MsC 36

 

Manuscript Register

JAMES WILLS BOLLINGER PAPERS

 

Collection Dates: 1926 to 1951

20.5 linear ft.

 

This document describes a collection of materials held by the
Special Collections Department
University of Iowa Libraries
Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1420
Phone: 319-335-5921
Fax: 319-335-5900
e-mail: lib-spec@uiowa.edu

 

Posted to the Internet: April 2002

Addenda: 1993, 2005, 2006

Acquisition Note: Gift of the Bollinger estate, 1951.

Access and Restrictions: This collection is open for research.

Digital Surrogates: Except where indicated, this document describes but does not reproduce the actual text, images and objects which make up this collection. Materials are available only in the Special Collections Department.

Copyright:  Please read The University of Iowa Libraries' statement on "Property Rights, Copyright Law, and Permissions to Use Unpublished Materials"

Use of Collections:  The University of Iowa Libraries supports access to the materials, published and unpublished, in its collections. Nonetheless, access to some items may be restricted by their fragile condition or by contractual agreement with donors, and it may not be possible at all times to provide appropriate machinery for reading, viewing or accessing non-paper-based materials. Please read our Use of Manuscripts Statement.

Biographical Note

James Wills Bollinger was born in Geneseo, Illinois, on April 10, 1867. His family moved to Davenport, Iowa, in 1873, where he attended public school. In 1889, he graduated from the State University of Iowa Law School and received his master's degree in 1893. Bollinger practiced law throughout his life, and served as Scott county district judge from 1897 until 1911. He was extremely active in Davenport and Scott County business life, serving as the president of the Scott County Bar Association and of the state association (serving on several boards), the Chamber of Commerce, and the Davenport Business Men's association.

Bollinger was well known as a collector of Lincolniana and bequeathed the James Wills Bollinger Collection of Lincolniana, then some 3,000 books, to the University of Iowa Libraries upon his death in 1951. The collection attests to Bollinger's life-long interest in Lincoln, and continues to grow under the care of the Special Collections department. Now standing at over 5,000 items, most of the material in the Bollinger Collection can be found on InfoHawk.  Robert McCown published a longer article on the Judge and his collection in a Books at Iowa (1982).

Scope and Contents

The Bollinger Papers consist of correspondence, organized first chronologically and then alphabetically within each year , a pamphlet collection relating to Abraham Lincoln, and a collection of objects and ephemera also related to Lincoln. Professional photographs of Judge Bollinger and photographs related to Bollinger's family can be found in Series I: Box 10 .

Related materials

Bollinger, James Wills. Old Montana and Her Cowboy Artist : a paper read before the Contemporary Club, Davenport, Iowa, January 30, 1950. Shenandoah, Iowa :World Pub. Co.,1963.

Twenty-five books in the Bollinger Lincoln collection, compiled by Clyde C. Walton, Jr., curator of rare books. With a preface by Harry J. Lytle. Iowa City: State University of Iowa Libraries, 1952.

Bollinger, James Wills. Lincoln, Statesman and Logician. Davenport, IA., Priv. print. [Muscatine, IA: The Prairie Press] 1944.

Wall, Bernhardt, 1872 -- 1956. Letter to James W. Bollinger. Sierra Madre, CA. 1944 July 4. MsL W1869 b.

Tarbell, Ida M. (Ida Minerva), 1857 -- 1944. Letter to James W. Bollinger. [s.l.] 1934 June 1. MsL T176b.

The Papers of Fred Dickinson Letts include correspondence from James Bollinger. http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/scua/msc/tomsc100/msc72/msc72.html.

 

See also the Card Catalog related to Bollinger's Lincoln Collection; the large Lincoln Scrapbook of nineteenth-century newspaper clippings; and the Otto Eisenschiml Papers.

 

Box List

Series I: Correspondence

Box 1

1926, A -- Z

1927, A -- B

1927, C -- K

1927, L -- N

1927, O -- Z

1928, A -- D

1928, E -- M

1928, N -- Z

Box 2

1929, A -- G

1929, H -- M

1929, N -- Z

1930, A -- G

1930, H -- J

1930, K -- O

1930, P -- Z

1931, A -- D

Box 3

1931, E -- L

1931, M -- Z

1932, A -- L

1932, M -- Z

1933, A -- M

1933, N -- Z

1934, A -- F

1934, G -- M

1934, N -- Z

Box 4

1935, A -- G

1935, H -- N

1935, O -- Z

1936, A -- L

1936, M -- Z

1937, A -- G

1937, H -- M

1937, N -- Z

1937 -- 1941, SUI Correspondence

Box 5

1938, Birthday Party and Thank You notes.

1938, A -- H

1938, I -- N

1938, O -- S

1938, T -- Z

1939, A -- E

1939, F -- J

1939, K -- N

1939, O -- Z

Box 6

1940, A -- E

1940, F -- O

1940, P -- Z

1941, A -- H

1941, I -- P

1941, Q -- Z

1942, A -- D

1942, E -- L

1942, M -- P

1942, Q -- V

1942, W -- Z

Box 7

1943, Bollinger -- Lincoln, S.U.I. General

1943, Bollinger -- Lincoln, Hancher

1943, A -- C

1943, D -- J

1943, K -- L

1943, M -- S

1943, T -- Z

1944, A -- K

1944, L -- R

1944, S -- Z

1944, Congratulatory letters concerning Lincoln the Logician

1945 -- 1948, Congratulatory letters concerning Lincoln the Logician

1945, Letters to and from Ralph Ellsworth (S.U.I. Librarian)

Box 8

1945, A -- F

1945, G -- Q

1945, R -- Z

1946, A -- F

1946, G -- Q

1946, R -- Z

1947, A -- F

1947, G -- Q

1947, R -- Z

1948, A -- F

1948, G -- Q

1948, R -- Z

1949, A -- F

1949, G -- Q

1949, R -- Z

Box 9

1950, A -- F

1950, G -- Q

1950, R -- Z

1951

Certificates, diplomas, etc.

