John Vance Lauderdale papers

The John Vance Lauderdale Papers contain correspondence, journals, photographs, drawings, programs, newspaper clippings, and memorabilia documenting the lives of Dr. John V. Lauderdale and other members of the Lauderdale family. The papers span the dates 1838-1931, but the bulk of the material covers the years 1852-1916.

The Lauderdale Papers were originally housed in thirteen bound volumes, each numbered and indexed by John Vance Lauderdale. Pages in these bound volumes were frequently layered with multiple items and interleaved with sketches, printed ephemera, and original photographs in a variety formats, including snapshots, cabinet cards, cartes de visites, tintypes, and stereographs. Dr. Lauderdale probably gathered his papers and had them bound around World War I. He inserted newspaper clippings, often obituaries or additional information about events discussed, next to related text. Some of the clippings postdate the events described. Except for the snapshots taken by John Vance Lauderdale, many of the photographs in the scrapbooks may also be non-contemporaneous with the material with which they are associated. For ease of use, the scrapbooks were disbound when the collection was processed in 1989. The scrapbooks are accompanied by a collection of glass plate lantern slides as well as miscellaneous material related to the Lauderdale family and to the deaths of John Vance Lauderdale and his wife, Josephine.

Series I, Scrapbooks , (Boxes 1-16) consists of Lauderdale's thirteen disbound albums. Each scrapbook volume begins with an index Lauderdale created that refers to the individually numbered pages of the scrapbook. The scrapbooks contain letters and journals written by John V. Lauderdale to his family, generally arranged in chronological order, together with supplementary photographs, drawings, newspaper clippings, and memorabilia. The scrapbooks also hold a small number of letters to Lauderdale from his parents, brothers and sisters, wife and children, other relatives, and acquaintances. The recipient of the greatest number of letters was his unmarried sister Frances (Frank) of Geneseo, New York. Dr. Lauderdale's journals, which commenced when he arrived on station at the Presidio of San Francisco in August 1867, appear to have been sent regularly to Geneseo and to have served as substitutes for letters.

The scrapbook contents in Series I can be divided into three parts. The first segment covers the period from 1850 until Lauderdale completed his medical studies in March 1862. The second begins with Lauderdale's first medical position as a contract surgeon in April 1862 and ends with his retirement from the U.S. Army in 1896, while the third covers his retirement between 1896 and 1916.

The correspondence for the first period appears in Volume I (Box 1) and centers on Lauderdale's search for an appropriate career. Except for one 1851 letter, Lauderdale's own correspondence begins in January 1852, about the time he started work as a clerk in a New York City drug store. He complained as early as February 1852 that "the Drug business is a very good business for the employer, but not for the clerk," yet it was not until the fall of 1858 that he began to attend medical lectures at the University of New York. His father, Walter E. Lauderdale, a country physician from Geneseo, did not encourage his eldest son to follow in his footsteps. Medicine, he stated in a December 18, 1854 letter, was "rather a thankless profession, besides being a very slavish one, especially in the Country. I had hoped that my Children would choose some more independent profession for a living." Lauderdale's letters from New York City written during the winters of 1858-59 and 1861-62 provide information on his medical training.

John V. Lauderdale lived in New York City on three different occasions between January 1852 and March 1862 and, in addition to discussing his work in drug stores and his medical studies, he wrote about life in the state's largest city. A devout Presbyterian, he announced to his mother in April 1853 that he had joined the New Brick Church, and his letters provide a good view of the life and activities of a pious young man in New York City. The early correspondence also gives information about life in Geneseo, New York, and describes the activities of his brothers and sisters.

Lauderdale was interested in science his entire working life. While staying with an uncle and aunt in Cleveland in October 1855, he collected "coal plants" and fossil fish, which he stored in "a cabinet." The scrapbooks contain a handful of letters from Daniel C. Eaton, W. W. Mather, John S. Newberry, and William C. Redfield concerning the natural sciences.

He discussed presidential politics in several 1856 and 1860 letters. The events of the first year of the Civil War are the subjects of several letters of John V. Lauderdale, his father, and brothers Samuel in Washington, D.C., and Willis in St. Louis.

