Title: Guy Emerson Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1916-1950

Creator:

• Emerson, Guy, 1886-1969

Call Number: Mss 965; PH Mss 965

Quantity: 1.6 c.f (1 record center carton and 2 archives boxes) and photographs

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

Abstract:

Brief papers of Emerson, a New York banker and philanthropist, primarily documenting his public relations activities in support of Theodore Roosevelt's Non-Partisan League Presidential campaign in 1916 and his work as secretary of the Emergency Employment Relief Committee of New York City in 1930-1931, and other civic interests. Included are correspondence with Theodore Roosevelt and others, clippings, press releases, and literature. Also included is a transcript of congressional testimony concerning his fundraising in behalf of Calvin Coolidge in 1924. In addition there are publicity materials about the 1922 convention of the American Bankers Association; the Association of Reserve City Bankers of which he was president, 1930-1931; the World War I Liberty Loan campaign of which he was the secretary; and the American Red Cross, 1948-1950. A small amount of material touches on Emerson's activities as a trustee of the Kress Foundation. His interest in conservation is documented by an account of a 1936 birding expedition in California with Roger Tory Peterson. A small number of photographs relate to the Roosevelt Non-Partisan League. Additional photographs bound with the papers document the Emergency Unemployment Committee.

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00965

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Guy Emerson was born in 1886 and grew up in Boston and New York City. He graduated from Harvard University in 1908 and received his law degree from Harvard in 1911. He worked at the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C. from 1911 to 1913, and was briefly in business in Dallas, Texas from 1913 to 1914. In 1914 he became the associate editor of the Economic World magazine in New York, a publication of the National Bank of Commerce and a prototype for the modern business magazine. The magazine focused on providing factual and statistical information rather than mere opinion and innuendo. In 1916 Emerson became a leader in the Roosevelt Non-Partisan League and its unsuccessful attempt to secure the Republican Presidential nomination for Theodore Roosevelt.

In 1916 Emerson became a vice-president of the National Bank of Commerce. In 1923 he became a vice-president of the Bankers Trust Co., a post he held until 1947 when he retired to devote his time to philanthropic pursuits. Emerson was the publicity director of the Liberty Loan Committee of the Second Federal Reserve District from 1917 to 1919, which raised almost one-third of the total ($22 billion) in Liberty Bond sales nationwide. To do this Emerson utilized publicity stunts such as displaying a German submarine and a British tank in Central Park. The New York Times said of his World War I publicity work: “Until the Liberty Loan campaigns, the sale of bonds was considered strictly a banking and financial field. Largely through publicity, this opinion was effaced, and an organization was created which moulded public opinion along entirely different lines. It was this organization which Mr. Emerson helped to bring into being, and to mould into the most efficient bonding-selling corps in the history of finance.”

In 1924 Emerson raised almost $4 million for the 1924 Calvin Coolidge campaign at a reported cost of only $7000. In 1930 he was a key member of the Emergency Employment Committee, a business group that raised money to provide jobs to heads of households, a forerunner of the New Deal. From 1940 to 1944 Emerson was the president of the National Audubon Society. During World War II he was again active in selling war bonds. He was also active in publicity and fund-raising for the American Red Cross during the war and again from 1948 to 1950. Emerson was the art director of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation from 1950 to 1961, and as such he oversaw the dispersal of the Kress Collection to the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum in New York and a number of regional art museums.

Emerson married the former Margaret Cotton Smith in 1913, with President William Howard Taft in attendance. He was divorced in 1934 and married his second wife, the former Ruth Van Cleve that same year. His widow survived him when he died in 1969.

Guy Emerson had a very active business and philanthropic life, but the collection documents only a few of his accomplishments, primarily the Roosevelt Non-Partisan League, the American Red Cross and the Emergency Employment Committee of New York City. A substantial part of the collection is of a commemorative nature and it consists of bound scrapbooks that Emerson prepared about various activities. The collection is organized as personal papers and public papers, with the latter further subdivided into political, banking, and philanthropic sections. In addition to the brief papers at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, there is an oral history of Guy Emerson at Columbia University.

