1848-1962 (bulk: 1856-1906)
20.5 cubic feet
Sidney Clarke was born in Southbridge, Massachusetts, on October 16, 1831. He was raised on a farm, educated in the public schools, and worked in his early twenties as a newspaper editor and publisher.
A supporter of the Free Soil movement and abolition of slavery, Clarke moved to Lawrence, Kansas, in 1859. In 1861, he was elected to the first state legislature. Later that same year, he went to Washington, D.C., as secretary to James B. Lane, the new state's first U. S. senator.
Early in the Civil War, Clarke enlisted in the Frontier Guard, a force organized to protect the U. S. Capitol and other public buildings. In 1862, he was appointed Assistant Adjutant General of Volunteers, and in 1863 he became Assistant Provost Marshal General for Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and Dakota.
Clarke was a Republican, and in 1864 he won election to the U. S. House of Representatives. At that time he was Kansas's sole U. S. representative and the youngest member of the Thirty-ninth Congress. Reelected in 1866 and 1868, he lost the Republican nomination in 1870. In 1878, however, he was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives as an Independent, and he presided over the body as Speaker. Two years later, he failed to win a seat in the Kansas Senate.
In 1885 with General Phil Sheridan, Clarke visited Fort Reno, Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). Thereafter, he became a tireless advocate for opening Oklahoma to non-Indian settlement. An original '89er, Clarke served as president of the infant Oklahoma City Council and was acting mayor during the first year of the city's existence. His repeated efforts to promote statehood bore fruit on November 16, 1907, when Oklahoma became the forty-sixth state. Sidney Clarke died in Oklahoma City on June 18, 1909.
The Clarke Collection documents all aspects of the man's life and career. Approximately one-third consists of holographic correspondence from the late nineteenth century. Typescripts accompany many of the letters. The collection is strong in constituent and newspaper reaction to national and local events, treaties with Indians and their subsequent removal from Kansas after the Civil War, the development of former Indian lands in Kansas by railroads and settlers, and the early history of Oklahoma. The collection has eleven series:
This series contains 0.79 cubic feet of correspondence, legislation, reports, clippings, military papers, and publications by Sidney Clarke and by others. The arrangement is chronological by year, and within the year by subject. Major topics are the 1864 political campaign; political, military, postal, and Indian affairs; the Quantrill and Price Raids; and suffrage. Included are materials on Clarke's life in Massachusetts, his move to Kansas in 1859, and his military service during the Civil War. Prominent correspondents include James H. Lane, W. W. H. Lawrence, J. G. Blunt, and J. J. Ingalls.
This series contains 3.65 cubic feet of correspondence, reports, legislation, clippings, military papers, congressional documents, and circulars. Arrangement is by congress and within the congress by subject. Major topics include Indian treaties and removal of Indian tribes from Kansas, the death of James H. Lane, the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, railroad land acquisition and construction in Kansas, Reconstruction, newspaper ownership and management, political campaigns, Quantrill and Price Raids, suffrage, settlement of Cherokee Neutral Lands, acquisition of military reservations for bridges and public institutions, military bounties, and legislation for Oklahoma Territory. Correspondents of note are D. R. Anthony, Susan B. Anthony, Louis V. Bogy, O. H. Browning, William F. Cody, George A. Crawford, Henry L. Dawes, O. O. Howard, James H. Lane, S. C. Pomeroy, Edmund G. Ross, and Joseph Wilson.
This series includes 1.27 cubic feet of correspondence, clippings and newspapers, legislation, Congressional documents, circulars, and petitions from the end of the 41st Congress to the year after Sidney Clarke's death. Arrangement of the materials is by year and within the year alphabetically by subject. Major subjects covered are Kansas and Oklahoma politics and political campaigns, non-Indian settlement in Oklahoma and Indian Territories, Oklahoma constitution and statehood, cattle syndicates, investigations of election frauds, prohibition, and the candidacy of Clarke for U. S. Marshal for Kansas and for Territorial Governor of Oklahoma. Noted correspondents include C. R. Breckenridge, William L. Couch, S. J. Crawford, Samuel Crocker, D. A. Harvey, C. N. Haskell, C. H. Mansur, William M. Springer, and J. B. Weaver.