The largest section of the papers (Boxes 2-13) covers the period of Lauderdale's medical career, most of which was spent in the U.S. Army. The doctor first saw active service between April and August 1862 as a contract surgeon in the Civil War's western theater. Although officially stationed in St. Louis, he traveled extensively by hospital steamer D. A. January to scenes of battles and to hospitals in such places as Cairo, Illinois; Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee (site of the Battle of Shiloh); Paducah, Kentucky; Memphis, Tennessee; and Columbus, Kentucky. In a series of informative letters, he discusses the plight of wounded soldiers, the attitudes of rebel prisoners of war, his views of the overall military situation, and the places he visited. For the next eighteen months, Dr. Lauderdale served as a physician on the staff of Bellevue Hospital in New York City, but the events of the war were still the major subject of his and his family's letters. Other topics include the draft in New York State, the draft riots in New York City, Civil War politics, and the unsuccessful cotton speculations of his brothers, who in 1864 leased a plantation near Vicksburg, Mississippi.

In March 1864 Lauderdale accepted a contract position as an acting assistant surgeon in the U.S. Army. Ordered to the District of Utah in April, he was stationed at Fort Bridger in Utah Territory from October 1864 to August 1866. In letters home he discussed presidential politics and the successful termination of the war, military life and social activities on a frontier post, Indian troubles, the Mormons, religion and temperance, the weather, and the flora and fauna of the desolate region.

By November 1864, Lauderdale had reached the conclusion that the South must be conquered and that Lincoln deserved reelection. He was distressed by President Johnson's veto of the "Freedmens Bill" and in an April 27, 1866 letter asserted that blacks should have the right to vote. As a devout Presbyterian, he detested the Mormons, stating in a May 1864 letter that polygamy was as evil an institution as human slavery. He frequently reported on Indian depredations in Utah Territory. In a May 26, 1865 letter, however, he pondered their future. "The question of killing off indians indiscriminately and totally has engaged my mind very often." They have souls "which may be trained for heaven," but they can only survive if they "are made to work and earn their living like white folks."

Lauderdale passed the exam given by the Army Medical Board in New York City in December 1866 and received his assistant surgeon's appointment the next May. From December 1866 to June 1867, he was stationed in New York City, during which time he examined recruits, accompanied detachments of soldiers to Savannah and New Orleans, and enjoyed social life in the city. He then traveled to San Francisco with a detachment of recruits heading for the Military Division of the Pacific, a journey by way of the Isthmus of Panama that lasted from July 11 to August 3. His account of the trip was later published, perhaps in a Geneseo newspaper.

Upon arrival for duty at the Presidio of San Francisco, Lauderdale began to keep a journal. His journals and occasional letters provide an excellent picture of the life of an army doctor in the last third of the nineteenth century. He regularly wrote on such topics as his medical practice, the social life of the officer corps, the quality of army life, the excessive drinking and lack of piety on army posts, and the officers with whom he served. He also wrote about his family and life in Geneseo, described the places he was stationed, and discussed the weather, gardening, photography, and his scientific experiments and observations.

Lauderdale was stationed at the Presidio of San Francisco, "a very desirable Post," from August 1867 to April 1868. He noted receptions given by the wife of General Irwin McDowell, commencement at a medical college in San Francisco, his reading of Hawthorne and Dickens, a Chinese funeral procession, and the December 1867 suicide of Colonel Edward P. McGarry as the result of addiction to "old John Barleycorn." For the next three and a half years, the doctor was stationed in Arizona Territory at Fort Yuma, Camp Lowell in Tucson, and Fort Yuma again. His journeys from San Franciso to Yuma and from Yuma to Camp Lowell are described in "From San Francisco to Fort Yuma, California," dated May 25 1868, and "A ride through Arizona," dated July 1869. He recorded the hot summer temperatures, reported his gardening successes, discussed alcohol abuse, provided a Presbyterian view of Roman Catholic religious practices, and noted the depredations of Cochise's band of Apache Indians. The Indian situation was particularly difficult, and Lauderdale's journal contains many references to skirmishes with them and their attacks on outlying settlements.

