Call Number:

C0399

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

18 boxes

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Nelson R. Burr Papers, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1917-1956 (inclusive)

Creator:

Burr, Nelson R. (Nelson Rollin) (1904-1994)

Form:

Correspondence and Scrapbooks.

Abstract:

The Nelson R. Burr Papers consists of works, correspondence, documents, photographs, scrapbooks, juvenilia, and printed matter of American historian, Nelson R. Burr (Princeton Class of 1927). The collection contains materials from his book Education in New Jersey, 1630-1871 (1942), as well as notes, essays and personal correspondence from his undergraduate and graduate school years at Princeton.

Nelson R. Burr (Princeton Class of 1927) is an American historian at the Library of Congress and a church historian.

The College of New Jersey was initially chartered in 1746. The first classes were held in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in the parsonage of the president, the Reverend Jonathan Dickinson. Upon his death, the College moved to Newark, New Jersey, and was headed by the Reverend Aaron Burr, Sr. Since 1756, the College has been located in Princeton, New Jersey. For the first fifty years, nearly all College operations took place within Nassau Hall. Fires, fundraising difficulties, low student enrollment, and the Civil War challenged the vitality of the College in the early and middle nineteenth century, but the College grew vigorously under the leadership of President James McCosh, and it was renamed Princeton University in 1896. The Graduate School was established in 1900, although a limited graduate program had existed since the 1870s. Princeton enthusiastically supported the country (living up to its informal motto, "Princeton in the Nation's Service") during the First and Second World Wars, offering the expertise of faculty and campus space for training, as well as facilitating the early graduation of students so they could enlist. The post-World War II years brought dramatic changes to Princeton. The size and strength of the University's facilities and academic programs—especially for the applied sciences and public policy—were increased dramatically. Under President Robert Goheen, Princeton began to admit minority students in greater numbers in the 1960s and admitted women undergraduates in 1969. Today, Princeton is widely regarded as one of the top universities in the world.

The collection consists of works, correspondence, documents, photographs, scrapbooks, juvenilia, and printed matter of Burr (Princeton Class of 1927). The collection contains the typed manuscript (carbon) and photographs for Burr's book Education in New Jersey, 1630-1871 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1942), based on his Ph.D. thesis at Princeton, as well as undergraduate notes and essays, and letters written to his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Harris L. Burr, during undergraduate (1923-1927) and graduate school years (1928-1932) at Princeton and New York University (1929).

The bulk of the collection consists of letters written to Burr by his father, friends, clergymen, publishers, and libraries, much of it regarding Burr's histories of various parishes and churches in Connecticut and Washington, D.C. The correspondence reflects his interest in religious matters, especially the Episcopal Church, and there are letters concerning his book The Story of the Episcopal Church in the United States (1936). In addition, the collection contains scrapbooks kept by Burr when he was with the Library of Congress, as well as scrapbooks of the state anniversary exhibitions (1945-1948) mounted there, and includes a series of biographies for the "Liberty Ships" of the United States Maritime Commission written by him and others (1942-1944).

This is an unprocessed collection and remains in its original arrangement.

Unprocessed, except for four boxes of letters by Burr to his parents, which are in chronological order.