Guide to the Thomas Brackett Reed collection, 1838-1976 (bulk 1869-1902)

A noted politician and lawyer, Thomas Brackett Reed (1839-1902; Bowdoin 1860) became a member of the Maine bar in 1865. He was elected to the Maine House in 1867 and 1868, the Maine Senate in 1869, and served as Attorney General from 1870 to 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 and Means Committee and several special committees. His greatest contribution was as Speaker of the House, serving from 1889 to 1991 and then again from 1895 to 1899. A presidential candidate in 1896, Reed lost the Republican nomination to William McKinley. After leaving Congress in 1899, Reed practiced law in New York City.

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

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.