Research files compiled by Michael Robert Mounter in the course of writing his dissertation on the life and career of Richard T. Greener (1844-1922), the first African American to receive a degree from Harvard (Class of 1870). Born in Philadelphia, Greener served as a professor and librarian at University of South Carolina during Reconstruction. Reports, government documents, published articles, city directories, and correspondence that document Richard Greener's long career and numerous domiciles. Greener taught in Philadelphia and Washington briefly and was an editor, with Frederick Douglass, of the New National Era in Washington in 1873. Later that year, he accepted a teaching post at University of South Carolina, where he remained until the end of Reconstruction when the University returned to serving only white students. In 1876, Greener received the law degree from the University of South Carolina and was admitted to the bar. In 1877, he returned to Washington, D.C., to practice law and in 1880 became dean of Howard University's law school. From 1885-1890, he was chief examiner for New York City's civil service. From 1898 to 1906, he served as United States consul in Bombay (India) and Vladivostok (Russia); he retired from foreign service and lived his remaining years in Chicago. Box 1: "Mss and Archives - photocopies by repository" consisting of files related to Greener's career, some research on his father's family in Baltimore, and Greener's descendants in the US; includes copy of Greener's "senior dissertation" from Harvard College, "The Tenure of Land in Ireland," Class of 1870. Box 2: "Manuscripts and Archives" with photocopies of city directories, census data, and Greener letters in repositories around U.S.; Box 3: Government documents, ca. 1800s-1910, consisting of reports, census sheets, city directories, etc.). Box 4: "Published papers, newspapers," ca. 1800s-1900s, with copies of Greener's correspondence in published sources, such as letter, 4 Feb. 1910 to W.E.B. DuBois; records of his memberships in professional and social organizations at Harvard and in adult life; and references to Greener in newspapers around S.C. and elsewhere in U.S.; Box 5: "Newspapers, secondary sources, Michael Mounter journals and correspondence," with newspapers, ca. 1870-1899; published essays re Reconstruction, ca. 1800s-2000s; journal articles, chapters from books, etc.; Box 6: Photocopies of newspapers and a legal case tried in S.C. re Alexander Boyce, Jr., "Oconee County (S.C.) Indictments (Feb. term, 1877): The State vs. Alexander Boyce, Jr.," from the S.C. Dept. of Archives and History; 2 rolls microfilm copied from the National Archives (NARA); and photocopies of Harvard Advocate and other student literary magazines (ca. late 1860s) dating to Greener's undergraduate years prior to his 1870 graduation.
