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Huntington Cairns

A Register of His Papers in the Library of Congress

Prepared by Grover Batts and David Mathiesen
Revised and expanded by Margaret McAleer with the assistance of Kathleen A. Kelly and Sherralyn McCoy

Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

Washington, D.C.

1993

Contact information: http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/mss/address.html

Finding aid encoded by Library of Congress Manuscript Division, 2001

Finding aid URL: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms001024

Latest revision: 2006 November

Table of Contents

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

Names:

Subjects:

Occupations:

Administrative Information

Provenance:

Processing History:

Transfers:

Copyright Status:

Preferred Citation:

Biographical Note

Scope and Content Note

Organization of the Papers

Container List

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Library's online catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically therein.

Names:

Subjects:

Occupations:

Administrative Information

Provenance:

The papers of Huntington Cairns, lawyer and author, were deposited in the Library of Congress by Cairns in 1964 and converted to a gift by him in 1967. Several additions were received between 1965-1991.

Processing History:

The papers received by the Library between 1964-1977 were processed and described in 1966 and revised in 1983. This register describes these earlier accessions as well as additions to the papers received between 1985-1991. Additional changes were made to the finding aid in 2006 to reflect changes in the housing of oversize material.

Transfers:

Items have been transferred from the Manuscript Division to other custodial divisions of the Library. Photographs have been transferred to the Prints and Photographs Division. Audio recordings have been transferred to the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division. All transfers are identified in these divisions as part of the Huntington Cairns Papers.

Copyright Status:

Copyright in the unpublished writings of Huntington Cairns in these papers and in other collections of papers in the custody of the Library of Congress has been dedicated to the public.

Preferred Citation:

Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container number, Huntington Cairns Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Biographical Note

Scope and Content Note

The papers of Huntington Cairns (1904-1985) span the years 1780-1984, with the bulk of material dating from 1925 to 1984. The papers concern Cairns's contributions to the fields of law, art, philosophy, literature, and criticism through his professional associations, writings, and friendships with prominent writers and scholars. The papers are arranged and described in two parts based on their acquisition by the Library. Part I consists of material received by the Library between 1964 and 1977. Part II comprises material accessioned by the Library between 1985 and 1991.

Cairns was born in 1904 in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of James Cairns, a Scottish immigrant and Baltimore businessman, and Helen Heath Cairns. After graduating from Baltimore City College in 1922, Cairns entered the University of Maryland Law School where he received a law degree in 1925. Cairns joined the Baltimore law firm of Piper, Carey, and Hall, becoming partner in 1933. While maintaining his law practice, Cairns wrote prolifically on various legal, philosophical, and literary topics. Before his death in 1985, Cairns published over a dozen books and innumerable articles and book reviews. Through his writings and to some extent through his legal career and board memberships, Cairns enjoyed close friendships with many of the century's major literary figures. These include H. L. Mencken, V. F. Calverton, Henry Miller, Ezra Pound, Edith Hamilton, Robert Frost, Herbert Edward Read, and Joseph Hergesheimer.

In 1934, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau appointed Cairns special legal adviser on censorship. As federal censor assigned to the United States Customs Bureau, Cairns wrote opinions based on Section 305 of the 1930 Tariff Act banning the importation of material deemed obscene, treasonous, or advocating contraceptive practices. Cairns's appointment followed soon after the department's attempt to bar the importation of James Joyce's Ulysses. Cairns's professional and literary expertise helped to quiet public outcry over the Ulysses action. Cairns served as federal censor in a part-time capacity from 1934 to 1937 and again from 1943 to 1965. He held the full-time position of assistant general counsel from 1937 to 1943. Cairns left the Treasury Department in 1943 to become secretary-treasurer and general counsel for the newly-created National Gallery of Art. He retired from the gallery in 1965 and moved to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

Part I

Part I of the papers, 1862-1965, is arranged into five series: General Correspondence, James Kern Feibleman File, Subject File, Book and Article File, and Miscellany.

The General Correspondence series covers the years 1925-1964. The letters, both those received and carbon copies of Cairns's replies, are mainly personal in nature and only occasionally relate to his professional life. The exceptions are his correspondence with publishers concerning printing of the numerous volumes written or edited by him, letters relating to his positions with the Customs Bureau, and papers dealing with his work as a member of the Maryland Tax Revision Commission. The subject matter of Cairns's correspondence pertains to the fields in which he was most interested: law, philosophy, and the arts, with particular emphasis on all aspects of literature, both past and present.

Among the correspondents represented by a substantial number of letters are V. F. Calverton, Alexander Eliot, Jerome Frank, Lillian Gish, Edith Hamilton, Joseph Hergesheimer, Ben Dixon MacNeill, Charles Habib Malik, August Mencken, H. L. Mencken, Henry Miller, Ezra Pound, Paul J. Sachs, M. Lincoln Schuster, Allen Tate, Ludwig O. Teach (F. L. Tietsch), H. Neal Wells (Wells Wells, pseud.), and Hessel E. Yntema. The largest exchange of correspondence is with the philosopher James Kern Feibleman and is organized in a separate series.

