Bauer, Charlotte Andrews, collector.

American editor and author Henry Mills Alden (1836-1919) was editor for 50 years of Harper's Magazine from 1869 to 1919. A descendant of John and Priscilla Alden of Mayflower fame, Alden was born in Mount Tabor, Vermont, on 3 November 1836.

In 1853, he entered Williams College where his fellow students included James A. Garfield, John J. Ingalls, and Horace E. Scudder. He then attended Andover Theological Seminary with the intention of becoming a preacher; however, Alden changed course and pursued a literary career after two of his articles on the Eleusinian Mysteries were accepted for publication in the Atlantic Monthly . These essays had been submitted to the magazine without his knowledge by his friend, the American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Alden moved to New York City in 1861 and supported himself through teaching while he continued to submit articles to national periodicals. In 1862, Harper and Brothers commissioned Alden to write a guidebook to the Central Railroad of New Jersey. This relationship with Harper and Brothers led to Alden becoming an assistant editor of Harper's Weekly and in 1869 the editor of Harper's New Monthly Magazine, a position which he held until his death in 1919. In his role as editor of Harper's New Monthly Magazine, which changed its title to Harper's Monthly Magazine in 1900, Alden viewed the periodical as a democratizing tool that provided the public access to current literary talents, and he supported the emerging realism movement for this reason. During his tenure, Harper's Monthly Magazine became the highest circulating periodical in the United States.

In addition to the monthly essays that Alden wrote for Harper's Magazine, he published three books: God in His World (1890), A Study of Death (1895), and Magazine Writing and New Literature (1908). He also edited several volumes of American literature and short stories with American author and editor William Dean Howells. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Alden received the honorary degrees of Doctor of Literature and Doctor of Laws in 1890 and 1907, respectively, from his alma mater.

Alden married Susan Frye Foster in 1861, and the couple had four children. Susan Alden died in 1895, and Alden eventually remarried Virginia poet Ada Foster Murray. Henry Mills Alden passed away in 1919 at the age of 83.

Upon his death, Alden left the present collection of letters to his nephew John Alden, who was a poet and editor of the Brooklyn Eagle . John Alden bequeathed the letters to the daughter of his first cousin, T. Clifton Andrews, who was Charlotte Andrews (Bauer). Charlotte Andrews had been like a daughter to John Alden and his wife, Cynthia Westover, and according to family lore, the Aldens provided significant emotional support to Charlotte Andrews when she eloped and married Mr. Bauer against the wishes of her mother. Charlotte Andrews Bauer organized the letters and accompanying envelopes and clippings into two albums. Before her death in 1980, Charlotte Andrews Bauer passed the letters on to her son, Rollin G. Bauer, Jr. (died 2004), who in turn willed joint ownership of the letters to his wife Merry Jo Bauer and his brother Jeffrey Bauer.

"Henry Mills Alden of Harper's Dies." The New York Times 8 October 1919. Kenney, Robert C. "Alden, Henry Mills." American National Biography Online Oxford University Press, 2000. http://www.anb.org/articles/16/16-00023.html (accessed 18 April 2011)