A year ago, I experienced the collector’s thrill of a lifetime.  I started collecting documents related to Yale history in 2003 (around my tenth year reunion).  I’ve been fascinated with the Yale campus, architecture, traditions, societies, and college life since my first day of freshman year.  My original intention was to collect Yale-related historical documents — the interest grew to include Colonial, Civil War and US Presidential history — between my 10th and 25th reunions. I planned to gather documents “in secret” and make a single donation in honor of the 25th reunion.

As I soon discovered, the research time needed to curate each item in preparation for donation increased exponentially in the passing years.  As Google increased its offerings on Google Books, the opportunity to research and learn about the many authors and subjects in my collection became an obsession in itself.  I also realized that historical documents are best enjoyed when available to other researchers and scholars.  By 2008, I decided to donate my entire collection to Yale in honor of my 15th reunion.  After suffering a month of donor’s remorse, I enjoyed seeing documents available for research.  I continued to assemble documents and made additional donations during numerous reunions and events (in honor of the 15th, 20th, and 25th reunions, the 2011 conclusion of the Yale Tomorrow Campaign, and the 100th anniversary of Henry Roe Cloud’s (BA 1910, MA 1914) masters degree in 2014).

As part of my 25th reunion weekend, I shared my love of collecting with classmates during a Friday afternoon exhibit at the Gates Classroom, a newly renovated Manuscripts & Archives teaching space once devoted to the Gutenberg Bible.  The Gates Classroom is adjacent to the L&B rooms in Yale’s Sterling Library.  The first YouTube video includes a 12 minute impromptu overview with collection highlights from the May 2018 exhibit. (My college roommate & class treasurer recorded the speech with my iPhone and eventually gave me the hook!)

In the second video, I mention a 25th reunion gift to the Beinecke Library.  During the appraisal process, my appraiser discovered a rare manuscript leaf in the hand of famed author Frank Norris.  The Frank Norris and Conrad Richter letters from the Frederic Taber Cooper collection were displayed at the Beinecke Library throughout the 2018 reunion weekend.

(Corrections from 2nd YouTube video: Conrad Richter was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1951. Frank Norris died October 25, 1902 of peritonitis from a ruptured appendix. Regarding the number of Frank Norris’ The Octopus manuscript leaves known to survive, the University of California – Berkeley Bancroft Library finding aid states, “The Octopus: notes; character sketches; two leaves of the original manuscript; photocopies of four additional leaves.”)

After the Gates Classroom exhibit, many classmates approached me in appreciation of the opportunity to see the documents.  One classmate told me about his brother who collects Harvard memorabilia.  We’ve probably been rival bidders at many an auction!

Classmates also spoke about their own collecting interests, which led to many positive interactions.  And the Yale Library, Development Office, and University friends were most gracious to attend late on a Friday holiday afternoon.

For me, the Gates Classroom exhibit was the highlight of many years of the “wonderful illness” of collecting.  Very much appreciate the class, reunion leaders, and University’s graciousness.

Below is an inventory of items which were on display.  With thanks to former Head of Collections Bill Massa who prepared this inventory.  I also funded the digitization of my collection which is available on the Yale Library Digital Collections.

Selection of manuscript materials donated to Yale University Library by

Ravi D. Goel, Yale College Class of 1993, between 2008 and 2014.

Gates Classroom, Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library

May 25, 2018

#1   Josiah Willard (BA 1714) letter, 1719 Apr 20, to an unnamed recipient.  RU 1081. (** Willard was named one of Yale’s 30 most prominent graduates at Yale’s 300th Anniversary by the Yale Alumni Magazine in 2001 (one per decade which includes Princeton founder Jonathan Dickinson, Noah Webster of Webster Dictionary, US Presidents George HW Bush, WH Taft, and Bill Clinton among many).  Willard, then a 27 year old preacher, was captured during a turkey-expedition and skinned by Indians in 1723.  This is the only Willard letter I’ve been able to locate.)

#2   Timothy Cutler letter, 1736 Oct 8, to Sir Geflow Cambridge.  Cutler served as Rector (now President) of Yale College from 1719 to 1722.  RU 1081 (** The son-in-law of Yale’s 2nd Rector, 3rd Rector Timothy Cutler (Harvard 1701) was dismissed by a vote of Yale’s Trustees in 1722 after giving an Anglican blessing.  The details of this 1736 letter are extraordinary.  Mentions Maderia wine, the comments of Sir Isaac Newton, and procurement of books from a fellow at Eton College.  Also mentions Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, London, many Cambridge professors and religious struggles in New England.)

