Papers relating to the American Colonization Company and various American land companies, 1879-1890.

1.04 linear ft. (3 boxes)

English

Items originally mounted in scrapbook.

Purchased from the William Reese Company on the Library Associates Endowment Fund, 1999.

Arranged in original page order of scrapbook.

Henry Franklin Shearman was involved with several land companies (including the American Railway Securities and Land Agency, the North American Land Association, and the Minnesota Land and Farming Company) that encouraged English investment in the American West during the late 1870s. In 1880 Shearman established a company in London that arranged contracts between American farmers in need of labor and young English men interested in learning about American farm life. As Shearman conceived the program, the immigrants would work as "farm pupils" for a period of years before purchasing their own farms in the United States. The business, which became known as the American Colonization Company, was transferred to Ford, Rathbone & Walter in 1882. The next seven years brought frequent changes in name and ownership as the program expanded to include farm placements in the Northwest, Canada, and Tasmania. William Wilbraham Ford held interests in the companies throughout the period, and continued operations under his own name after 1889.

Approximately 80 items which were originally housed in accompanying scrapbook: pamphlets, leaflets, applications forms, forms of receipt and other documents printed by the American Colonization Company and its successor bodies. Also pamphlets, prospectuses and documents relating to the American Railway Securities and Land Agency, the North American Land Association, the Minnesota Land and Farming Company, and the Iowa and Minnesota Land and Farming Company as well as pamphlets and leaflets describing farming and land investment opportunities in the Dakotas, Minnesota and Iowa. Scrapbook includes penciled annotations for some publications regarding number of copies printed, cost of printing, and name of printer.

October 23, 2002

Accompanied by container list (in box 1). Some items also cataloged separately.

Papers Relating to the American Colonization Company and Various American Land Companies. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Papers Relating to the American Colonization Company and Various American Land Companies. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Pamphlets.