Special Collections

Milton S. Eisenhower Library

The Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore, Maryland 21218

410-516-8348

Whitehead (Alfred North), 1861-1949

 Collection (1899-1949)

 Ms. 282

Size:               2.9 linear ft.

                    (7 document boxes)

Processed:          May 1990

By:                 Joan Grattan  

Provenance:         The collection was placed on deposit 

                    in Special Collections at the

                    request of Victor Lowe.

Access:             Access to this collection is unrestricted.  

Permission:         Permission to publish material from this

                    collection must be requested in writing

                    from the Manuscripts Librarian at the

                    address above.

Citation:           Alfred North Whitehead Collection Ms. 182,

                    Special Collections,

                    Milton S. Eisenhower Library,

                    The Johns Hopkins University.

               Whitehead (Alfred North) 1861-1947

                     Collection (1899-1949)

                             Ms. 282

Provenance

Victor Lowe, professor of Philosophy at The Johns Hopkins

University and former student of Alfred North Whitehead, received

permission from the Whitehead family in 1965 to use the material

in this collection for his research purposes.  At that time he

was engaged in writing a biography of Alfred North Whitehead, the

first volume of which was published in 1985.  Professor Lowe

requested that the collection be placed on deposit in Special

Collections while he continued his writing.   Professor Lowe died

in 1988 before he completed Volume 2 of Alfred North Whitehead:

The Man and His Work.  Jerome Schneewind, Johns Hopkins professor

of Philosophy, is Lowe's literary executor and is overseeing the

completion of Lowe's work.  At Professor Schneewind's request,

the papers remained in Special Collections while the editing of

Volume 2 was completed.  It is expected that the published volume

will be available from The Johns Hopkins Press in 1990.    

Biographical Note

Alfred North Whitehead was an English mathematician and

philosopher.  He was born on the Isle of Thanet in 1861.  He was

educated at Trinity College, Cambridge and lectured there, 1885-

1911.  Whitehead taught at the University of London, 1911-1924.

He came to the United States in 1924 as professor of Philosophy

at Harvard University and remained there until 1930.  Along with

his former pupil, Bertrand Russell, he wrote Principia

Mathematica published in 1910.  He also published The Principles

of Natural Knowledge (1919), Science and the Modern World (1925),

and Adventures of Ideas (1933).  Alfred North Whitehead died in

1947.

Scope and Content Note

The material which Professor Lowe placed on deposit in Special

Collections consisted of a suitcase belonging to Alfred North

Whitehead in which correspondence was kept and annotated books

belonging to Whitehead.  Letters and other items have been

removed from the suitcase and  separated into two document boxes.

The books are contained in four document boxes. The bulk of the

collection is formed by correspondence between members of the

Whitehead family: Alfred North Whitehead, his wife, Evelyn, their

son, T. North and his wife, Margaret (who signed her letters as

Margot).

Apparently, Professor Lowe devised a system for separating the

items to suit his research methods.  The collection has been

processed without significantly changing Professor Lowe's system.

When Volume 2 of the Whitehead biography is published, the

reasoning behind Lowe's organization of the material may become

apparent since some of the letters have been cited in this

volume.   

Professor Lowe separated the letters into four groups:  List B,

List C, and List D.  The fourth group was labelled "Letters of

ANW to N (33) & to Margot (2)".  Besides the correspondence, the

collection includes a smaller amount of material relating to

Whitehead: reprints, clippings, photographs, and manuscript

material and several of his annotated books.

The correspondence which Professor Low grouped as List B is

mostly addressed to Mrs. Whitehead in 1948 after the death of her

husband.  A carbon-copy typescript of a lecture apparently

prepared by Whitehead and entitled "Science and Liberty. A

Comparison of England and America" is included with List B.   

Letters in List C are mostly from 1924 with a few from other

years.  Much of this is incoming correspondence to Whitehead and

copies of his outgoing correspondence to colleagues.  Professor

Lowe assigned letter/number designations to these letters, and

they are filed in this manner.

Letters in List D have also been assigned letter/number

designation and are further separated into yearly segments, 1925,

1925-1927, 1928-1934.  The bulk of the letters are T. North's to

his father, a few to his mother.  Some letters of Margaret

Whitehead to her in-laws are also included.  Of interest is a

letter of Gertrude Stein to Whitehead and a copy of his response

(1914).

The last group of letters is primarily those of Whitehead to his

son, T. North.  Professor Lowe did not assign numbers to this

group.  The letters have been filed chronologically, 1919-1929.

The annotated books belonging to Alfred North Whitehead are

primarily the major works of philosophers: Kant, Plato,

Descartes, and Santayana.  Lecture notes of James Tobin and and

T. G. Henderson, Whitehead's students in the 1930s, are also

included.

A listing of all items in this collection can be found in the

Container List which follows.     

                     --------------------

A copy of Volume 2 of the Whitehead biography was received June

1990, and will be cataloged to become part of the collections of

the Milton S. Eisenhower Library.  Many of the letters in this

collection were published including all the letters of ANW to T.

