Scope and arrangement
The Oswald C. Hering Papers span the years 1885 to 1944 and include the papers of Adelaide Arms Hering and Fanny Field Hering, as well as Oswald Hering. They consist of handwritten and typewritten correspondence, photographs, photostats, architectural drawings, clippings, printed ephemera, and books. The papers are organized into eleven series. Except for Oswald's professional correspondence and Fanny's letters received, the papers were in a state of extreme disorder prior to accessioning. Consequently, the arrangement here does not reflect an original order. Pencil and ink annotations on documents are mostly the work of Adelaide Arms Hering.
The Oswald Constantin Hering papers are arranged in eleven series:
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Correspondence with family and friends, arranged by year. The bulk is letters from Oswald to his mother and to his father, written while at MIT and in Paris. There is a noticeable dearth of letters from the 1920s.
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Correspondence with architectural clients, is largely arranged by an alphabetical scheme imposed in a previous partial processing. Some correspondence with firms is filed under the names of the firms; other correspondence with the same firms is filed under the names of the officers of the firms. Prominent correspondents include O. D. Gray, Walter Hering, Gage Tarbell, and the management of Garden City-Jamaica Estates. Separate files not part of the alphabetical scheme are Partnership with Douglass Fitch, N. Y. C. Block Reclamation Project, Re Magazine Articles, and Assorted Correspondence.
Clients, A-Z.
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Correspondence not integrated into the professional alphabetical series. It is a mixture of letters concerning professional, social, and personal matters and gives evidence of the hard times Oswald's practice faced during the Depression. It is arranged mainly by year. Special files concern Oliver Herford and wife, literary correspondence and writings, and the Welfare Island Grand Jury, which Oswald served as foreman.
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Relates to Hering's activity as editor of the DKE Quarterly. It consists of typewritten letters and articles, as well as pages torn from quarterly issues. Most of the material is unsorted and dates from the 1930s. There are special files of correspondence on DKEs in Who's Who, on the Jubilee issue of the quarterly, with Secretary Marian Westervelt, and regarding Oswald's design for a chapter house, which was allegedly stolen by an architect for a fraternity house at the University of Idaho. There are also copies of the quarterly's DKE 90th anniversary issue and its memorial issue dedicated to Oswald.
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Contains correspondence and printed matter pertaining to the various social and professional clubs of which he was a member. It is arranged alphabetically by the name of club. See the container list for the names. The largest club subseries are the Players Club and the Sons of the Revolution, the latter consisting of correspondence between Oswald and President John Vernou Bouvier.
Clubs, A-Z.
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Folder of clippings regarding Oswald's architectural and authorial careers, family obituaries, and genealogical charts and correspondence.
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Includes Oswald's MIT Class Book, his Paris account book, the 1921 DKE Havana Convention book, an annotated copy of Economy in Home Building, and an incomplete folded-and-gathered copy of the 1929 edition of Building, Concrete & Stucco Houses.
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Consists of letters received from her father, Winthrop Arms, and correspondence following Oswald's death. It includes a copy of Oswald's will.
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Comprises photostats, photographs, and halftone reproductions torn from magazines and books of buildings Oswald designed. Most of his projects are represented. There is only one original drawing, for renovations at the Sleep Hollow Bookshop.
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Consists of cabinet cards, snapshots, and negatives of Oswald, Fanny, Adelaide, relatives, and friends. A number of cabinet cards are of MIT student theatricals with Oswald in female costume.