Walter Mason Camp correspondence, 1908-1925

Series

Identifier: MSS 57 Series 2

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

Contains letters from 1908 to 1925, with some undated filed at the end. Enclosures, including letters not written to or by Camp, were left with the cover letter. It is apparent that Walter Camp was a prodigious letter writer, but there are many gaps in this collection. Three-fourths or more of the correspondence is incoming letters. Some of those, however, are Camp's original letters returned to him with a handwritten answer added to the bottom or on the back. The correspondence includes several form letters designed by Camp and is almost entirely devoted to his avocation of gathering information on the Indian Wars. A few letters were written in response to requests for information from other researchers.

Dates

Creation: 1908-1925

Creator

Camp, Walter Mason, 1867-1925 (creator, Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Most of the collection is open for public research. However, Walter Mason Camp interviews (Series 3) and Walter Mason Camp notes (Series 4) are "Condition restricted" and researchers are asked to use the microfilm copy or transcriptions in Series 5.

Conditions Governing Use

It is the responsibility of the researcher to obtain any necessary copyright clearances. Permission to publish material from the Walter Mason Camp papers must be obtained from the Supervior of Reference Services and/or the L. Tom Perry Special Collections Coordinating Committee.

Biographical History

From the Collection:

Walter Mason Camp (1867-1925) was a railroad engineer and writer, in the midwestern United States. Camp also performed research on the history of the India Wars of the Plains, in particular the Battle of the Little Big Horn of 1876.

Walter Camp was born on April 21, 1867 to Treat Bosworth Camp and Hannah A. Brown in Camptown, Pennsylvania. In 1883, he began his railroad service on the Lehigh Valley Railroad as a trackman, which would lead to his forty-two year railroad career. He entered Pennsylvania State College in the fall of 1887, and graduated as a civil engineer in 1891. In 1895 Camp resumed post graduate studies in electrical and steam engineering at the University of Wisconsin. In 1898 Walter married Emeline L.F. Sayles in Blue Island, Illinois. Walter Camp became the engineering editor of the "Railway and Engineering Review" in 1897 and served faithfull and well as a railway editor for the following twenty-eight years.

Walter Camp's interest in documenting the Indian Wars began in 1903, after which his vacations for the following twenty summers were spent in research among the Indians and in talking with people who had survived the Little Bighorn River fight and other battles. He personally visited over forty battlefields and interviewed almost 200 survivors of western battles. Walter Camp died on August 3, 1925 in Kankakee, Illinois having published very little of his Indian wars research, but having collected an amount of original source material during his lifetime.