Beschreibung:

[KUNZ, GEORGE FREDERICK]An archive of letters written to George Frederick Kunz, Largely on Gemological Matters. [Various places: 1884-1930] Approximately 105 letters or notes, written in English, Spanish, French, and German, comprising: approximately 9 autograph notes signed on post cards, approximately 83 autograph letters signed, and approximately 22 typed letters signed. An archive of correspondence to noted American mineralogist and mineral collector, George Frederick Kunz Kunz developed an interest in minerals from a young age, and had amassed a collection of over four thousand specimens by the time he was in his teens, which he sold to the University of Minnesota for $400. He was self-educated in the field of mineralogy, and took a job with Tiffany & Co., where he was promoted to vice president at the age of 23. He was a special agent for the U.S. Geological Society, and was a curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The archive includes correspondences from a number of prominent individuals from institutions across the world: minerology and geology professors at Columbia, Yale, Harvard, Rutgers, and more; chemical engineer James R. Withrow, chemist Wallace G. Levison, mineralogists Samuel L. Penfield, John E. Wolff, Thomas L. Watson (state geologist for Virginia), Joseph Hyde Pratt, and Waldemar Theodore Schaller; Charles Read (curator at the British Museum); Persifor Frazer (of the Frazer family), William Osgood Field (of the Field family), and John Wanamaker (of Philadelphia); Stanley Field (of the Field Museum in Chicago), Samuel Wesley Stratton (president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), H. L. Fairchild (secretary of the Geological Society of America), Alexander H. Phillips (Treasurer of the Mineralogical Society of America), R. W. Raymond (Acting Manager at Cooper Union), and numerous others. These correspondences mostly discuss materials, including minerals, books, and reports, that Kunz sent out for these individuals' inspection, review, or collection. The various authors of the letters offer their thoughts and thanks for such materials and arrange meetings and deliveries around them. The archive also includes a letter from R.W. Raymond, offering various edits for an article Kunz was writing.