Many of the documents in the Ezra Cornell Papers have been digitized and are available on-line. Links are provided within this guide.
Processing in the spring of 1995 has included the construction of the finding aid and index, the digitization of the correspondence by the Library's Department of Conservation and Preservation, and additional refoldering and archival processing. Subject headings were discerned, and from these terms the index was derived, though a few additional headings were supplied. The subject headings listed for each folder are intended to characterize the folder, and do not list every topic or incidence in that folder. Personal names may be additionally considered as access points (as "Alonzo B. Cornell" will lead a researcher to the establishment of telegraph lines in Montreal and Ohio). "Agriculture" implies several aspects of the science, including floriculture on Forest Park farm, cattle breeding, grain experimentation, etc. "Family correspondence" denotes special issues pertaining to the Cornell family, but by no means indicates all examples. Family letters occur in series other than the Correspondence series. It should also be noted that series subjects can be found throughout the papers, (as financial material can be found in the Documents and Legal Papers and in the Estate Records, where they have been kept for the sake of provenance, or as they illustrate other materials in those series). In most cases, cities cited in the finding aid serve to suggest the location of Ezra Cornell's business activity or family concerns, and do not usually serve as references to the cities themselves. Further, all the letters were hand-written by persons of imperfect grammatical abilities and irregular senses of linguistic convention. Ezra Cornell especially, was a poor speller, which may result in confusion of attribution.
[Combined subject lists are available. These list all subject headings (described above) created for Series I, together with their rate of occurrence.]
Collection processed by Phil McCray and Maggie Hale, assisted by Lisa Sasaki (June 1995). HTML encoding by Angela Moll (January 1996). EAD/XML encoding by David Ruddy (May 1999). [This HTML version has been derived from the EAD/XML version, September 1999, by DR.]
Ezra Cornell Papers, #1-1-1. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.