hello

Table of Contents

Summary Information

Biographical Note

Scope and Content Note

Arrangement

Administrative Information

Controlled Access Headings

Collection Inventory

Subseries I: General Letterpress Copybooks

 1881-1919 

Subseries II: Secretary's Letterpress Copybooks

 1891-1919 

Subseries III: Special Letterpress Copybooks

 1893-1923 

Summary Information

Repository

The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives10 East 71st Street
New York, NY, 10021
archives@frick.org
 © 2013 The Frick Collection. All rights reserved.

Creator

Frick, Henry Clay, 1849-1919.

Title

Henry Clay Frick Papers, Series VIII: Letterpress Copybooks

ID

HCFF.1.8

Date [inclusive]

1881-1923

Extent

32.4 Linear feet  (70 volumes)

Abstract

Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919), a Pittsburgh industrialist who made his fortune in coke and steel, was also a prominent art collector. This series consists of volumes containing copies of Frick's outgoing correspondence on matters relating to business and investments, art collecting, political activities, real estate, philanthropy, and personal matters.

Return to Top »

Biographical Note

Henry Clay Frick was born 19 December 1849, in West Overton, Pa. One of six children, his parents were John W. Frick, a farmer, and Elizabeth Overholt Frick, the daughter of a whiskey distiller and flour merchant. Frick ended his formal education in 1866 at the age of seventeen, and began work as a clerk at an uncle's store in Mt. Pleasant, Pa. In 1871, Frick borrowed money to purchase a share in a coking concern that would eventually become the H.C. Frick Coke Co. Over the next decade, Frick expanded his business through the acquisition of more coal lands and coke ovens, and partnered with fellow industrialist Andrew Carnegie in 1882. He assumed the chairmanship of Carnegie Bros. & Co. (later Carnegie Steel Co.) in 1889, and served in that capacity until his resignation from the company in December 1899. During his tenure as chairman, differences between Frick and Carnegie emerged, most significantly in their approach to labor issues. The 1892 Homestead Strike further strained relations between the two men, and in 1899, after Carnegie attempted to buy out Frick's share in the company for a fraction of its value, Frick sued. Frick eventually received a satisfactory price for his shares, but permanently severed his relationship with Carnegie.

In December 1881, Frick married Adelaide Howard Childs of Pittsburgh. The couple purchased a house (called "Clayton") in the Homewood section of Pittsburgh, and had four children: Childs Frick (1883-1965), Martha Howard Frick (1885-1891), Helen Clay Frick (1888-1984), and Henry Clay Frick, Jr. (born 1892; died in infancy). After his break with Carnegie in 1899, Frick began spending less time in Pittsburgh. In 1905, he leased on the Vanderbilt mansion at 640 Fifth Avenue in New York City, and built an elaborate summer residence (christened "Eagle Rock") on Boston's North Shore, which was completed in 1906. Though Frick maintained his status as a Pittsburgh resident for the remainder of his life, he and his family chiefly divided their time between Massachusetts and New York. In 1907, Frick purchased land at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 70th Street in New York City. Construction of the new Frick residence, designed by Thomas Hastings of the firm Carrère and Hastings, began in 1912, after the demolition of the Lenox Library formerly on the site. The family moved into the house at One East 70th Street in the fall of 1914, and Henry Clay Frick died there on 2 December 1919.

Frick showed a lifelong interest in art collecting, acquiring his first painting in 1881, and continuing to add to his collection until just before his death. Little is known about Frick's early experiences with art, but his taste initially favored local Pennsylvania artists, contemporary French painters, and Barbizon landscapes. Around the turn of the century his focus shifted to old master paintings, and he began to collect works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Dyck, and Gainsborough. In the mid-1910s, Frick greatly expanded his collection by acquiring paintings, porcelains, sculpture, enamels, and furnishings from the estate of J.P. Morgan, who had died in 1913. Though Frick acquired paintings from a variety of sources, his primary dealer was M. Knoedler & Co., and two principals of that firm, Charles Carstairs and Roland Knoedler, were friends of Henry Clay Frick in addition to helping him build his collection. Upon his death, Frick bequeathed to the public his New York residence, along with the paintings, furnishings, and decorative objects contained therein. The Frick Collection opened to the public in 1935.

Return to Top »

Scope and Content Note

Items in this series consist of letterpress copybooks containing Henry Clay Frick's outgoing correspondence. Volumes are arranged in three subseries: I. General Letterpress Copybooks, 1881-1919; II. Secretary's Letterpress Copybooks, 1892-1919; and III. Special Letterpress Copybooks, 1893-1923. Letters generally appear in chronological order within each copybook, and document business dealings, investments, art collecting, political activities, taxes, insurance, philanthropy, and personal matters. They give insight into Frick's daily activities, interactions with colleagues and friends, political views, and manner of conducting business. Some correspondents represented in these volumes include Andrew Carnegie, Walton and E.M. Ferguson, Philander Chase Knox, Thomas Lynch, Jay C. Morse, W.R. Stirling, H. McK. Twombly, H. A. Gray, M.S. Quay, Charles S. Carstairs, M. Knoedler & Co., F.J. Osterling, and Daniel H. Burnham.