The Subject File focuses exclusively on Cairns's membership on the Maryland Tax Revision Commission and employment by the Customs Bureau. The commission, established by Governor Herbert R. O'Connor in 1939, studied and made recommendations on taxation and other means of raising revenue. Customs Bureau correspondence and written opinions document the enforcement of censorship regulations and, to a lesser extent, the impact of the 1939 Neutrality Act on customs law.

The Book and Article series contains files on all of Cairns's major speeches and literary works, including books, articles, and book reviews, in various stages of preparation.

The Miscellany series contains collected autographs and documents as well as a large collection of manuscripts written by friends and colleagues, including Ezra Pound.

Part II

Part II of the Cairns papers is organized into six series: Family Papers, General Correspondence, Subject File, Speeches, Writings, and Miscellany.

A collection of family papers contains nineteenth-century correspondence, diaries, and business records of the Heath family, principally of Baltimore. Among the more notable items is a diary kept by F. W. Heath between 1855 and 1873 that records the occupation of Baltimore by Union troops during the Civil War. The series also includes a Connecticut militia roll kept by Stephen Heath in 1816. The papers of Cairns's wife, Florence Bulter Cairns, consist in part of correspondence with her husband dated chiefly between 1941 and 1943, printed matter documenting her opposition to racial integration in the 1950s, and published and unpublished writings, often written under the pseudonym Peter Perry.

The General Correspondence series spans the years 1919-1984, with the bulk of the correspondence dating from 1965. Prominent correspondents not represented in Part I include A. C. Crombie, T. M. Knox, Paul Mellon, Eli Siegel, and John Walker. While almost all of the correspondence consists of letters sent and received by Cairns, this series also includes H. L. Mencken correspondence with Joseph Hergesheimer and Blanche Knopf. The Mencken-Hergesheimer correspondence, dated between 1937 and 1948, contains references to Cairns and was given to Cairns by Hergesheimer. Photocopies of Mencken's correspondence with Blanche Knopf date between 1921 and 1927 and contain lively literary exchanges.

The major portion of the Subject File relates to Cairns's involvement in various foundations, organizations, and universities. The files include material on Cairns's trusteeship of the Bollingen Foundation, Dumbarton Oaks, Folger Library, Textile Museum, and National Home Library Foundation. Cairns's key role in the founding of the Center for Hellenic Studies is well documented through correspondence and notes on meetings with American and European scholars. The Subject File also includes material from the Lectures in Criticism Symposium sponsored by Johns Hopkins University in April 1948. The symposium, moderated by Cairns, included among its participants John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, and Sir Herbert Edward Read. Cairns's research files on H. L. Mencken's life and literary career were generated primarily in the course of writing H. L. Mencken: The American Scene, A Reader (1965) and several articles and lectures. They are also useful in documenting Cairns's friendship with Mencken. The North Carolina files grew out of Cairns's longtime interest and involvement in the state's history, culture, and development. Material related to Cairns's position as secretary-treasurer and general counsel for the National Gallery of Art primarily concerns his retirement from the gallery in 1965.

The Speeches and Writings series contain files on Cairns's major speeches and literary works, including books, articles, and book reviews, in various stages of preparation. The Writings series includes several unpublished manuscripts, including files from Cairns's last work on the Elizabethan Gardens in Roanoke Island, North Carolina. It also includes a large collection of manuscripts written by friends and colleagues, including Joseph Hergesheimer and Eli Siegel.

The Miscellany series contains information on Cairns's awards, honorary degrees, health, and financial activities. Photographs relate to Cairns's social life and travel and Robert Frost, Edith Hamilton, Henry Miller, Dylan Thomas, Saint-John Perse, and V. F. Calverton, among many others. Scrapbooks containing material dated between 1906 and 1982 provide a useful record of Cairns's professional and literary career. The Miscellany series includes collected autographs and documents, among them a legal journal, 1794-1800, kept by Richard Hall Harwood, a member of the Maryland House of Delegates in 1798.

Organization of the Papers

The collection is arranged in two parts composed of twelve series:

• Part I
  • General Correspondence, 1925-1964
  • James Kern Feibleman File, 1938-1964
  • Subject File, ca. 1931-1944.
  • Book and Article File, ca. 1926-1965
  • Miscellany, 1862-1964, n.d.
• Part II
  • Family Papers, 1816-1984, n.d.
  • General Correspondence, 1919-1984, n.d.
  • Subject File, 1920-1984, n.d.
  • Speeches, 1933-1973, n.d.
  • Writings, 1905-1984, n.d.
  • Miscellany, 1780-1984, n.d.
  • Oversize, 1816-1977, n.d.

Container List