#3   Jacob Heminway (BA 1704) quit claim, 1746 Apr 15.  First student to receive instruction at Yale, then the Collegiate School in the Colony of Connecticut, in Rev. Abraham Pierson’s parsonage in Killingworth (now Clinton).  RU 1081 (** This is only the 2nd known signature of Yale’s First Student that I’ve been able to find.  The other is at the Beinecke Library. See also Judith Ann Schiff’s superb profile of “Yale’s First Student” in the Yale Alumni Magazine (2004).)

#4   Eleazer Wheelock (BA 1733) agreement (early copy), 1777 November 9, with Mr. John Smith as Dartmouth College’s first professor.  Wheelock was the founder and first president of Dartmouth.  RU 1081. (** As I mention in the video, Dartmouth curators are unable to locate the original copy of the contract between Dartmouth and their First Professor.  My “Copy from the Original” may well be the only one which survives.)

#5   Horace Holley (BA 1803) letter, 1802 Feb 14, to his father Luther Holley.  RU 1081 (** Holley was an educational pioneer.  As a Yale student, he writes passionately about the Judiciary Act, Constitution, and future of the young United States.  My Holley letters have been quoted in James P Cousin’s Horace Holley (2016) biography.  And a Yale senior essay!)

#6   Edward Anthony Bradford (BA 1833) letter, 1833 Jun 17, to his mother Lois Bradford. RU 1081. (** I love this letter.  Members of this Yale class, which include William Russell and Alphonso Taft, founded Skull & Bones.  Salutatorian EA Bradford writes to his mother about 7th US President Andrew Jackson’s Yale visit. He states, “Jackson left town this morning for Hartford. He arrived here Saturday afternoon from New York + remained over Sunday, thus giving me a full opportunity to inspect him.  He was attended by Mr. Van Buren (VP) … (NY Governor) + other distinguished characters.” )

#7   Wyllys Warner (BA 1826) letter, 1843 Mar 17, to Aaron Kellogg about an indigent student fund. RU 1081.  Warner served as Yale’s treasurer (1833-1852) and Secretary (1858-1869). (*** I am proud to be a “financial aid kid” from Yale.  I have a lifelong appreciation of alumni & philanthropists who have supported financial aid across generations.)

#8   Yung Wing (BA 1854) letter, 1851 Jun 25, to Albert Booth (BA 1850).  Yung Wing was the first Chinese citizen to receive a degree from an American College.  RU 1081. (*** This document is mesmerizing in every detail.  Yung Wing writes about “the many disadvantages in which I labor.”)

#9   Yung Wing’s senior class autograph album.  Yb71 854y. Donated by Mrs. Violet Chan, 1955. Henry L. Hubbell’s album with engravings and autographs.  Yb71 854hu. Donated by Charles H. Small (B. Div. 1885).

#10 Heman Potter Babcock letter, 1860 Jan 22, to Tracy Peck, Jr. (BA 1861) with a hand-drawn Skull and Bones symbol.  RU 1081. (** Babcock had left Yale and was writing to Peck, then a junior, a few months before Peck was tapped for Skull & Bones).

#11 John Jacob Edic (BA1864) letter, 1861 Feb 2, to his brother.  Makes a brief mention of secession by Georgia.  RU 1081. (** Thomas Carolin Clay (1841-1897) is the student who left Yale.  He enlisted as a Private in the Liberty Independent Troop in 1862, which became part of Company G, 5th GA Regt. of Cavalry.  This letter is also quoted in a Yale senior essay which includes many more details of Clay’s life.  I forgot to mention that we were standing in Yale’s Sterling Library, named for Yale’s greatest philanthropist John W. Sterling & Clay’s classmate in the Yale Class of 1864.).

#12 Bound volume with a series of letters about Skull and Bones, Delegation of 1874.  RU 1081. (** My biggest regret from donating historical documents to Yale!  I wish I had kept for many more years and researched each item more thoroughly.  The letters include “Yours in 322 … Temple Fund … Bones,” and many key details of Skull & Bones history).