After an extended leave, Dr. Lauderdale spent the time between June 1872 and June 1874 at three forts in New York Harbor, stations that gave him the opportunity once again to enjoy the social and cultural amenities the city had to offer. Following a month of temporary duty at Fort Adams, near Newport, Rhode Island, he was assigned to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he remained barely a month before receiving orders to go to Fort Wingate in New Mexico Territory. While at Fort Leavenworth he published an article, "The True Indian Policy," in which he asserted that native Americans should be confined to reservations, freed from agents, and taught agricultural and mechanical skills. Lauderdale was then directed to proceed to Denver "to make certain copies of maps deemed necessary for these headquarters," a task that took around three weeks. Two journals that include snapshots and sketches describe his subsequent journey from Denver to Fort Wingate by way of Santa Fe.

Fort Wingate, where the doctor was stationed from October 1874 to October 1878, was in Navajo and Zuñi territory, and his journals contain frequent observations on Indian life in the region. He visited Zuñi villages, reported on frauds committed by Indian agents, watched the Navajos receive their annuities at Fort Defiance Indian Agency, and became interested in missionary efforts to the Indians. He was acquainted with missionaries Sheldon Jackson and Henry K. Palmer and provided educational assistance to Antoinette (Nettie) Williams, a mixed blood Navajo. Nettie Williams is mentioned in several letters and in numerous journal entries between February 1878 and May 1885. She attended Carlisle Indian School, returned to the Navajo reservation, married, and died in childbirth. As Lauderdale wrote in his journal on May 15, 1885, "so all our hopes for her future usefulness to her people are at an end." He also detailed trips to Canyon de Chelle with photographer W. H. Jackson in April 1877 and to Zuñi with General William T. Sherman in September 1878. A major portion of his account of the journey to Canyon de Chelle was published, but there is no evidence that his notes on the Sherman trip appeared in print.

He also commented on the "colored troops" of the 9th Cavalry, a company of which was stationed at Fort Wingate from January 1876 to September 1877. With the stationing of a company of black cavalry at the fort, Dr. Lauderdale was required to keep a special account "of their diseases . . . on different sheets. There is nothing said about the color of the ink to be used in recording their names." He noted the following January that the black soldiers were not as rugged as white ones. "They are flowers of a tender stock and do not make such good material for the wear and tear of the service as the anglo saxon race."

Lauderdale was stationed in the South from March 1879 to March 1882 at Mount Vernon Barracks, Alabama; Newport Barracks, Kentucky; McPherson Barracks, Georgia; and Jackson Barracks, Louisiana. While at Mount Vernon Barracks, located in southern Alabama about fourteen miles from the town of Citronelle, he described life on the post, his social activities, the weather, flora and fauna, visits from his family, and black life, in particular that of a church in "Happy Hollow." He married Josephine Lane on June 29, 1880 and honeymooned in Europe before reporting for temporary duty at Newport Barracks in October. From November 1880 to December 1881 he was stationed at McPherson Barracks in Atlanta. Lauderdale was then posted to Jackson Barracks in New Orleans for three months before receiving order to report to Fort Sully in Dakota Territory.

Fort Sully, on the Missouri River twenty-three miles from Pierre, was in Dakota Indian territory. Lauderdale's journals, therefore, contain frequent references to the Dakotas, who congregated at nearby Fort Bennett. He noted, for example, an old tree on the way to Fort Bennett "whereon are laid the mortal remains of several Indians," he witnessed the issuance of annuity goods to them, and often visited mission schools at Fort Bennett.

The Lauderdales' four-year stay at Fort Sully was marred by the death of their infant daughter Frances Helen, named after the doctor's favorite sister. When she was born at Fort Sully on August 15, 1885, her proud father described her as "a very vigorous little thing." By the end of the month, however, her condition deteriorated as she did not take to the breast. She died in her sleep on the evening September 6. As Josephine Lauderdale wrote in a long letter to sister-in-law Frank two days later, "she just fell asleep and never waked up, no struggle, and no pain that one could see or know about, and no disease that John could tell." After this bitter experience, the couple took no chances, and daughter Marjorie was delivered at the Lane home in Brooklyn on September 30, 1886.

