Victor H. Paltsits papers
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Abstract
Correspondence, research and subject files, diaries, scrapbooks, and publications of librarian and historian Victor Hugo Paltsits (1867–1952). Dr. Paltsits was associated with the New York Public Library from its inception in 1895 (having been employed by its predecessor, the Lenox Library, since 1888). He served as keeper of manuscripts and chief of NYPL's American History division until his retirement in 1941. A tireless bibliographer, Paltsits was hailed as an "unnamed partner in a thousand works that have advanced the learning of this country and the world." The collection includes a substantial number of his published writings, on topics reflecting a wide interest, such as the founding of New Amsterdam, the history of Pemaquid (now Bristol), Maine, and the early American poet Joseph Rodman Drake (1795–1820). Also documented is Paltsits's tenure as New York State Historian (1907–1911), during when the State Capitol Building at Albany, which then housed the State Library, suffered a devastating fire.
Biographical Note
Librarian, bibliographer, and historian Victor Hugo Paltsits (1867–1952) was born in New York City on 12 July 1867 to William Thomas and Sidonia Ida (Loose) Paltsits. His father, a native of Hungary, was the son of a royal banker and prominent merchant, who owned the largest sugar warehouse in Budapest. Victor Paltsits received his early education at public and private schools in New York, and while in high school studied German, Latin, Greek, French, and Spanish, the latter under Cuban poet José Martí (1853–1895). He later delved into Coptic and Egyptian hieroglyphics at Columbia University, and took a four-year scientific course at Cooper Institute.
In 1888 Paltsits began working as a custodian of the art gallery in the Lenox Library, on Fifth Avenue at 70th Street, where he began making notes on the paintings in his care as a means of personal study, and in order to answer the queries of visitors. Under the tutelage of library head Wilberforce Eames (1855–1937), the "Dean of American Bibliographers," Paltsits made his first attempts at bibliographic description. He was promoted to assistant librarian in the Lenox reading room in 1890, and to sub-librarian in 1893. In 1895 the Lenox Library became part of the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. Paltsits's title once again became assistant librarian, but he had charge of the Lenox reading rooms, where he performed the function of chief reference librarian.
Victor Paltsits served as New York State Historian in 1907–1911, during which time he produced editions of Minutes of the Commissioners for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies in the State of New York (1909–10) and Minutes of the Executive Council of the Province of New York: Administration of Francis Lovelace, 1668-1673(1910). In Albany Paltsits lobbied the State Legislature—unsuccessfully—to create a unified system of archival records retention. In 1911 he began a seventeen-year association with I. N. Phelps Stokes, providing research and advice for his seminal compilation, The Iconography of Manhattan Island.
At the New York Public Library—now in its headquarters at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street—Paltsits took charge of the manuscript division beginning in 1914 (under the title "keeper of manuscripts") and of the American History division in 1916, retaining both positions until his retirement in 1941. Although he controlled millions of manuscripts, Paltsits was never an archivist. Nevertheless, he was a founding member of the Society of American Archivists, and his 1912 paper, "Plan and Scope for a Manual of Archival Economy for the Use of American Archivists," has led some to consider him the father of modern archival practice.
The list of works of bibliography, biography, and scholarship produced by Paltsits during his career, not to mention those to which he contributed in his official capacities, is too long to recount. Of note are his Bibliography of the Separate & Collected Works of Philip Freneau, Together with an Account of His Newspaper (1903), Papers and Proceedings of the Drake Memorial Celebration, May 29, 1915, Together with a Bibliography of the Writings of Dr. Joseph Rodman Drake (1919), and Narrative of American Voyages and Travels of Captain William Owen, R.N., and Settlement of the Island of Campobello in the Bay of Fundy, 1766–1771 (1942).
Victor Paltsits married Anne Müller (1871–1944) in 1891. They had two children: Florence and Victor John Paltsits. Anne Paltsits died, tragically, a few days after the couple moved into a new home. Paltsits died on 3 October 1952, aged eighty-five, and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, in the Bronx.