#13 William Howard Taft (BA 1878) letter, 1898 Dec 18, to Frederick B. Percy (BA 1877). RU 1081.  (The future 27th US President, then writing on US Court of Appeals stationery, laments being unable to attend a Yale alumni gathering in Boston.  Taft writes, “I do not doubt that night under the eaves of her ancient evening, Yale’s spirit burns brightly in the breasts of her sons …”  This handwritten letter is signed, “Yours in the Bones,” a detail missed by the auction house).

#14 Edward A. Bouchet (BA 1874) postcard, 1911 Aug 8, to James F. Alston.  RU 1081. For years Bouchet was recognized as the first African American to graduate from Yale College.  In 2014 evidence was found that Richard Henry Green was likely the first African American to graduate from Yale in 1857.  Bouchet remains the first African American to receive a Doctor of Philosophy degree from an American university—Yale—in 1876; he studied physics.  An online finding aid for Green’s papers is here. (** I remember this as one of the first Yale-related historical documents I ever purchased).

#15 Class of 1911 Scroll and Key photograph album.  RU 1081. (** From 1860 to 2020, there are about 160 delegations with photo albums.  With an estimated inventory of 2000 – 2400 volumes per society (160 x 15 = 2400 for Bones & Keys, and 130 x 15 = 1950 for Wolf’s Head), the Yale Library owns less than 30 for Bones, less than 20 for Keys, and 2-3 for Wolf’s Head (the rest are in Egypt).  Stay tuned.)

#16 Second piano parts composed by Reuven Kosakoff (non-graduate of the Yale School of Music), for works by Chopin, Heller, Mozart, Beethoven, Grieg, Gurlett, Schumann, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Burgmüller.  MSS 130. (Kosakoff items were included in the Yale Gilmore Music Library’s recent exhibit, Musical Roots of the Elm City. Kosakoff’s papers are at the Klau Library, Hebrew Union College.)

#17 Composite photograph of members of the Yale College Class of 1910.  Henry Roe Cloud, first Native American to graduate from Yale College is in the center row, first photograph on the left.  MS 2008.  

#18 Typescript, 1915, of Cloud’s “From Wigwam to Pulpit:  A Red Man’s Own Story of His Progress from Dark to Light.”  MS 2008. See also Roe family papers at Manuscripts and Archives. (** This essay defined Cloud for generations. His 1950 NY Times obituary paraphrases the 1915 essay’s first sentence, “Dr. Henry Roe Cloud, a Yale graduate of 1910, who was born in a wigwam on the banks of the Missouri River …”  There is a Yale senior essay waiting to be told just from this manuscript.).

#19 Henry Roe Cloud letter, 1938 Feb 14, to “My dear Marion”, likely his daughter Elizabeth Marion.  MS 2008. (** See also a Yale Manuscripts & Archives blog post on this remarkable letter: Party Diplomacy: The Ravi D. Goel Collection on Henry Roe Cloud.  Cloud writes in detail about his travels in the snow to a lavish embassy party hosted by his Yale 1910 classmate Wang Zhengting, Chinese Ambassador to the US.  Of note is that the Yale 1910 class includes Robert A. Taft, who may have been instrumental in Cloud’s leading a Winnebago delegation meeting with 27th President Taft in 1912.  “Taft was a Yale alumnus and his son had been Roe Cloud’s classmate. Roe Cloud’s Yale connections provided him with access to political power and politicians which were not available to reservation Indians.” (Native American Netroots)).

#20 Dean Gooderham Acheson (BA 1915), address, 1962 Mar 31, “Real and Imagined Handicaps of Our Democracy in the Conduct of Its Foreign Relations.”  MS 2008. See also Dean Acheson’s papers at Manuscripts and Archives.

#21 Class of 1966 Skull and Bones photograph album.  Personal copy of Richard Warren Pershing (BA 1966), grandson of General John Joseph “Black Jack” Pershing.  Yeg2 R9x 1966 Oversize. (** See also my blog post on this item: Richard Warren Pershing.  A New York Times 2004 article explored in detail fellow Bonesman & then US Presidential candidate John Kerry’s reaction and struggles with his best friend’s (“Persh”) death.  History will judge this to be among the rarest Skull & Bones albums ever to come to private hands.  The only one I’m aware of to include a US Presidential candidate’s Bones photo in the public domain.  Through a FOIA request, a curator was unable to locate 27th President Taft’s album at the Library of Congress or in US Government holdings …  the search continues.).

