George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives

Huntington Gilchrist Papers, 1815-1922
2.5 linear feet.

Catalog Number: M72

Series List:

• Family Correspondence, 1815-1894, 0.33 linear feet
  
• Personal Letters, 1903-1922, n.d., 0.66 linear feet
  
• Diary and Handwritten Notes, 1913, n.d., 16 items
  
• Printed Ephemera, n.d., 0.5 linear feet
  
• Photographs, n.d., 0.75 linear feet
  

Agency History / Biographical Note:
Huntington Gilchrist was a journalist, political scientist, diplomat, educator and corporate executive. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on November 16, 1891, the son of John and Martha Hyde Huntington Gilchrist.

A graduate of Williams (B.A. 1913), Harvard (M.A. 1916), and Columbia (Ph.D. 1918), Gilchrist was a senior executive with American Cyanamid Company in New York and London (1928-1955), and he had a unique career in international relations. He was the only American to serve as a senior member of the international staffs working to establish both the League of Nations (1919-1928) and the United Nations (1944-1957). In 1949, he was persuaded by Ambassador Averell Harriman to go to Paris as Director of the Industry Division of the Marshall Plan for Europe and, beginning in 1950, served for four years as United States Minister in Brussels in charge of Plan operations in Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Belgian Congo.

Gilchrist was also one of the founders of the International School in Geneva, Switzerland, and served as chairman of its board of directors from 1960 to 1963.

Gilchrist married Elizabeth Brace, daughter of Charles Loring Brace of New York City, on October 1, 1920. They had three children. A resident of Ridgefield, Connecticut, Huntington Gilchrist died on January 13, 1975.

Scope and Content:
The collection contains correspondence written by various members of the Gilchrist family (1815-1894); letters written by or to Huntington Gilchrist while instructor of the Anglo-Chinese College in Foochow and Peking (1912-1914), as well as some from his later years (through 1922); primarily to his mother, they discuss the Methodist mission in Foochow, the American Board Mission, visiting missionaries, and his trips. Gilchrist's diary, written en route from San Francisco to China (August-September, 1913), ends with his arrival at Kyoto, Japan. There are also 211 photographic negatives, mostly of China.

Cite as: Huntington Gilchrist Papers, George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library.

Access Restrictions: None.