Inventory of the Hugh Gladney Grant Papers, 1847-1939

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 Philadelphia Gazette. The cartoon itself dates from 1886, but it has been reprinted, presumably circa 1920 (now housed in Ovsz. Box 10). Ovsz. Folder 2 contains two of Grant's diplomas, along with several American and Albanian periodicals (held in OC:I:11).

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.