Harry S. Truman letters to Bess Wallace and Margaret Truman, 1910-1955.

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Harry S. Truman letters to Bess Wallace and Margaret Truman, 1910-1955.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/744660190

The collection consists of photocopies from microfilm of letters from Harry S. Truman to his wife Bess Wallace Truman and to his daughter Margaret Truman. The series, the Family Correspondence File, contains more than 1400 handwritten letters from Truman to Bess and Margaret, dating from 1910 to 1959. The Family Correspondence File is further divided into three subseries. The first, Correspondence from Harry S. Truman to Bess Wallace, contains the letters that Truman wrote to Bess prior to their marriage in 1919. These letters document their lengthy courtship, which began in earnest in 1910, when Truman was living on the family farm near Grandview, Missouri, and Bess was living with her mother in neighboring Independence. During Truman's military service in World War I, he wrote to her frequently from his training camp in Oklahoma, and later sent her many letters from overseas while he was stationed in France. The second subseries, Correspondence from Harry S. Truman to Bess Wallace Truman, contains the letters that Truman wrote to Bess during the course of their marriage. He wrote to her constantly (sometimes more than once a day) whenever they were apart for any length of time. Usually, this was when Truman was traveling, on reserve duty with the Army, or tending to official business in Washington while Bess was back home in Independence. Only a few letters in the subseries were written after the Trumans left the White House in 1953. The third subseries, Correspondence from Harry S. Truman to Margaret Truman, contains letters dating from 1927 to 1955. Truman began writing letters to Margaret even before she was old enough to read. There are more than one hundred letters to his daughter in the collection, and more than 1300 to his wife. This correspondence reveals many aspects of Truman's personality: his devotion to his family, his sense of humor, his sensitivity to criticism, and his determination to succeed. The Family Correspondence File includes some telegrams and postcards, as well as a number of letters that are misdated, dated only by a postmark, or undated. The series also contains copies or transcripts of letters from Truman to his wife that are filed elsewhere in Truman's papers. In some cases, only a typed transcript of the letter has survived.

2 cubic feet.

Pennsylvania State University Libraries

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 8117839

Pennsylvania State University Libraries

Related Entities

There are 3 Entities related to this resource.

Truman, Margaret, 1924-2008

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w66795xp (person)

Margaret Truman Daniel (1924-2008) was born in Independence, Missouri. She is the daughter of President Harry S. and Elizabeth Virginia (Bess) Truman. She married E. Clifton Daniel, Jr. (a newspaper editor), on April 21, 1956. After graduating from George Washington University in 1946, she embarked on a career as a coloratura soprano. She was also a successful radio personality as co-host of the program Weekday with Mike Wallace. Later, Truman became the successful author of a series of murde...

Truman, Harry S., 1884-1972

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6776605 (person)

Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953, succeeding upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt after serving as the 34th vice president in early 1945. He implemented the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy of Western Europe and established the Truman Doctrine and NATO to contain communist expansion. He proposed numerous liberal domestic reforms, but few were enacted by the Conservative Coalition that dominated Congres...

Truman, Bess Wallace, 1885-1982

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6b09tvg (person)

Elizabeth Virginia “Bess” Truman was the wife of Harry S. Truman and First Lady of the United States from 1945 to 1953. She served as her husband’s secretary and was known for often voicing her opinions. Whistle-stopping in 1948, President Harry Truman often ended his campaign talk by introducing his wife as “the Boss” and his daughter, Margaret, as “the Boss’s Boss,” and they smiled and waved as the train picked up steam. The sight of that close-knit family gallantly fighting against such lo...