May 07, 2020 - Sale 2534

Sale 2534 - Lot 366

Price Realized: $ 938
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(POLITICS.) Autograph album kept by Congressman Robert Smalls, with signatures of Presidents Harrison and McKinley. 26 manuscript pages. Oblong 8vo, original gilt calf, quite worn, backstrip perished and rebacked with tape; offsetting to Harrison's page, otherwise minimal wear to contents. [Washington, DC], 1890 and 1897

Additional Details

Robert Smalls (1839-1915) was a Civil War naval hero and one of the most distinguished among the African-Americans who served in the Reconstruction Congress, serving as a representative for South Carolina intermittently from 1875 to 1887. In 1890, President Benjamin Harrison appointed him to a federal position as customs collector for Beaufort, SC. He was out of office from 1893 to 1897 during the Grover Cleveland administration, then returned until 1913.
This album was said by Smalls's great-granddaughter to have been kept by him during his time in public service. Although none of the entries mention Smalls specifically, the timeline fits. The dated entries are all from February to May 1890 (when he may have travelled to Washington to secure his first federal appointment), and February to March 1897, when McKinley brought Republican rule back to Washington and presumably reappointed him.
The first two leaves are devoted to his Republican presidential patrons, Benjamin Harrison (and his wife Caroline, signing 27 February 1890) on the first page, and William McKinley on the second. The other names are all distinguished figures in law and politics. Following the presidents are most of Harrison's initial cabinet: Secretary of State James G. Blaine, Secretary of Treasury William Windom, Secretary of War Redfield Proctor, Attorney General William H.H. Miller, Secretary of the Interior John W. Noble, Secretary of the Navy Benjamin F. Tracy, and Postmaster General (and department store mogul) John Wanamaker. They are followed by Supreme Court justices Melville Fuller, Samuel F. Miller, Stephen J. Field, Joseph P. Bradley, Horace Gray, Samuel Blatchford, Lucius Q.C. Lamar, and David J. Brewer, who all served together on the court until Miller's death in October 1890. Finally, the volume concludes with the Grover Cleveland's entire lame-duck cabinet, signing in February and March 1897: Secretary of State Richard Olney, Secretary of Treasury John G. Carlisle, Secretary of War Daniel S. Lamont, Secretary of the Interior David R. Francis, Secretary of the Navy Hilary A. Herbert, Postmaster General William L. Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture Julius Sterling Morton, and Attorney General Judson Harmon.
Provenance: the congressman's daughter Elizabeth Lydia Smalls Bampfield (1858-1959); her granddaughter Janet "Dolly" Davidson Nash (1924-2004) of Cape May, NJ; sold to the consignor. Dolly Nash is discussed in Billingsley, "Yearning to Breathe Free: Robert Smalls of South Carolina and His Families," page xx.