George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives

Thomas Brackett Reed Collection, 1838-1976 (bulk 1869-1902).

2.5 linear feet.

Catalog Number: M154

Series List:

• Correspondence, 1860-1914 0.25 linear feet.
• Clippings, Biographical Essays, etc., [1880-1976?] 0.25 linear feet.
• Jenney Microfiche and Related Typescripts, 1838-1918 62 fiche.
  
• Scrapbooks, 1870-1901 2.0 linear feet.

Agency History / Biographical Note:
Thomas Brackett Reed (1839-1902; Bowdoin 1860), who became a member of the Maine bar in 1865, was elected to the Maine House in 1867 and 1868, the Maine Senate in 1869, and was Attorney General from 1870 through 1872. After four years in private practice, Reed entered Congress representing the First Maine District, serving from 1877 to 1898. He was a member of the Judiciary Committee, the Committee on Rules, the Ways & Means Committee and several special committees. His greatest contribution was as Speaker of the House, 1889-91 and 1895-99. A presidential candidate in 1896, Reed lost the Republican nomination to William McKinley. He left Congress in 1899 and re-entered private practice in New York City.

Reed married in 1870. He and his wife had two children, one of whom died in infancy.

Scope and Content:
The collection consists of correspondence, essays, manuscripts, articles and clippings about Reed and his policies. Additionally, there is a set of microfiche, prepared in 1974 from an extensive collection of Reed material retained by the Reed family, containing speeches, diaries, manuscripts, and letters.

Prominent correspondents in the manuscript collection include Lyman Abbott, Susan B. Anthony, James G. Blaine, Robert G. Ingersoll, Henry Cabot Lodge, William McKinley, and John Sherman; the microfiche include many of the above plus Andrew Carnegie, William Pitt Fessenden, William P. Frye, Marcus A. Hanna, Robert Todd Lincoln, Whitelaw Reid and Elihu Root.

Principal correspondents in the manuscript collection, each with fourteen or more letters, are: Horace H. Burbank, a Bowdoin classmate; Winthrop M. Crane; George Gifford, diplomat; Andrew Hawes, of Stroudwater, Maine; Asher C. Hinds and Theodore Roosevelt. In the microfiche, with twelve or more letters each, they are: Henry Cabot Lodge and Joseph H. Manley, Maine journalist.

Provenance:

Cite as: Thomas Brackett Reed collection, George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library.
Access Restrictions: None.