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At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Unknown to Blanche Kelso Bruce

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC09400.043 Author/Creator: Unknown Place Written: Terrence, Mississippi Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 14 February 1876 Pagination: 2 p. ; 35 x 11.4 cm. Order a Copy

A friendly letter, the author discusses a friend that had visited the south only to return and call Senator Bruce the only true gentleman in the South. There is also a mention of a speech Bruce is making on "Pinchback". This is believed to be in reference to a contested election involving Pinckney B. S. Pinchback, a African American Senator-elect from Louisiana

Blanche Kelso Bruce was born into slavery near Farmville, Prince Edward County, Va. on March 1 1841. He was tutored by his master's son, but left his master at the beginning of the civil war and taught school in Hannibal Mo. After the civil war Bruce became a planter in Mississippi, and a member of the Mississippi Levee Board, and Sheriff and Tax Collector for Bolivar County from 1872-1875. Bruce was then elected as a Republican to the United States Senate, where he served from March 4 1875 - March 3 1881. Bruce was the first African American to serve a full term in the U.S. Senate. In 1881 Bruce was appointed by President James Garfield as the Register of the Treasury. Bruce then went on to serve as the Recorder of Deeds for the District of Colombia from 1891-1893, returning to the office of Register of the Treasury from 1897 until his death on March 17, 1898.

Bruce, Blanche Kelso, 1841-1898

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