Raymond Macdonald Alden papers, 1891-1924

Printable guide [HTML]
Request items

Summary

Creators:
Alden, Raymond Macdonald, 1873-1924
Abstract:
Includes personal correspondence, speeches, essays, articles, lectures, notes, manuscripts, manuscript materials for some of Alden's works, and 34 pocket journals (1891-1924). Correspondents include James and Parker Hall, Cheesman A. Herrick, Frank Hill, Will David Howe, William Jaggard, Edmund James, Harry Stuart Veddar Jones, W. A. Neilson, A. G. Newcomer, S. A. Tannenbaum, Ashley H. Thorndike, and Henry Van Dyke.
Extent:
5.5 Linear Feet
Language:
English .
Preferred citation:

[identification of item] Raymond Macdonald Alden Papers (SC0134). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.

Background

Scope and content:

Raymond Macdonald Alden (1873-1924) was an Assistant and later Associate Professor of English at Stanford from 1901 to 1911. He returned to Stanford as a full Professor and as department chairperson in 1915, maintaining this position until his death.

This collection contains a relatively small portion of Alden's personal and professional papers. There are four boxes of incoming correspondence (with a few copies of outgoing letters interfiled), most of which came from English teachers with whom Alden was acquainted at other institutions. There are four boxes of manuscripts and manuscript materials for some of Alden's minor works: essays, articles, lectures, notes for lectures, speeches (including the valedictory address that Alden delivered at the University of Pennsylvania commencement of 1894), several poems, and a number of short stories (including all of those from the collection The Ends of the Earth, publication unknown).

In addition, the collection contains thirty-four pocket journals in which Alden chronicled the days of the years 1891 through 1924. These diaries note weather conditions, general activities, reading done and writing completed. There are also brief comments on major historical events (San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, outbreak of World War I, etc.), although the journals' purpose appears to have been primarily one of objectively recording factual data.

This collection also contains 5 issues of the Carbondale Firefly, a privately printed and distributed journal which Alden produced in his childhood.

Biographical / historical:

R.M. Alden, born in New Hartford, New York in 1873, was the only child of the Reverend Gustavus R. Alden and Isabella Macdonald Alden (editor of a juvenile publication and author of numerous Sunday school books and fiction for adult readers). He began his college career at Rollins College in Florida, a school which would award him an honorary doctorate in 1910. Alden eventually completed his A.B. in English at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1894.

Alden earned his A.M. from Harvard (1896) and finished his Ph.D. at Penn (1898). During his student and immediately post-doctoral years, he was an instructor at Columbian (now George Washington) University, an assistant at Harvard, and a Senior Fellow-instructor at Penn. He came to Stanford in 1901 as Assistant Professor of English and Rhetoric. Promoted to Associate Professor in 1909, Alden left for the University of Illinois in 1911, having been offered a full professorship and the chairmanship of the Illinois English Department. He retraced his steps four years later when Stanford offered him a duplicate situation. Alden continued as chairman at Stanford until his death in 1924.

Alden's major professional works include: The Rise of Formal Satire in England (1899), The Art of Debate (1900), On Seeing an Elizabethan Play (1903), English Verse (1903), An Introduction to Poetry (1909), Tennyson--How to Know Him (1917), Shakespeare (Master Spirits of Literature Series, 1917).

In addition, Alden served as editor for numerous editions of Shakespeare (Julius Caesar and Sonnets) and other authors, as well as for several anthologies of essays, poems, and other readings. He was a frequent contributor to professional journals and publications.

Alden also achieved a certain amount of recognition as a writer of fiction and poetry. His Knights of the Silver Shield (1906), Why the Chimes Rang (1909), and The Boy Who Found the King (1922) were joined on the verse side by Consolatio--an Ode. A short story won third prize ($1,000) in the Collier's contest of 1905.

Alden served as President of the Drama League of America from its founding in 1914 until his death in 1924. He was also a member of the Modern Language Association, American Philological Association, American Association of University Professors, Phi Beta Kappa, and Beta Theta Pi.

Married to Barbara G. Hitt in 1904, Alden had a daughter and four sons. He was active in the Palo Alto Presbyterian Church.

[Information obtained from the Who Was Who in America, Vol I, 1897-1942, and from the Stanford Illustrated Review, October 1924.]

Acquisition information:
Gift of Donald H. Alden, 1975, 1985.
Physical location:
Special Collections and University Archives materials are stored offsite and must be paged 48 hours in advance. For more information on paging collections, see the department's website: https://library.stanford.edu/libraries/special-collections.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Materials are open for research use. Audio-visual materials are not available in original format and must be reformatted to a digital use copy.

Terms of access:

While University Archives is the owner of the physical and/or digital items, permission to examine collection materials is not an authorization to publish. These materials are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. Any transmission or reproduction beyond that allowed by fair use requires permission from the owners of rights, heir(s) or assigns.

Preferred citation:

[identification of item] Raymond Macdonald Alden Papers (SC0134). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.

Location of this collection:
Stanford University Archives, Green Library
557 Escondido Mall
Stanford, CA 94305-6064, US
Contact:
(650) 725-1022
specialcollections@stanford.edu
Website