Subseries I: General Letterpress Copybooks, 1881-1919, is the most comprehensive of the three subseries. These 42 volumes contain a nearly complete run of letters composed by Frick over the period of 1881-1919. Correspondents are indexed alphabetically at the front of each volume. In most volumes, guide numbers noted at the top of each page indicate the page number of the previous and/or next letter addressed to the correspondent at hand. Additional copies of outgoing letters were sometimes filed alongside their incoming counterparts in the Henry Clay Frick Papers, Series II: Correspondence, but this was not done consistently by Frick's office staff, and generally only in later years.

Subseries II: Secretary's Letterpress Copybooks, 1892-1919, contains outgoing letters composed by the secretary in Henry Clay Frick's Pittsburgh office. Frick's New York secretary, Alice Braddell, either did not maintain a copybook for outgoing correspondence, or it does not survive with these papers. Letters contained in these volumes pertain chiefly to insurance, investments, property and tax matters, and bank transactions. An alphabetical index of correspondents can be found at the front of each volume. The earliest items in this subseries (Volumes 1 and 2) were compiled by George Megrew from 1892 to 1895. There is an unexplained gap in these volumes from 1895 to 1900. R.B. Caldwell served as secretary from 1900 until November 1902, after which the position was briefly held by C.H. Hicks. F.W. McElroy took charge of the copybook in December 1902, and served the longest of all of Frick's secretaries. He left Frick's employment in early 1915 and was replaced by C.F. Chubb. During Chubb's service, letters are occasionally signed by assistant secretary W.J. Naughton. The letterpress copybooks in this subseries terminate in early 1919, some months before Frick's death.

Subseries III: Special Letterpress Copybooks, 1893-1923, contains volumes designated for correspondence on specific topics, such as taxes, insurance, art, and the settlement of Henry Clay Frick's estate. The first volume in this subseries, "Financial Matters, etc.," contains routine correspondence on matters relating to taxes, club dues, promissory notes and mortgages, bills, stock and bonds, and insurance. Letters in the "Taxes and Insurance" volumes concern property taxes, water rents, and insurance policies and claims. Letters copied into the "Estate" volumes pertain to taxes, employees, bills paid, stocks, and rental properties, including the Frick Building, Frick Building Annex, and Union Arcade Building.

Special letterpress copybooks can also be found in other series among the Frick Family Papers, including an art letterpress copybook in Henry Clay Frick Papers, Series I: Art Files, and volumes pertaining to the construction and furnishing of Frick's residences in New York and Prides Crossing, Mass., in the One East 70th Street Papers and Eagle Rock Papers, respectively.

Return to Top »

Arrangement

Materials are arranged in three subseries:

I. General Letterpress Copybooks, 1881-1919

II. Secretary's Letterpress Copybooks, 1892-1919

III. Special Letterpress Copybooks, 1893-1923

Return to Top »

Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Volume 1 of the General Letterpress Copybooks is closed due to condition. A digital copy must be used in place of the original. All other records are open for research by appointment under the conditions of The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives Access Policy. For all inquiries or to schedule an appointment, please contact the Archives Department at archives@frick.org.

Provenance

Gift of the Helen Clay Frick Foundation, 2015.

Processing Information

Arranged and described by Julie Ludwig, 2013, with funding from the Helen Clay Frick Foundation.

Return to Top »

Controlled Access Headings

Corporate Name(s)

• M. Knoedler & Co.

Genre(s)

• Correspondence.
• Letterpress copybooks.

Personal Name(s)

• Burnham, Daniel Hudson, 1846-1912.
• Caldwell, R.B.
• Carnegie, Andrew, 1835-1919.
• Carstairs, Charles.
• Chubb, C.F. (Charles F.)
• Ferguson, E.M. (Edmund M.)
• Ferguson, Walton, 1842-1922.
• Frick, Henry Clay, 1849-1919.
• Gray, H.A.
• Knoedler, Roland F., 1856-1932.
• Knox, Philander C. (Philander Chase), 1853-1921.
• Lynch, Thomas, 1854-1914.
• McElroy, F.W. (Frank W.)
• Megrew, George.
• Morse, Jay C., d. 1906.
• Osterling, F. J., 1865-1934.
• Overholt, Karl F., 1877-1938.
• Quay, Matthew Stanley, 1833-1904.
• Stirling, W.R.
• Twombly, H. McK. (Hamilton McKown), d. 1910.

Return to Top »

Collection Inventory