DEPARTMENT OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH.^ 



J. Franklin Jameson, Director. 



The following report, the fifteenth annual report rendered by the 

 present Director, covers the period of eleven months from November 1, 

 1919, to September 30, 1920. In most respects the Department had 

 at the beginning of these eleven months extricated itself from the 

 distractions attendant upon the war, and in general the year has been 

 normal, except in so far as the heightened prices and labor-costs of the 

 time have reduced the amount that such an establishment can accom- 

 plish per annum. 



In the staff of the Department there lias been but one change. 

 Miss Esther Galbraith, after two years of most excellent service, 

 resigned in August. Her place has not yet been filled, but during 

 August and September Miss Elizabeth Donnan, formerly a member of 

 the staff of the Department, but now an assistant professor in Wellesley 

 College, kindly undertook for the time being the duties that had 

 formerly fallen to Miss Galbraith. 



From the beginning of February until the beginning of August, 

 Professor John S. Bassett, of Smith College, cooperated with the De- 

 partment as a Research Associate. His especial task was to begin, 

 and to carry as far as the time would allow, the preparation of an 

 edition of the papers, chiefly the letters, of Andrew Jackson. Ex- 

 tensive editions of the writings of Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, 

 Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams exist and are of well- 

 known value to students of American history. The autobiography of 

 Van Buren is in course of publication. Polk's diar>% most of Tyler's 

 letters, and (among contemporaries of Jackson who were not presi- 

 dents) those of Gallatin, Webster, Clay, and Calhoun have been 

 printed. The chief gap, it may fairly be said, in the published materials 

 for the middle period of our political history, consists in the absence of 

 any printed collection of the letters of President Jackson. This gap 

 the Department has undertaken to fill, availing itself for that purpose of 

 the aid of Professor Bassett. As the chief biographer of Jackson, he 

 is already familiar with his manuscripts and no one is better qualified 

 to edit them. 



Much the largest i)art of the Jackson material still extant is in the 

 custody of the Library of Congress. Inevitablj^ Professor Bassett 

 turned first to that collection, and indeed his whole six months were 

 spent there. By the kindness of the librarian, Dr. Herbert Putnam, 

 and of Mr. Charles Moore, chief of the Manuscripts Division, he was 

 given every facility for the prosecution of his work, and, laboring with 

 great industry, succeeded within the six months in carrying out, 



1 Address: No. 1140 Woodward Building, Washington, D. C 



179 



