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[Identification of item], Hugh Gladney Grant Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
The Hugh Gladney Grant Papers were received by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library as a purchase in 1973, 1983, and 1985; and as a gift in 1999.
Processed by Rubenstein Library Staff, 1998
Encoded by Colby Bogie and Meghan Lyon, June 2011
Descriptive sources and standards used to create this inventory:
This finding aid is NCEAD compliant.
Hugh Gladney Grant was born in Birmingham, Alabama, September 2, 1888, the son of William Curtis Grant. Grant held an A.B. degree from Howard College, A.B., A.M., and LL.D. degrees from Harvard University, and A.M. from George Washington University. He also worked toward a doctorate in the latter institution, starting in the fall of 1928, but he did not complete the requirements for it. On Aug. 9, 1916, Grant married Cora Dean Hibbs, daughter of Dr. Henry H. Hibbs, a Baptist minister. After the Grants moved to Washington, Mrs. Grant also attended George Washington University and received an M.A. degree from that institution. The Grants' only child was Esther Louise, who was born on Aug. 26, 1917. Grant was a Baptist and a Mason.
Grant worked as a newspaper reporter and special correspondent on political subjects, engaged in educational work for the City of Birmingham, the state of Alabama, and the United States Government, and served in the United States Army in 1918. From 1919 to 1921 he worked for the Federal Board for Vocational Education, during 1921-1923 he worked for the Alabama State Board of Education, and from 1923-1927 he taught political science and journalism at Alabama Polytechnic Institute, Auburn, Ala. At the time he resigned in 1927 to go to Washington as the personal secretary of his longtime friend, newly-elected Senator Hugo L. Black, he was also secretary-treasurer of the API Alumni Association. There are a number of records relating to API during the time that Grant was with that institution, and Auburn friends kept in touch with him after he left. He was one of the opponents of President Speight Dowell of API who later became president of Mercer University.
In 1933, Grant was appointed to the Division of Western European Affairs in the Department of State. He was rewarded again in 1935 for his support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt by being appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to Albania. This collection ends with Grant leaving Albania in the fall of 1939 after Mussolini took over the country completely. Brief information about his life and career after that time may be found in
With the exception of his diary, these papers are largely Grant’s correspondence and other records from his service as U.S. Minister to Albania, 1935-1939. His extensive diary covers this period, but most of it, as does some of his correspondence and other records, covers the period (1927-1933) while he was secretary to Sen. Hugo L. Black. Other topics covered in detail include the roles of Senators Heflin and Black, Alabama and National Democratic politics, the Depression, particularly in Alabama, the Bonus March on Washington in 1932, Albania and its King Zog, administration of the U.S. Legation in that country, and the rise of Mussolini and Hitler. In his diary, he gives opinions of many people, including Senator Black, Neville Chamberlain, King Zog, and Charles Lindbergh. Between 1933 and 1935, he was in the Division of Western European Affairs in the Department of State, and that service is also covered in this collection. A collection of photographs of Albania, various other places, and some family photos are included. There are a few clippings, and some personal correspondence of Grant and of Mrs. Hugh G. Grant.
These are searchable subject entries for this collection. Performing a search on these subjects in the Duke University Libraries online catalog will bring up other related research materials.
Correspondence from Grant's career and personal life. There are many family letters in the collection. The contents of the personal letters may be summarized as revealing information about the relationship between Grant and his wife, and with their daughter; their daughter's education in Europe and at William and Mary College; relationships among the Hibbs family and between the Hibbses and the Grants; Grant's concerns about his elderly parents and their problems; and the relationships between Grant and his wife and their friends. There are also many letters between Grant and Senator Black. The correspondence of Black's senatorial office is divided between this collection and the one at the Library of Congress. Grant also wrote many letters to Albanians in Albanian, and had copies of them in both Albanian and English made for the Legation files. While serving as Minister, most of Grant's correspondence is of a diplomatic nature. His dispatches to the Secretary of State constitute a separate category in the arrangement of the collection.
Nearly all of the several folders of memoranda concern Albania and the administration of the Legation.
Grant's diaries constitute one of the most substantive segments of the collection. The diary he kept while in Washington begins in typed form on Oct. 11, 1927, three weeks after he had begun as secretary to Senator Black. It continues through 1931, except for a gap between March 4 and Sept. 9 of 1929. Grant's US Diary from Jan. 1, 1931 to June 19, 1934 is in the form of notes on memorandum slips in his handwriting, which is difficult to read. Only one volume of diary for his service in Albania is in this collection. It numbers four hundred pages and runs from Feb. 21 to Apr. 1, 1938. In that diary, as in his other diary, he gives his opinions of many people. They included Dr. Louis Hackett, Assistant Director of the Rockefeller Foundation and stationed in Rome; Anthony Eden; Neville Chamberlain; King Zog of Albania; Senators Black, James Thomas Heflin, and John H. Bankhead II of Alabama; and Charles A. Lindbergh.
Grant's dispatches from Albania include reports of his conversations with King Zog about the state of affairs in Albania and the rest of Europe.
Press releases from Grant's time in Washington and from his Ministry in Albania. Among the press releases that Grant acquired while working for the State Department in Washington are a number of addresses by President Roosevelt and Secretary Cordell Hull.
Composed primarily of typed transcripts and summaries of news reports and radio bulletins from Grant's years as Minister to Albania.
A file of a survey Senator Black made in the fall of 1931 of all cotton-producing states. The information sought in the survey was the estimated size of the year's cotton crop and the relief plans, if any, formulated in the states to offset the low prices of that year's cotton.
This series contains various internal communications, such as committee reports and policy memos, from Grant's offices in Washington and Albania.
Only a portion of the records relative to the extensive entertaining that the Grants did in the Legation and of their invitations to social events in Albania were retained when this collection was processed. The amount and nature of the records retained give some notion of how seriously the Grants took their responsibilities as representatives of the United States abroad in social relationships as well as in other areas for which they were responsible. The folder on King Zog's wedding on Apr. 27, 1938 contains an undated, twenty-page article on the courtship and marriage of King Zog to Countess Geraldine Apponyi that was written by Mrs. Grant. Her desire to write articles for publication in this country appears to have died aborning.
A collection of Grant's personal papers, including his legal and financial documents; his handwritten notes; and his writings, addresses, and reports.
Clippings from newspapers, some from America and some from Europe. Several of the "clippings" are actually typed English translations of articles from foreign-language papers. Subjects covered in the clippings include: Albania; other Balkan countries; John Hollis Bankhead II; Hugo Lafayette Black; Bonus Expeditionary Force; the Grants; Italy; and the Little Entente. The clippings about Albania and the other Balkan countries are especially numerous. They are principally either in French or translations from Albanian newspapers.
This series primarily consists of copies of newspapers and periodicals from both America and Albania. There is also an Albanian-English Dictionary. Parts of this series are housed with oversize materials. Ovsz. Folder 1 holds an anti-Prohibition political cartoon from the
In September and October of 1937, Grant, accompanied by his wife and daughter, visited Balkan and Central European capitals on a fact-finding mission for the State Department. Most of the pictures in the collection are small photographs that the Grants took on that trip. The other pictures are largely of the Grants and Albanians. There is one additional photograph housed in OC:I:11; it depicts the 1935 White House Easter Egg Roll.
A box containing photocopies of Grant-related material from the collections of Wichita State University.