Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum


Eric Fowler Papers

Dates: 1852-1897.

Document collector and local historian, Independence, Missouri.

The papers of Eric Fowler consist of a letter from Benjamin Franklin Wallace to John Parker, and two grade school registers recording the attendance of Harry S. Truman, Bess Wallace, and other students.

[Administrative Information | Biographical Sketch | Collection Description | Series Descriptions | Folder Title List]


ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION

Size: Less than one linear foot (about 400 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: No donation of copyright has been received from the donor of this collection. Copyright interest in the documents presumably belongs to the creators of those documents, or their heirs.
Processed by: Austin Trantham (2007) as part of the Truman Library Internship Program.
Supervising Archivists: Randy Sowell and David Clark.


[ Top of the page | Administrative Information | Biographical Sketch | Collection Description | Series Descriptions | Folder Title List ]


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Eric Fowler, a document collector and local historian in Independence, Missouri, originally accumulated these documents. The Harry S. Truman Library Institute obtained the documents for the Harry S. Truman Library.

[ Top of the page | Administrative Information | Biographical Sketch | Collection Description | Series Descriptions | Folder Title List ]


COLLECTION DESCRIPTION

The papers of Eric Fowler contain a copy of a letter Benjamin Franklin Wallace wrote to John Parker from Jefferson City, Missouri, on December 22, 1852. The letter discusses the prospects of bills in the Missouri legislature aimed at promoting construction of the Pacific Railroad in western Missouri through loans and land grants. Benjamin Franklin Wallace was the grandfather of Bess Wallace Truman. The collection also includes Mr. Fowler’s transcription of the handwritten letter.

The rest of the collection consists of two school registers from Independence, Missouri, documenting attendance and grades for students during the period from 1888 to 1897. The records apparently were kept by Nannie Wallace, a teacher at Ott School in Independence, who was the sixth-grade teacher of Harry S. Truman and his future wife, Bess Wallace. One of the registers records the attendance of Harry and Bess for the period from September 1896 to January 1897. (Harry was twelve in 1896, while Bess was a year younger.) The register does not record their grades.

Related materials at the Truman Library include the records of the Independence (Missouri) School District, which include the grades and attendance records of Harry S. Truman in the first and second grades.

[ Top of the page | Administrative Information | Biographical Sketch | Collection Description | Series Descriptions | Folder Title List ]


SERIES DESCRIPTIONS

Container Nos. Series
1 SUBJECT FILE, 1852-1897
Letter and school registers. Arranged alphabetically.

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FOLDER TITLE LIST
Box 1
  • Letter, Benjamin Franklin Wallace to John Parker, 1852
  • Ott School Register, 1888-1892
  • Ott School Register, 1889-1897

[ Top of the page | Administrative Information | Biographical Sketch | Collection Description | Series Descriptions | Folder Title List ]



The Harry S. Truman Library and Museum is one of thirteen Presidential Libraries administered by the National Archives and Records Administration.

500 W. US Hwy. 24. Independence MO 64050
truman.library@nara.gov
;
Phone: 816-268-8200 or 1-800-833-1225;
Fax: 816-268-8295.

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