The collection contains the beginning of an incomplete autobiography that covers his life through 1908 and photocopies of news clippings documenting his early career, his first marriage, and his appointment as the youngest bank vice-president in New York City. Also included is a scrapbook about publicity for The New Frontier, a book he wrote about Americanism in 1920, which contains some correspondence with Herbert Hoover.

The Political Papers section primarily documents Emerson's support for the unsuccessful Presidential candidacy of Theodore Roosevelt in 1916. Included is a bound scrapbook containing a lengthy personal recollection, clippings and many political cartoons, numerous examples of campaign literature, and correspondence. The correspondences includes several letters to and from Roosevelt and one from William Howard Taft in which he briefly declined to support Roosevelt. There are a few photographs documenting the Non-Partisan League, including one of Emerson with Roosevelt at an unidentified event. Also important is a transcript of Emerson's testimony about his successful fundraising for President Calvin Coolidge in 1924. Here the issue was not the amount raised by Emerson, but the small cost of the fundraising effort.

Emerson's banking activities are documented by a large scrapbook about the 1922 American Bankers Association convention which Emerson organized, a special illustrated guidebook to New York published for the convention, and a second large scrapbook documenting his tenure as president of the Association of Reserve City Bankers, 1930-1931.

The largest part of the collection documents Emerson's efforts to publicize philanthropic causes. Although it is perhaps the effort for which he was best known, the collection has only a small amount of material on publicity for the World War I Liberty Loan effort: a printed report of the Publicity Committee for the loan of 1917 and a souvenir program presented to him in 1918 by the Liberty Loan Publicity Bureau managers. This program includes several watercolor sketches of Emerson's activities. Two large scrapbooks document Emerson's work as secretary of the Emergency Employment Committee of New York City, which raised money from the business community to provide jobs at $3.00 per day for heads of households. This forerunner of the New Deal is extensively documented. Included is a telegram from President Herbert Hoover praising the efforts of the Committee, a printed report, a preliminary report prepared by the John Price Jones Co., many press releases, examples of literature issued to attract subscribers, newspaper clippings, and photographs. The photographs include a group portrait of Alfred E. Smith and other committee leaders, one picture of an unidentified public fundraising event, views of committee billboards posted throughout the city, and numerous snapshots of men working on public works projects in city parks.

The collection also includes material documenting Emerson's activities for the American Red Cross from 1948 to 1950, including information about speaking engagements and a controversy within the American Red Cross about accepting money from mutual fundraising sources such as the United Way. There is also a small amount of material on Emerson's activities with the Community Service Society of New York, the Kress Foundation, and Smith College.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Mrs. Guy Emerson, West Tisbury, Mass., June 15, 1972. Accession Number: MCHC72-067

Processing Information

Processed by Jonathan Nelson and Carolyn J. Mattern, 2001.

Mss 965	Personal Papers
Box   1 Folder   1	Autobiography, early years, 1886-1908
Box   1 Folder   2	News clippings, early career, circa 1916
Box   1 Folder   3	Birding, 1936-1949
Box   1 Folder   4	New Frontier (book) publicity, 1920
Box   1 Folder   5	Miscellany, 1948
	Public Papers
	Political
Box   1 Folder   6	Roosevelt Non-Partisan League, 1916
Box   1 Folder   7	Senate testimony, Coolidge campaign finance, 1924
	Banking
Box   1 Folder   8-9	American Bankers convention, New York, 1922
Box   1 Folder   10	Association of Reserve City Bankers, 1930-1931
	Philanthropy
	Liberty Loan Committee
Box   1 Folder   11	Publicity report, 1917
Box   1 Folder   12	Publicity managers dinner, 1918
Box   1 Folder   13	Correspondence, 1919
Box   1 Folder   14	Emergency Employment Committee, 1930
Box   2 Folder   1	Emergency Employment Committee, 1930, continued
Box   2 Folder   2	John Price Jones Co./Philanthropy, 1946-1949
	American Red Cross
Box   2 Folder   3	1948-1949
Box   3 Folder   1	1950
Box   3 Folder   2	Community Service Society, 1949
Box   3 Folder   3	Kress Foundation, Emerson tribute, 1962
Box   3 Folder   4	Smith College, 1946
PH Mss 965	Photographs, 1916, undated