[For more on Paltsits, see his entries in The National Cyclopædia of American Biography, vol. 17, pp. 198–99, and Who Was Who in America, vol. 3, p. 663. Box 63 of the present collection contains some thirty-seven works written or edited by Paltsits. Fuller bibliographies are provided by the aforementioned citations.]
Arrangement
The Victor H. Paltsits Papers are organized in five series:
- Series I.
- Correspondence, 1890s–1952
- Series II.
- Research and subject files, 1888–1952
- Series III.
- Diaries, 1891–1949
- Series IV.
- Scrapbooks, 1894–1944
- Series V.
- Publications, 1825–1951
The collection is in 73 boxes numbered 1 through 25-A and 25-B through 72.
Scope and Contents
The Victor H. Paltsits Papers include a mixture of professional and personal correspondence (1890s–1952) with colleagues such as historian Charles McLean Andrews (1863–1943), librarian and bibliographer George Watson Cole (1850–1939), historian and novelist Edward Eggleston (1837–1902), Canadian historian William Francis Ganong (1864–1941), lawyer and historian William Nelson (1837–1914), Poe biographer Mary E. Phillips (1857–1945), librarian and historical writer Reuben Gold Thwaites (1853–1913), and the publishers Burrows Brothers Co.
The collection also includes research and subject files reflecting Paltsits's various interests and activities, from his earliest days as an employee of the Lenox Library (as documented in a commonplace book of 1888–1889), his work as critical advisor on historical illustration for Elroy M. Avery's "A History of the United States and its People, From Their Earliest Records to the Present Time" (published by Burrows Brothers, 1904–1910), his involvement with the Public Archives Commission of the American Historical Association (1908–1924), his tenure as New York State Historian (1907–1911), during when he lobbied the State Legislature unsuccessfully for the creation of a unified archival system.
Paltsits's diaries (1891–1949) record his frequent research trips and accompanying expenditures. His scrapbooks (1894–1944) are largely personal in content, recording the honorary doctorates he received from Brown University (1936) and Rutgers University (1938), his retirement from the New York Public Library (1941), and the sudden death of his wife, Anne (Müller) Paltsits (1944), who passed away a few days after the couple moved into a new home.
Rounding out the collection are (roughly) thirty-seven publications by Paltsits on topics such as Herman Melville, the works of Philip Freneau, and America's first newspaper. These are followed by five boxes of books and periodical offprints by various authors, some kept by Paltsits from his student days, but many of them written by colleagues and research acquaintances who inscribed their works to Paltsits.
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Access Restrictions
Open to qualified researchers.
Use Restrictions
Photocopying undertaken by staff only. Limited to 20 exposures of stable, unbound material per day. Application to use images from this collection for publication should be made in writing to: Department of Rights and Reproductions, The New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024-5194, rightsandrepro@nyhistory.org. Phone: (212) 873-3400 ext. 282.
Copyrights and other proprietary rights may subsist in individuals and entities other than the New-York Historical Society, in which case the patron is responsible for securing permission from those parties. For fuller information about rights and reproductions from N-YHS visit: https://www.nyhistory.org/about/rights-reproductions
Preferred Citation
This collection should be cited as the Victor H. Paltsits Papers, MS 477.1, New-York Historical Society.
Location of Materials
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of the Estate of Dr. Victor H. Paltsits, 14 March 1953.
About this Guide
Processing Information
The material in "Series I. Correspondence" (boxes 1–22) and the material in "Subseries II.A. Research and subject files sorted circa 1953" (boxes 23–57), was placed in labeled document boxes sometime after its arrival at the New-York Historical Society in 1953. In preparing the collection for shipment to offsite storage in November-December 2020, archivist Joseph Ditta replaced any deteriorated boxes in Series I and Subseries II.A with stable containers, and also divided into multiple boxes any that had simply been overfilled. The collection remains largely unprocessed, with many boxes containing loose, unfoldered correspondence, tied packets of letters, and bundled research notes.