Hanson was the 28th Governor of American Samoa, serving from 1938 to 1940. He believed that the… Read More

7/12/04. Theodore Roosevelt An extremely uncommon Cabinet appointment, the first of TR that we have hadVictor H. Metcalf was a Congressman who served from 1899 to 1904. In Congress he served on the Naval Affairs and the Ways and Means committees, where he pressed for the construction of a large battleship navy. His legislation for reclamation of arid lands by irrigation put him in touch with President Theodore Roosevelt, who liked the idea so much he inserted it into his party’s platform in 1904.President Roosevelt appointed Metcalf Secretary of Commerce and Labor in 1904. He was only the second person to hold that post, which was created in recognition of the importance and magnitude of the nation’s commercial and industrial growth and expansion. His department contained the Bureau of Manufactures, the Bureau of Statistics, the Bureau of Navigation, the Bureau of Standards, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Lighthouse Service, the Inspection of Immigrants, the Seal Fisheries of Alaska, the… Read More

28/04/1870. Ulysses S. Grant A sheet of Executive Mansion letterhead, dated Washington, April 28, 1870, signed by “Yours truly, U.S. Grant” and “Yours truly, Schuyler Colfax.” An uncommon combination, this being the first we’ve had.

18/06/1824. James Monroe He would have written sooner except he was “engaged in important duties arising from the late adjournment of Congress.” “Some plan ought to be adopted with a view to his future station in life, and on this subject I will communicate to you, freely, my sentiments. Having an increasing family, the improvement of their property for their own comfort and the education and advancement of their children, should be their great object. In fulfilling this, duty, your wishes and happiness should be consulted, and respectful attention should also be paid, to those of his aged parents, one of whom, his father, is very infirm, and subject to occasional attacks which menace his existence.” This is the longest Monroe ALS as President that we can recall seeingJames Monroe’s mother died in 1772, and his father two years later. Though he inherited property, including slaves, from both of his parents, the 16-year-old Monroe was forced to withdraw from school to support his… Read More

30/12/1852. Millard Fillmore After he was graduated from Rutgers College, James Jeffray Brownlee studied medicine, and then entered the naval service of the United States after passing a term of months in practical work at the New-York Hospital. When the Civil War broke out, Dr. Brownlee joined his ship and left a brilliant record as a surgeon and an efficient officer. He was with the USS Connecticut during her most successful cruises, and found himself in possession of a considerable fortune at the close of the war, when, in poor health, he resigned his commission, and retired to private life.Document signed, picturing patriotic and nautical scenes and Neptune, Washington, December 30, 1852, appointing James Jeffray Brownlee “a surgeon in the Navy from the 19th of October, 1852.”

27/11/1912. William Taft The 1912 presidential election took place on November 5, 1912. Democratic Governor Woodrow Wilson unseated incumbent Republican President Taft, while also defeating former President Theodore Roosevelt who ran under the banner of the new Progressive Party. By late November 1912, Taft was wrapping up his presidency. Taft was prepared for the loss, and his attitude towards leaving the White House was not bitterness, but resignation.William H. Hunt had been nominated by President William H. Taft on December 12, 1910, to the United States Court of Appeals and Circuit Court for the Ninth Circuit. He was confirmed by the Senate on January 31, 1911, and received his commission on February 8, 1911.Hunt sent Taft a condolence letter on his loss, and this is Taft’s response. Typed letter signed, on White House letterhead, Washington, November 27, 1912, to Justice Hunt, who he addresses as “My dear Bill.” “Mr. Hilles has just handed me your kind letter of the 26th instant. I am… Read More

14/01/1953. Dwight D. Eisenhower “Since November 4th my thoughts have turned often to those whose faith and support - and financial contributions - helped to make victory possible. In the task of bringing the message of our Crusade to all of our follow Americans, we would have failed without their much-needed help.”The 1952 United States presidential election was held on Tuesday, November 4, 1952. Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower won a landslide victory over Illinois Democratic Governor Adlai Stevenson, becoming the first Republican president in 20 years. This was the first election since 1928 without an incumbent president on the ballot. Eisenhower was re-elected in 1956 in a rematch with Stevenson.The 1952 presidential election campaign was conducted against the backdrop of a “red scare” in which many Americans feared that foreign communist agents were attempting to infiltrate the government. Two years earlier Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, who held that the Roosevelt and Truman administrations… Read More