William R. Coleman papers
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Abstract
William Roger Coleman was a longtime Brooklyn resident who lived during the 19th and 20th centuries. The collection spans the period 1891 to 2004 and consists of personal documents, correspondence, memorabilia, and photographs documenting Coleman's life. Additional items include a wedding notice, calling cards and business cards, autobiographical writings, pocket diaries, and items pertaining to Coleman's service in the military, including a publication entitled The Soldier Handbook and discharge papers from the Spanish-American War. A small amount of material related to Coleman's work in the automobile industry. In addition to Coleman, many of the photographs feature his wife Sophie (Sekoson) Coleman, their son Gerald Coleman, and the Sekoson family. The collection also includes numerous documents relating to Coleman's belief that his true identity was that of Charley Ross, a child who was kidnapped in 1874.
Biographical Note
William Roger Coleman was a longtime Brooklyn resident who lived during the 19th and 20th centuries. According to accounts of his grandson (also named William R. Coleman), the elder Coleman was brought to an orphanage on Staten Island at the age of four by a woman named Jenny Coleman, who claimed to be his mother. Coleman was raised at the orphanage until his early teens, when he was sent on an orphan train to Hutchinson, Kansas. In his mid-teens, he returned to New York and settled in Brooklyn, working as a clerk on the piers. At some point during his teenage years he had also attended Mt. Herman School in Northfield, Massachusetts for at least one year. Later, Coleman worked as a salesman of automobile parts for a firm called Aero Tire & Supply Co. on the west side of Manhattan. In 1898, Coleman enlisted in the Army and fought in the Spanish-American War as a member of the Rough Riders, Private Troop H, 1st Cavalry. In the early 1900s, Coleman served as a social worker at one of the Settlement houses on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, working with Jewish gang members. It was through this capacity that he met Sophie Sekoson, his future wife, who was also Jewish. They were married after a long courtship, and Coleman converted to Judaism. They had one child, Gerald Coleman.
Scope and Contents
The collection spans the period 1891 to 2004 and consists of personal documents, correspondence, memorabilia, and photographs documenting Coleman's life. Additional items include a wedding notice, calling cards and business cards, autobiographical writings, pocket diaries, and items pertaining to Coleman's service in the military, including a publication entitled The Soldier Handbook and discharge papers from the Spanish-American War. A small amount of material related to Coleman's work in the automobile industry. In addition to Coleman, many of the photographs feature his wife Sophie (Sekoson) Coleman, their son Gerald Coleman, and the Sekoson family.
The collection includes numerous documents relating to Coleman's belief that his true identity was that of Charley Ross, a child who was kidnapped in 1874. The documents include correspondence, clippings, legal documents, and notes. It includes a typescript on the case written by Sophie Coleman, manuscripts on the case written by Lucretia S. Peer, and a typescript screenplay by Albert St. Louis (which was assembled from William R. Coleman's notes on the case). It also includes documents related to the selling of the right's to Coleman's story to the motion picture company Reel-Colors, Inc. Finally, research files on the case assembled by Coleman's grandson (also William R. Coleman), are also part of the collection.
Subjects
Families
Genres
Topics
Places
Conditions Governing Access
Open to researchers without restriction.
Conditions Governing Use
Reproduction rights for photographs and unpublished manuscripts have not been evaluated. Please consult library staff for more information.
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date (if known); William R. Coleman papers, ARC.018, Box and Folder number; Brooklyn Historical Society.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of William R. Coleman, Esquire, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2006, and 2016.
Other Finding Aids
Descriptions of some images from the collection are available for searching via the image database in the library (V2006.009). Please consult library staff for more information.
About this Guide
Processing Information
Minimally processed to the collection level. The collection combines the accessions 1992.010, 2001.008, 2006.009, and 2016.035.
The papers were originally processed and described by Nicholas Pavlik in June 2010 (accessions 1992.010, 2001.008, and 2006.009). Accession 2016.035 was added to the collection and the finding aid was subsequently revised by John Zarrillo in September 2016.
Accession 2016.035 included a set a fragile newspaper clippings, mostly relating to the kidnapping of Charley Ross. Clippings that remained whole were photocopied for preservation purposes and the originals were discarded. Other clippings were not salvageable and were also discarded. These include clippings from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (April 24, 1921), New York Herald Tribune (July 6, 1922), New York Law Journal (January 4 and February 1, 1932), and New Yorker Review (November 22, 1914).