Winters in Dakota were harsh, but the winter of 1882-83 was particularly cold and fierce. On January 19 the temperature plummeted to thirty-eight degrees below zero and on January 25 the doctor reported that the railroad between Pierre and Chicago was blocked by snow. Lauderdale's journals also contain entries on scores of other subjects. He noted, for example, low church attendance in June 1882, a new drill of calisthenic exercises begun by the soldiers the next February, and the arrival in October 1885 of a new bandmaster for the 11th Infantry band, Achille LaGuardia, father of the mayor of New York City.

Upon completion of his tour of duty in Dakota Territory, Lauderdale was sent to Texas. From June to September 1886 he was stationed at Fort Concho, just outside San Angelo. He was on leave the rest of the year and then reported for duty at Fort Clark, where he remained for almost a year and a half, and was thereafter posted to Fort Davis for the next two years. With the birth of a daughter in 1886 and a son three years later, Lauderdale's journals take on a somewhat different character, as they contain numerous references to childhood illnesses and to the joys of child rearing. One of Lauderdale's commanding officers at Fort Davis was Colonel W. B. Cochrane, "the worst old soldier for a C. O. that I have had anything to do with in many a day." When the doctor refused in September 1889 to pay what he considered to be an unjust bill, Cochrane relieved him of duty and began to prepare courtmartial proceedings, but Lauderdale was cleared of any wrongdoing by an army investigating board.

His next station was Fort Ontario in Oswego, New York, where he remained from May 1890 to November 1894. The Lauderdales particularly enjoyed Oswego, and the doctor's journals contain numerous references to such activities as church and concert attendance, tours of local factories, and Normal School commencements. On December 29, 1890, the day of the Battle of Wounded Knee, Major Lauderdale was ordered to report to Pine Ridge Agency, South Dakota. In a series of letters to his wife written between January 3 and February 28, 1890, he reported on the aftermath of the battle and care of the wounded. In July 1894 he accompanied troops from Fort Oswego to Chicago to help "put down the labor insurrection" there at the time of the Pullman Strike.

The doctor reported to Fort Omaha, Nebraska in March 1895 after a long leave. Omaha was a growing city and his journals provide an excellent view of life there during the mid-1890s. He visited the city waterworks, rode the street cars, attended the state fair and a performance of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, and took the family to the city's "Coney island," a place called Manowah on the Iowa side of the Missouri River. Aside from a diphtheria epidemic in early 1896, his medical duties were not onerous. He noted that in July 1895 ninety-one soldiers needed treatment, most for bowel troubles brought on by eating too much green fruit. He also reported attending a "pyro-military spectacle" on the siege of Vicksburg and a lecture by General O. O. Howard on the Battle of Gettysburg.

The final section of Series I, Boxes 14-16, covers a twenty year retirement period. Before retirement on November 13, 1896, however, he spent a month's leave in Denver. The family remained there until the end of November and vacationed in Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Pacific Grove, Los Angeles, and San Diego for the next six months.

In August 1897 the Lauderdales moved into a new house on 84th Street in Brooklyn and a great deal of the remaining material consists of newspaper clippings, programs, invitations, and the like that document his social activities. The collection contains, for example, programs for a 1904 performance of "Sherlock Holmes" with William Gillette in the title role, the 1908 graduation exercises for the Polytechnic Preparatory School of Brooklyn, the 1909 reunion and dinner of The Society of Alumni of Bellevue Hospital, and for a 1910 performance of J. M. Barrie's "What Every Woman Knows" featuring Maude Adams. Scattered journal entries continue until 1903.

Significant groups of letters are only found in the years 1903, 1910, 1915, and 1916. Dr. Lauderdale described the final illness and death of sister Frank and poor health of brother Robert in Geneseo in letters to his wife written in July and August 1903. Additional letters written in August and September by Louise Lauderdale, Robert's wife, and brother Walter describe Robert's last days. In a small group of July 1910 letters, Lauderdale, again writing from Geneseo, discussed the health of brothers Walter and Willis, while in several 1915 letters to Willis the doctor talked about family news. The last group of letters date from June and July 1916 and describe a trip made by the doctor to Fort Grant in the Canal Zone to visit his daughter and her family.

