archives.nypl.org -- William B. Osgood Field papers (original) (raw)

The William B. Osgood Field Papers consist of family, personal, and office correspondence; financial documents; diaries; genealogical records; school and college memorabilia; photographs; and ephemera which record his and his family's commercial, philanthropic, and social activities, chiefly between 1897 and 1934. While the bulk of the collection consists of William B. Osgood Field's papers, other family members are well represented, especially his wife, mother, sister, uncle Osgood, and daughter Marjorie.

The collection is arranged so that William B. Osgood Field's papers come first, followed by the papers of other family members, in alphabetical order.

Some materials are in German, French, and Italian.

The William B. Osgood Field papers are arranged in twenty-one series:

• 1753-1949, n.d.
  123 boxes
  Series I is divided into seven subseries: Subseries A includes Field's general correspondence; Subseries B includes materials relating to his collecting interests, including correspondence with art and book dealers, invoices, and inventories of his collections; Subseries C includes materials relating to his genealogical research; Subseries D contains materials pertaining to the New Theatre; Subseries E relates to his position as treasurer of the Sloane Hospital for Women; Subseries F. contains records of the Trinity School (Lenox, Mass.) of which Field was a founder and trustee; Subseries G contains financial and legal documents, including bank and investment account documents, real estate records, and invoices; and Subseries H contains personal miscellany such as diaries, passports, driver's licenses, and education materials.
• 1929-1933
  3 folders
• 1862-1919, n.d.
  23 boxes
• 1929-1933, n.d.
  4 folders
• 1929-1933
  1 folder
  Erika Segnitz Field was William B. Osgood Field's second wife. They met in 1929 in Germany through Field's son, Frederick. They married in 1936 and were divorced in 1940. The folder contains personal letters she received.
• 1907-1947, n.d.
  4 boxes
• 1884-1907
  1 folder
  Personal letters to Hickson W. Field, Osgood Field's nephew, son of his brother Maunsell B. Field.
• 1870-1901, n.d.
  1 box
• 1889-1938, n.d.
  48 boxes
• 1939-1952, n.d.
  5 boxes
• 1868-1946, n.d.
  27 boxes
• 1739-1900, n.d.
  14.5 boxes
• 1851-1888, n.d.
  1 box
• 1907-1947, n.d.
  3 boxes
• 1931-1934
  2 folders
• 1915-1947, n.d.
  2 boxes
• 1889-1918
  2 folders
• 1933-1942
  4 folders
• 1915-1947, n.d.
  19 boxes
• 1861, 1884, 1893, 1900, 1909, 1926, 1934, n.d.
  Includes letters from individuals not represented elsewhere in the collection, including Jerusha Field to a nephew (1861), Richard Bickerton Pemell Lyons, Earl Lyons to Mrs. Mounsey (1884), Mary Elizabeth Bradhurst Field to her daughter, Elizabeth Field Brancaccio (1893), Rudolff Fenisch to Mme. de Talleyrand (1900), William Francklyn Paris to Leopold Stokowski (1909), L.B. Howden to Thomas F. Davies (1926), D. Lewis to Mrs. H.M. Alexander (1934), and Eleanor Pell Phelps to Fannie Bradhurst Field (undated).
• 1862-1945
  Includes photographs of William B. Osgood Field and members of his immediate and extended family; camping, hunting, and fishing trips in Canada; photographs of High Lawn and Westfield Farm, and Field's World War I residence in Washington, D.C. There are also photographs from Field's travels in Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s which include Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden, Bad Nauheim, and Bad Homburg.