Online resources:

1. Ravi D. Goel Collection on Yale (RU 1081), Manuscripts and Archives.
2. Ravi D. Goel collection on Henry Roe Cloud (MS 2008), Manuscripts and Archives. (See also my blog post of Yale’s 1st Native American graduate)
3. Ravi Goel Collection of Reuven Kosakoff (MSS 130), Irving S. Gilmore Music Library.
4. Ravi D. Goel collection of Frederic Taber Cooper, 1890-1913 (MSS 1132), Beinecke Library.  (See also my blog post on Frank Norris’ The Octopus manuscript leaf).

I recently donated a collection of documents related to American editor, literary critic and author Frederic Taber Cooper (1864-1937) to Yale’s Beinecke Library.  Cooper (Harvard AB and Columbia LLB, AM, PhD), was an associate professor of Latin and Sanskrit at New York University (1895-1902). He was also an editor of The New York Commercial Advertiser (1898-1904), The New York Globe, and The Forum (1907-1909). His NY Times obituary states, “It was while Dr. Cooper was editor of The Forum that it began to take a leading position in literature and changed from a quarterly to a monthly publication.”

Cooper profiles Frank Norris among fourteen distinguished writers in Some American Story Tellers (1911). In the preface, Cooper writes, “The late Frank Norris once wrote that in every child a story teller was born, but that the vast majority died soon after birth.”  Cooper features Norris as a novelist among a group who possess “the gift that makes them next of kin to the minstrel and troubadour, to the ancient fabulist, and to the forgotten spinner of the world’s first nursery tales, – the gift of holding the attention by the spell of the spoken word.” 

During the collection’s appraisal process, the appraiser discovered an unsigned document which he described as “Believed Frank Norris” manuscript related to his work, The Octopus.  He writes, “A highly important literary discovery: fascinating manuscript working draft from Norris’ epic The Octopus: A California Story, from Cooper’s files. Oversize sheet 10-1/4 x 15-3/4, with corrections also in Norris’ hand. Norris died the year after publication, at just 32, from a ruptured appendix. A major work in the annals of Western Americana and turn-of-century literature, here dealing with American free trade, and iron and steel tariffs!”

The Beinecke Library displayed three Frederic Taber Cooper items during my 25th reunion weekend. The label states, “an uncredited manuscript that may be a draft fragment of Frank Norris’s acclaimed 1901 novel The Octopus.” 

The display also included “surly” letters between Frederic Taber Cooper and then-future Pulitzer prize winner Conrad Richter.  

After the donation, I hired an independent researcher, Juliet Demeter, to photograph The Octopus related items at the UC Berkeley Bancroft Library (Frank Norris Collection of Papers and Related Materials).  

I am most excited to share the images below.  The Frank Norris manuscript leaf at the Beinecke Library appears authentic when compared to the known manuscript leaves at the Bancroft Library.

Infact, based on the Bancroft descriptions (leaf numbers 190, 213, 7), the document I donated to the Beinecke Library may well be leaf number 117.  (See the number notations in red ink in the upper right hand corner.)

Below is an image of a known manuscript fragment, which has a representative Bancroft Library stamp and leaf number “190” in upper right corner (Gift of Dr. Frank Norris, 1969).

Bancroft Library manuscript leaves 190 and 213 alongside Beinecke Library leaf 117.

The Bancroft Library collection includes negatives of The Octopus manuscript fragments from the Bohemian Club (San Francisco) and New York Public Library (leaf numbers not identified).  

I hope to get color images of the Bohemian Club and New York Public Library manuscript fragments for comparison in this most extraordinary inventory. (Also, Frank Norris was a member of the Bohemian!)  

In addition, I exchanged emails with leaders of the Frank Norris Society.  Frank Norris Society President Eric Link replied, “This is potentially a very exciting discovery, indeed.”

I hope that Frank Norris scholars will study & share insights into this fragment leaf.

Relevant links:

1. Ravi D. Goel Collection of Frederic Taber Cooper. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. 
2. Frank Norris collection of papers and related materials, BANC MSS C-H 80, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
3. Finding aids for my collections at the Yale Library and Amherst College Library.