As has been noted, the Lauderdale Papers contain scattered information on American politics, religion, alcoholism and temperance, gardening, family life and child rearing practices, and the fate of Indians in the western United States. The papers also include material documenting the doctor's interest in photography and science and his views of blacks, plus information on such subjects as the lives of servants, death, and dying.

Dr. Lauderdale had an abiding interest in photography. He collected photographs, was an ardent amateur photographer, and enjoyed showing his pictures. It is possible that some of the lantern slides stored in Boxes 17-18 were included in his many "lantern entertainments." The bulk of the photographs in his scrapbooks are of friends, acquaintances, and family, or of the places the doctor was stationed or visited. The collection contains photographic images of all of Lauderdale's major posts from Fort Yuma to Fort Omaha, plus an extensive series of photographs documenting the Lauderdale family's six-month vacation after the doctor's retirement in 1896.

Lauderdale was also an amateur artist, and about seventy drawings and sketches are found among the contents of his scrapbooks. The scrapbooks also include a drawing by a wounded soldier in October 1867, a drawing by an "Indian boy" in December 1872, and a three sketches by a "Dr. Macauley" in 1883 and 1884. Most of Lauderdale's own drawings are in the first three volumes of his scrapbook collection, with a few scattered in the volumes that document later periods of his life.

Lauderdale was interested in science in a general way, and in 1856 was elected a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He collected fossils in the 1850s, read about telephone, phonograph, and electric light experiments in the late 1870s, viewed comets, undertook experiments with sulfate of iron in 1883, and gave lectures to military personnel on chemistry and anatomy. As early as April 1879, while stationed at Mount Vernon Barracks, Alabama, he set up a telephone to connect his quarters with the post hospital. His journals for the next several years contain numerous references to setting up and using telephones on army bases.

Lauderdale's journals also contain observations on black life and frequent references to blacks, such as the soldiers of the 9th Cavalry and his black cook, David Crockett Moore, who was part of the Lauderdale household for almost twenty-four years. The doctor sometimes expressed stereotypical sentiments; writing, for example, in April 1879 that the riverboat deckhands were never "too fatigued to sing," and in July 1888 that "colored people are very tender and will always stop work when there is a little something wrong with them." On the other hand, he believed in their right to vote, attended services at black churches in the South, and provided financial assistance to at least one poverty stricken black seeking to further her education. In June 1894 W. A. C. Caldwell of Mobile, Alabama wrote to thank him for his help in allowing her to get a first grade teaching certificate. Lauderdale sometimes noted the prejudice that blacks had to endure. In January 1876 he questioned the need to keep separate medical records for black soldiers, and in July 1882 he noted that the washerwomen at Fort Sully did not wish to wash David's clothes.

The illnesses and deaths of Lauderdale's mother in 1882, daughter in 1885, sister Nettie in 1888, father in 1893, sister Frank in 1903, and brother Robert that same year are all well documented, as are such topics as the life of an army wife, raising children on military posts, and the more general subject of family life in the army during the last third of the nineteenth century.

Series II, Family Papers , is housed in Box 16. The materials in this series consist of genealogical material, newspaper clippings, obituaries for Lauderdale and his wife, and a typescript copy of Lauderdale's 1922 will.

Series III. Lantern Slides , are housed in Boxes 17 and 18. Many of the glass plate lantern slides duplicate photographs found elsewhere in the collection. They have been arranged in chronological order to the extent possible; slides that could not be identified with a particular career location have been filed at the end. The collection holds ninety lantern slides, Most of the slides appear to be the work of Dr. Lauderdale, but some were commercially produced. Box 18, numbers 46-48, for example, contains three lantern slides of Utah sold by "W. H. Jackson & Co., Denver, Colo."

Box 19 houses Oversize material, most of which was removed from Lauderdale's scrapbooks. An 1838 land grant to Samuel Vance for property in Michigan is present, along with a number of printed programs, clippings, and other items.