Address book for Lincoln, Statesman and Logician

Box 10

Bollinger, Joseph. Ledger page, 1855

Bollinger, Mary G. Insurance papers, 1944 -- 1946

Correspondence, 1943 and undated

List of Civil War battles

Photographs

History Notes, Fall term, 1887

"The Old Stone Capitol Remembers"

Bollinger, James Wills. Montana's Famous Cow Boy Artist. Photocopy typescript, 1926

Bollinger, Pat. Essay on Lincoln. February 12, 1942

Series II: Lincoln Pamphlets

Box 1-12

Alphabetical arrangement

Box 13-27

Arranged by Monaghan bibliography number

 

Series III: Ephemera and objects related to Lincoln

Box 1

Commemoration and ceremony programs

Box 2

Commemoration and ceremony programs

Box 3

Catalogs, brochures, and tourist information

Box 4

Poems, plays, songs

Box 5

Photostats, facsimiles, copies

Box 6

Miscellaneous papers, souvenirs, broadsides, newsletters, Union ticket

Box 7

Magazine clippings

Box 8

Newpaper clippings

Box 9

Newspapers, publishing information, miscellaneous book jackets

Box 10

Railsplitter yearbook (1941, 1942, 1943)

Box 11

Administrative information concerning acquisition of the Bollinger Collection

Box 12

Miscellaneous Lincoln related objects

Box 13

Miscellaneous Lincoln related objects

Box 14

Miscellaneous Lincoln related objects

Box 15

Metal profile of Lincoln mounted on wood

Metal profile of Lincoln mounted on a plank from Lincoln's 1834 home

Original timber from "OLD MAINE" Knox College, where Bollinger's mother heard the Lincoln-Douglass debate

Box 16

Abraham Lincoln China Plates

Four commemorative plates (gift of Homer Calkin)

Two plates (Bollinger's Collection)

 

Box 17

Framed coin collection (frame and stand made of wild cherry from farm of W. H. Herndon)

Lincoln Pennies Collection Album

Sculpture

Metal bookends with Lincoln profile

three small busts

one lifesize bust

Copy of Leonard Volk's Lincoln life mask and hands

Lincoln group

 

Series IV: Images and Illustrations

Box 1

Cartoons, carte de visite, postcards

Box 2

Illustrations and images of Lincoln

Box 3

Illustrations and images of people and places related to Lincoln, including 28 photogravure prints used in Beveridge's Abraham Lincoln.

Box 4

1940s images of Lincoln (including images by Wall, Ostroff, Turzak, and Eichenberg)

Box 5

Large prints of Lincoln

Box 6

Large prints of Lincoln

Map Case 13

Map Case 13 Drawer 9

Framed items (5)

Map Case 13 Drawer 10 -- Gift of Phillip Sang

Folder 1

Allison and Kurz Civil War Chromolithographs, 1880s -- 1890s (14)

Folder 2

Series of Civil War Chromolithographs

Folder 3

Sanitary Fair chromolithographs from McClosky's Manual (4), 1864

"The Bill Poster's Dream -- Cross Readings, to be Read Downwards" 1862, B. Derby

Folder 4

Broadsides and Theatre Bills

Map Case 13 Drawer 11

Folder 1

Large 19th century Lincoln portrait prints (9)

Folder 2

Large 19th century "Lincoln and his Family" (4)

Folder 3

"Grand Reception of the Notabilities of the Nation at the White House" 1865 (2)

"The First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation before the Cabinet" (2)

Folder 4 -- Newspapers

"To the Memory of Abraham Lincoln" Buffalo Express, 17 April 1865

New York Herald, 15 April 1865 (19th century reprint)

The Fort Randall Independent, 6 May 1865

The Southern Sentinel, 23 June 1863 (19th century wallpaper reprint)

The Daily Citizen, 2 July 1863  (19th century wallpaper reprint)

Folder 5

Lincoln related items (posters, maps, facsimiles, reprints) -- 20th century

Folder 6 -- Scenes from the Life of Lincoln

1939 posters of paintings by Louis Bonhajo (13)

1942 posters of paintings by Fletcher C. Ransom, Reynolds Jones, and Lane K. Newberry for the Chicago and Illinois Midland Railway (9)

Folder 7 -- large miscellaneous

"Jeff's Last Skedaddle" cartoon

Proclamation of Emancipation poster, 1864

Letter of Geo. B. McClellan  "In Acceptance of the Nomination of the Chicago Convention" 8 Sept. 1864

"To the Laboring Men of New York" broadside, 18 July 1863

Poster of a J.A. Elder painting of T.J. Jackson, 1907

"A Proclamation for a Day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer" Commonwealth of Massachusetts Gov. Alexander H. Bullock

"A Proclamation" Commonwealth of Massachusetts Gov. John. A. Andrews

"Flight of Confederate Cabinet" 1942 map

"Andersonville Prison" poster

"Libby Prison" poster

"Map of Marches and Battles of T.J Stonewall Jackson"

"Robert E. Lee" poster/map

"22d Regiment Iowa Volunteer Infantry -- Company A" broadside