Comprising 0.29 cubic feet, this series is divided into two sections: (1) Congressional Speeches, and (2) Non-Congressional Speeches. The arrangement is strictly chronological with undated speeches listed at the end of each section. The materials filed here are printed and handwritten speeches, speech drafts, newspaper clippings concerning speeches, and notes for speeches. Topics include suffrage in the District of Columbia, Reconstruction, the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, finance, railroads, apportionment, Oklahoma statehood, monopolies, campaigns, personal reminiscences, James H. Lane, Abraham Lincoln, and Horace Greeley.
The 0.14 cubic feet of materials in this section are printed and handwritten articles, reports, obituaries and tributes, letters to the editor, reviews, and descriptions. Some are drafts. The arrangement is chronological. Topics include monopolies, railroads, Oklahoma and Indian Territories, the writing of the Oklahoma Constitution, star route frauds, and the death of James H. Lane. There are also descriptions of Lawrence, Kansas, and the San Juan area of Colorado.
The 0.72 cu. ft. of materials filed here are primarily speeches, addresses, and sermons. The large majority of them are collected in bound volumes with no continuous page numbers and no tables of contents, making individual speeches difficult to locate. The collection accession folder contains lists of the contents of these volumes in the order of their appearance in the volume. Many of the speeches were given in Congress to honor a recently-deceased senator or representative. Others concern particular legislation, and topics include tariffs, taxes, Reconstruction, impeachment, suffrage, national finances, banks and currency, Indian affairs, rights of naturalized citizens and citizens abroad, the Freedmen's Bureau, military bounties, protection of public lands, and the basis of representation. Some are addresses by governors to their state legislatures, and a few are sermons. Speakers represented here include Henry Ward Beecher, James G. Blaine, O. H. Browning, W. P. Fessenden, Andrew Johnson, George W. Julian, William D. Kelley, Samuel C. Pomeroy, William H. Seward, John Sherman, William M. Springer, Thaddeus Stevens, William M. Stewart, Charles Sumner, and Eli Thayer.
Filed in this series are 0.14 cubic feet of business cards, calling cards, invitations, miscellaneous envelopes and letterhead, passes and tickets, programs, and odd bits of poetry.
This section contains 0.33 cubic feet of personal materials pertinent to Sidney Clarke, such as personal and family correspondence; legal, financial, and real estate papers; and biographical materials.
Comprising 2.16 cubic feet, this series contains a scrapbook, bound volumes containing many of the speeches previously described, memoranda and account books, pamphlets, brochures, and flyers. Materials in this last category are filed alphabetically by subject headings and then by author or title. Subjects include Abraham Lincoln, agriculture, Colorado, Congress, finance, Ulysses S. Grant, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Texas, suffrage, railroads, Reconstruction, and tariffs.
These 1.03 cubic feet of materials were included in the collection but either do not immediately pertain to Sidney Clarke or are already included elsewhere in the collection. They include correspondence, clippings, school papers, periodicals, and business materials.
This series contains 8.39 cubic feet of clippings and other materials too large to be filed in legal-sized folders. Materials are newspapers, clippings, circulars, letters, publications, military forms, legislative rosters, an article reprint, a register sheet, legislation, petitions, election materials, construction diagrams, and galley proofs. In addition, filed in the map cabinet are fifty-nine maps which Sidney Clarke collected. Over half of them are Civil War maps, many of them showing army positions. Other topics include the Crimean War area, mining areas in Colorado, public surveys, and railroad routes or maps of areas being considered for railroad development. Each map consists of one sheet, unless otherwise indicated in the inventory.
In 1987, H. Thomas Douglas and Paul Clarke Douglas (great-grandson and great-great-grandson of Sidney Clarke)
contributed 0.09 cubic feet of photocopies to the Carl Albert Center Congressional Archives to be added to the Sidney
Clarke Collection. These are copies of materials either in their possession or located elsewhere. Included are copies
of correspondence, military papers, and real estate papers. Correspondents include Rutherford B. Hayes, William
J. Bryan, and Robert M. LaFollette.
| Box 1 Box 2 Box 3 Box 4 Box 5 Box 6 |
Box 7 Box 8 Boxes 9-13 Box 14 Box 15-18 |
Boxes A-C Boxes D-I Boxes J-M Boxes N-Q Boxes R-V Maps |
For more information on the archival holdings, please contact the Carl Albert Center.
| Congressional Archives Home | | Carl Albert Center Home | | About the Center | | Contact Us |