North and Margot, 1919-1929.  No clarification is given in Volume

2 for Victor Lowe's organization of the material. 

Container List

Ms. 282

Box 1          List B

Incoming correspondence of Mrs. Evelyn Whitehead   (1948)

     Cabot, Philip

     DeFriez, Doris

     Edsole, David

     Emerson, Guy

     Northrop, Filmer & Christine

     Pickman

     Sweet, Gordon

     Wedd, N.

     Whitehead, Jane

     Whitehead, Margaret

     Whitehead, T. North

     Williams, Donald

Telegrams of condolence:  Grance deLaguna, Lucy Donnelly,        

 Nancy and John Goheen, Alfred E. Cohn, Kings Sheppard.

Unidentified correspondents.

Incoming correspondence to Alfred North Whitehead

     Gilpatric, Chadbourne

     Schlipp, Paul

     Whitehead, Margaret

     Wood, Henry A.

Editorial, Boston Globe (Jan. 3, 1948)

Invitation, Order of Merit, May 16, 1945

Poem by Eric Whitehead, April 21, 1939

Trinity College Account, 1947

Reprint, Address to Math. & Physical Science Section,

   British Assoc. for Advancement of Science, 1916.

Entry for Who's Who, V. 25 1948-1949

"Science & Economic Liberty"

   Carbon typescript with corrections.

Application for medical insurance for Mrs. Whitehead

Box 1          List C

 1924 (with a few from later years)

C-1 - C-1a     Haldane, Richard Burdon to Mary Follet

               Lesiewski, Stanislaw to ANW

C-2 - C-2a     Trevelyan, George to Roger Meriman

               Cable to [North] from mother & father

C-3 - C-4a     Whitehead, T. North to ANW

               American Consular Service to ANW

               Northrop, F. S. Cuckow to ANW

               Bank of England to ANW

C-5 - C-6      Taylor, H.O. to Mrs. Whitehead

               Amos, M.S. to ANW

               MacMillan Co. to ANW

C-7 - C-12     Whitehead, Evelyn to ANW

               Haldane, Richard Burdon to ANW

               Taylor, Henry Osborne to ANW

               Woods, James H. to ANW

C-13 - C-16    Hocking, Ernest to ANW

               Whitehead, Evelyn to ANW

               Taylor, H.O. to ANW

               Unidentified

C-17 - C-23    Woods, James H. to ANW

               Lowell, A. Lawrence to ANW

               Hunnewell, F.W. to ANW

C-23a          System of Retiring Allowances, Harvard U.

C-24 - C-25    Holland, E.W. to ANW

               Lowell, A. Lawrence to ANW

C-26 - C-31    ANW to Mark

               ANW to Prof. Henderson

               ANW to H.O. Taylor

               ANW to A. Lawrence Lowell

C-32 - C-35    Lawrence, Wm. H. to ANW

               ANW to Bunwalda, John P.

               Bunwalda, John P. to ANW

C-36 - C-40    Whitehead, Margaret to ANW

               American Philosophical Soc. to ANW

               Pickman, Hester to Mrs. Whitehead

Box 1          List C

(Cont.)             1924 (with a few from later years)  Cont.

C- 41 - C-44   Assoc. for Symbolic Logic to Mrs. Whitehead

               Beeton, Dorothy to Mrs. Whitehead

               To Mrs. Whitehead from Sheila

               Hickman, Hester to Mrs. Whitehead

C-46 - C-54    Notes of ANW

               Invitation to Prof. & Mrs. Whitehead

               Print of Trinity College

               Reprint, Am. Acad. Arts Sciences. Proc.

                 Vol 75, No. 1, 1942, "Papers on

                 Post-War Problems."   

Box 2     List D

               thru 1924

D-1 - D-5      Whitehead, T. North to ANW

               Whitehead, Charles S. to ANW

D-6 - D-7      Stein, Gertrude to ANW

               ANW to Gertrude Stein

D-8 - D-9      Postcard to ANW

               Monthly report, St. Peter's College

D-10 - D-18    Whitehead, T. North to Anw

D-19 - D-22    Whitehead, T. North to ANW

               Whitehead, Margaret to ANW

D-23 - D- 26   Whitehead, T. North to ANW

               Whitehead, T. North to ANW        

                    (not designated with letter-number but

                      included with thru 1924)

     thru 1925-1927

D-27 - D-33    Whitehead, T. North to ANW

               Whitehead, T. North to Mother

               Whitehead, Margaret to ANW

D- 34 - D-39   Whitehead, T. North to Mother

               Whitehead, T. North to ANW

D-40 - D-44    Whitehead, Margaret to ANW

               Whitehead, T. North to ANW

               Whitehead, T. North to Mother

D-45 - D-49    Whitehead, T. North to ANW

Box 2          List D

Cont.            thru 1925-1927  Cont.