I purchased a copy of the Yale secret society Skull & Bones Class of 1966 photo album in December 2011.  This is one of those iconic Bones’ classes whose members include US Secretary of State John Kerry ’66, Fedex founder Fred Smith ’66, and many prominent Yale graduates.

My album came from the estate of Richard Warren Pershing ’66, who died in February 1968 during the Vietnam War.  Pershing was then a 25 year old grandson of World War I General John Pershing.  Richard Warren Pershing, along with his brother John Warren Pershing III, are buried in Section 34 of Arlington National Cemetery near their grandfather along Pershing Drive.  Upon Richard Warren Pershing’s death, the album became the property of John Warren Pershing III (died 1999).

I shared this find with a Skull & Bones member and friend.  He responded, “Unbelievable!  This one is iconic.  Good for you for saving it.  I didn’t know Dick, but his portrait was up in our building by the time my senior year started.”

A New York Times 2004 article explored in detail then US Presidential candidate John Kerry’s reaction and struggles with his best friend Pershing’s death which influenced Kerry’s rise in politics.

I timed my gift to coincide with the Class of 1966 50th reunion and the conclusion of Secretary Kerry’s tenure at Department of State.  When I emailed the Yale Library in April 2016, I asked that the item have restricted access until five years after Kerry was out of office.  The Yale Library was hesitant to honor this request, and the timing at the conclusion of the Obama administration allowed the item to be donated and made available soon after the next presidential administration had begun.  

I mentioned the book and provenance in a chance encounter with Secretary Kerry at President Salovey’s reception before the 2015 Harvard-Yale Game.  He was most intrigued (startled really, “You’re kidding!”) by this information and we spoke briefly about Pershing and Pershing’s brother.  Clearly, his security detail was not as excited about our conversation as I was!

 

Original seller’s description: “Up for auction is an extremely rare Yale 1966 Skull & Bones yearbook in very good condition. One small smudge on the “1966” on the cover (see first photo), might be able to clean?  Only 16 photographs of members mounted on thick cardboard pages.  20 pages in all, no text. This edition belonged to the late Richard Pershing, I salvaged it from his late brothers estate. I purposely did not post the photo’s of the individuals.” (With the exception of Pershing’s photo, I also have refrained from posting other members’ photos online)

Provenance (from seller to me in email dated December 16, 2011): “This 1966 Yale Skull and Bones book was salvaged by me from the estate of the late John Pershing, brother of Richard Pershing.  I had the pleasure of knowing John Pershing before his death in 1999 and was recently charged with disposing some of his stored books at my discretion.  There is not much more I can tell you about this item, neither John or Richard Pershing had any children and without my intervention this copy was destined for destruction.”

The Yale Skull & Bones Class of 1966 includes successful politicians, businessmen, physicians, educators and collectors which can be found through other links.

The album will be added to three sets of documents at Yale’s Manuscripts and Archives and become part of the “Ravi D. Goel Collection on Yale” (2008, 2011, 2012). (As of August 2017, with Yale Manuscripts & Archives undergoing renovation, the 1966 Skull & Bones album has still not been accessioned in the database online)  In November 2016, the 2008, 2011 and 2012 documents were added to the Yale Digital Collections. They include a scrapbook of 100+ letters among members of the Skull & Bones Delegation of 1874. Also included is letter written by then US Appeals Court judge & future 27th President of the United States William H. Taft (1878) signed “Yours in the Bones.”  There is also a “Ravi Goel collection of Reuven Kosakoff” at Yale’s Irving S. Gilmore Music Library (2013).  In addition, “The Ravi D. Goel collection on Henry Roe Cloud” of Yale’s 1st known Native American was donated to Yale’s Manuscripts and Archives in 2014.

Some of these items are referenced in Kipling collector, Yale Library Development Council vice-chair, and Skull & Bones Trustee David Richards ’67 upcoming book, “Skulls & Keys: The Hidden History of Yale’s Secret Societies.“Richards is reported in a June 19, 2000 NY Times article as the outgoing senior who tapped 43rd U.S. President George W. Bush ’68 for Skull & Bones.  His extraordinarily well written and researched 800 page book will soon become the starting point for future generations interested in Yale history.