Albion W. Tourgée papers

Finding Aid

Prepared by Cara Gilgenbach, March 13, 2002; Updated February 2019

Inclusive Dates: 1880-1896
Extent: .16 cubic foot (1 slim document case)
Physical Location: 11th floor

Biographical Note: Novelist, magazinist, and attorney Albion Winegar Tourgée was born May 2, 1838, in Williamsfield, Ohio, and died May 21, 1905, in Bordeaux, France. He grew up on a farm near Kingsville, Ohio, and attended the University of Rochester for two years. He served in the Union Army from 1861-63, during which time he suffered spinal injuries and spent four months in a Confederate prison. In 1864 he was admitted to the Ohio bar. Hoping to find entrepreneurial opportunities in the South, he moved to North Carolina in 1865 . Labeled a "carpetbagger", he believed in the reintegration of the Union, abhorred slavery, took on African-Americans as law clients and employees, and openly criticized the Ku Klux Klan. He joined the Republican Party and was a delegate to the North Carolina constitutional convention in 1868. Tourgée's writings include several novels and political articles. One of his best-known novels is A Fool's Errand: By One of the Fools (1879). He founded a magazine called Our Continent (later, Continent) in 1881 and also published another periodical called Basis: A Journal of Citizenship.

Scope and Content: This collection contains a small selection of correspondence and two quotations by Tourgée.

Related Material: Special Collections and Archives holds a large number of Tourée published works in its book collections. See the KentLINK catalog for holdings.

Box 1
Folder -- Contents

1. Letter: Tourgée, A. W. to Rossiter Johnson. Sept. 1, 1880
2. Quotation: "Ye suffer a fool..." by Tourgée. Feb. 27, 1882
3. Letter: Tourgée, Albion W. to George C. Steele. Jan. 23, 1883
4. Letter: Tourgée, Albion W. to Darwin C. Pavey. Oct. 5, 1885
5. Letter: Tourgée, Albion W. to Emily Sartain. May 24, 1886
6. Letter: Tourgée, Albion W. to Observer, [newspaper?], Keene, NH. Apr. 14, 1889
7. Letter: Tourgée, Albion W. to L. S. Metcalf. May 10, 1889
8. Letter: Tourgée, Albion W. to Ashley Trimble Cole. Oct. 10, 1894
9. Letter: Tourgée, Albion W. to Mrs. Shepherd. Apr. 24, 1893 [mounted onto board with photos of and clippings about Tourgée]
10. Letter: Tourgée, Albion W. to _____ [unknown recipient]. Sept. 5, 1896
11. Quotation: from Tourgée's The White Christ (Pactolus Prime). undated