D-50 - D-55    Whitehead, Margaret to ANW

               Whitehead, T, North to ANW

               Whitehead, Henry to ANW

D-56 - D-58    Whitehead, T. North to Mother

               Whitehead, Margaret to Mrs. Whitehead

               Whitehead, Eric to Mrs. Whitehead

     thru 1928-1934

D-59 - D-67    Whitehead, T. North to ANW and Mother

               Whitehead, Margaret to Mrs. Whitehead

D-62,63,64 included with Greene (Rosalind H.) folder,

         Victor Lowe Papers Ms 284

Letters of ANW to North (33) & to Margot (2)

ANW to North        (1919)

ANW to North       (April to August, 1924)

ANW to North       (October to December, 1924)

ANW to Margaret Whitehead     (1924, 1925)

ANW to North        (March to July, 1925)

ANW to North        (August to December 1925)

ANW to North        (1926 - 1927)

ANW to North        (1928 - 1929)

ANW to Victor Lowe   (1941, 1942)

Dewey, John to Victor Lowe   (1949)

Lowe, (Mrs Victor) to Mrs. Whitehead (1948) 

Manuscript notes of ANW:

               "Notes II"

               "Autobiographical Notes"

               "Systematic Determination"

Reminiscences of Rev. Henry Whitehead, 1899

Order of Merit to ANW, Harvard University, 1945

Photographs  ANW and North (?)

Box 2

(Cont.)

Clipping, The Boston Herald, Feb. 13, 1942, "If Britain

     Had Not Fought On."

Negatives and Prints (Used by JHU Press for ANW biography)

Box 3    

Alexander, S.  Beauty and Other Forms of Value. London:

     Macmillan and Co., 1933.

Hutchins, Robert Maynard.  The Higher Learning in America.

     New Haven: Yale University Press, 1936.

James, William.  The Varieties of Religious Experience. London:

     Longmans, Green and Co., 1929.

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason.  Second Part.

     Translated by F. Max Muller. London: Macmillan and Co.,

     1881.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Will to Power. Vol.I Books I and II.

     Translated by Anthony M. Ludovici.  New York: The Macmillan

     Co., 1924.

Nietzsche, Friedrich.  The Will to Power. Vol.II Books III and

     IV.  Translated by Anthony M. Ludovici.  New York: The

     Macmillan Co., 1924.

Plato: Timaeus and Critias. Translated by A.E. Taylor. London:

     Methuen & Co., 1929.

Box 4

Hume, David.  Philosophical Works.  Volumes I, II, IV.

     Boston:  Little, Brown and Co., 1854.

Locke, John.  An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

     London: Thomas Tegg, 1846.

Mill, John Stuart.  A System of Logic Ratiocinative and

     Inductive.  Volume 1 and II. London: Longmans, Green, and

     Co., 1879.

Box 5

Descartes.  Philosophical Works.  Volume I and II.

     Translated by Elizabeth S. Haldane.  Cambridge:

     University Press, 1911.

Lewis, Clarence Irving.  Mind and The World-Order.

     New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929.

Plato.  Laws.  Translated by R.G. Bury. Volume I and II.

     London: William Heinemann, 1926.

Plato. Theaetetus Sophist. II.  Translated by Harold

     North Fowler.  London: William Heinemann, 1928.

Santayana, George.  The Realm of Matter.  New York:

     Charles Scribner's Sons., 1930.

Santayana, George.  Scepticism and Animal Faith. London:

     Constable and Company, 1923.

Whitehead, Alfred North.  Process and Reality.  New York:

     The Macmillan Company, 1929.

Box 6

The Classics in Education.  Report of the Committee

     Appointed by the Prime Minister to Inquire into

     the Position of Classics in the Educational

     System of the United Kingdom.  London: His

     Majesty's Stationary Office, 1921.

Historical Register of Harvard University 1636-1936.

     Cambridge: Harvard University, 1937.

Keynes, John Maynard.  A Treatise on Probability.  London:

     Macmillan and Co., 1921.

Lucretius.  On the Nature of Things.  Translated by

     Cyril Bailey. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1929.

Lucretius. On the Nature of Things.  Translated by

     H.A.J. Munro. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1929. 

Plato.  Timaeus Critias Cleitophon Menexenus Epistles.

     London: William Heinemann, 1929.

Lecture notes of T. G. Henderson taken in Whitehead's classes,

     1932, 1934.

Lecture notes of James Tobin taken in Whitehead's classes, 1937.

Box 7

Photographs:

     Alfred North Whitehead, Evelyn Whitehead

     Whitehead children, grandchildren

     Group photograph, Harvard

     Photograph album, Whitehead family

     ANW's pocket engagement books, 1924

                                    1925-26

     Microfilm: Macmillan Company Records, Alfred North Whitehead

          (Film made by the NY Public Library)

                              Index

                             Ms. 282

(Incomplete)

Adventures of Ideas           1

Johns Hopkins Press           1

The Johns Hopkins University  1

Lowe, Victor                  1,2,6

Principia Mathematica         1

Principles of Natural Knowledge    1

Schneewin, Jerome             1

Science and the Modern World  1

Stein, Gertrude               2

Whitehead, Alfred North       1-6

Whitehead, Evelyn             1

Whitehead, Margaret           2

Whitehead, T.North            1