The papers consist of correspondence, writings, memorabilia, newsclippings, a diary, manuscript writings, including his unpublished autobiography, “The Devil and I”; and records of the N.Y.S.S.V., including reports of the Executive Secretary, 1915-1950, annual reports and yearbooks, lists of books, customs information exchange, records of actions taken against books, and miscellaneous papers.
The collection is arranged in three groups: Sumner's personal papers, with the correspondence filed chronologically; papers relating to the N.Y.S.S.V., including a reference file; and newsclippings.
The correspondence is highly fragmentary. Additional letters are on file at the Library of Congress along with a substantial quantity of the early records of the N.Y.S.S.V. However, a significant portion of the Society's papers and correspondence, including that of Sumner, were destroyed, according to the Haggerty-Sumner correspondence of March 28 and February 28, 1951.
Many of the letters and draft manuscripts are in Sumner's long hand and were written when he was in his seventies. They are increasingly hard to read with his increasing age. Many of the early letters document the Society's efforts to solicit members for its founders committee, which included Sumner's predecessor, Anthony Comstock, and J. Peirpont Morgan. The Society tried to secure the cooperation of book publishers in fighting smut. The responses of the publishers indicate their attitudes toward so-called clean books and censorship in general. Also included in the early correspondence are congratulatory letters written to Sumner on his appointment as executive secretary, examples of his numerous letters to the editors of the local press, examples of his occasional letters to various congressmen, letters to Sumner from servicemen he had met in France, and the reports of acting secretary Cleveland F. Pratt, sent to Sumner while he was in France in 1918. The reports are masterpieces of detail on the daily work of the Society and include information on such things as the war and the influenza epidemic of 1918. The later correspondence is devoted almost entirely to the efforts made to complete and publish Sumner's autobiography.
The picture of the Society that emerges from the correspondence is also fragmentary. There is only a glimpse of the Society in action at its full blown best during the teen years and the twenties and thirties. The fullest and most continuous view of the Society is, of course, contained in the Executive Secretary Reports, 1915 to 1950, but they are, as one would expect, summarizations. Also, a more complete set is available in the Library of Congress.
Most strongly documented in these papers is John Saxton Sumner. Herein lies the collection's and especially the correspondence's unique contribution. A picture of Sumner emerges, his dedication, his quiet manner, his attitudes. We see him most clearly as an old man, in the twilight of his life, trying unsuccessfully to publish his memoirs, watching time pass him by, watching the moral code he fought so hard to uphold decreasing in its adherents, and watching the attitude of the N.Y.S.S.V. change until it was, for all intents and purposes, dead as an active agent against vice. Attesting to all of this is the Haggerty-Sumner correspondence, which also documents Sumner's vast knowledge of the Society's workings and physical holdings--from real estate to stamps--apparently so vast and exclusive that his successors were forced to write him again and again to ask for needed information.
Sumner's memorabilia consists of membership lists of organizations of which he was a member, stock certificates, an employment contract for his work in France in 1918, an academic certificate from 1895, and a photograph of Sumner. The records of the N.Y.S.S.V. relate to Sumner's service as Executive Secretary and document his attitude toward activities in the Society and its more well known cases. The reference file of the Society includes brochures, articles, and publications relating to the Society's work and to the agencies which cooperated with it.
