William Blaikie Papers
Scope and Content
This collection highlights William Blaikie’s interests in law, physical education, athletics, crew/rowing, and a range of tangential issues. These interests are illustrated through correspondence, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, published books and pamphlets.
A majority of this collection is a compilation of newspaper clippings reflecting Blaikie’s interests. The newspapers include articles on health concerns, current legal cases, crew regattas, reviews and announcements of his books, general athletic announcements, and major headlines that reflect current news. Within the legal series are two high profile cases in which Blaikie had a particular interest: the Tyler case and the Fayerweather case. The Fayerweather case involved a claim against the executor of his will by Fayerweather’s heirs. William Blaikie served as Counsel for the executors. The Tyler case in New York involved insurance companies and their responsibility for multiple policies to Tyler’s estate following his suicide.
In addition to newspaper clippings that suggest his major interests, there are also newspaper editorials and portraits from the newspaper. Some of the newspaper articles have been photocopied because the physical state of the original was too brittle to merit preservation.
There is also a group of scrapbooks each containing a mixture of many topics and formats including newspaper clippings, correspondence, ticket stubs, and lecture announcements. The subject content of each varies, but all address athletics and physical education, legal cases, and major current events as well as other tangential interests. Some major topics within the scrapbooks include the Fayerweather case, the Tyler case, crew/rowing, and his book How to Get Strong and How to Stay So. Scrapbooks are a subseries within each series based upon their predominate content. Each folder name lists the primary topic, if there is one, in the scrapbook; however, topic headings are not exclusive. The scrapbooks are fairly large in size, but the paper and bindings are fragile. Access at the discretion of the College Archivist.
The correspondence covers two significant topics. First, correspondence about his book, How to Get Strong and How to Stay So, is organized chronologically by year. This correspondence indicates who was reading the book and reflects readers’ attitudes. It also shows how many copies of the book Blaikie sent out to readers. Second is correspondence between William Blaikie and Robert Roberts, the gymnasium director of the Boston YMCA.
There are a wide variety of published materials that William Blaikie collected. These range from booklets on legal cases to oarsmen manuals and an issue of Life magazine. Blaikie also collected information from his time at Harvard University.
Dates
- Creation: 1871-1912
- Creation: Majority of material found within 1880-1900
Creator
- Blaikie, William, 1843-1904 (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
Unrestricted except in cases where materials are too fragile to be handled. Access is at the discretion of the College Archivist in these cases.
Conditions Governing Use
Rights status not fully evaluated.
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Biography Note
William Blaikie was born in Livingston County in York, New York, on May 24, 1843. He graduated from Harvard in 1866 and then from the Harvard Law School in 1868. During both his time at Harvard and afterwards, he was involved with the crew team, and the year following his graduation, 1867, he served as its secretary and treasurer and accompanied the team to England. Blaikie’s interest in crew remained throughout his life, and he followed the results of Harvard races in the newspaper and, at one point, bought them a new racing boat.
Following law school, Blaikie was a clerk in the Attorney General’s office in Washington D.C. and then served as the assistant attorney in the United States Attorney’s office in New York before entering into private practice. Blaikie was also Commissioner of the United States Court of Claims for eight years.
Outside of his law practice, Blaikie was most widely known for his interest in athletics, sports, and physical education. He wrote heavily on the subject including How to Get Strong, and How to Stay So (New York, 1879) and Sound Bodies for our Boys and Girls (New York, 1884). Blaikie was a pioneer in the field of weight lifting, and his book was widely used by trainers, colleges, and men around the country. The book was also used by Springfield College in classes on physical education and athletics. In fact, while at Oberlin as an undergraduate, Luther Gulick was influenced by Blaikie’s work How to Get Strong and How to Stay So, particularly in reference to Blaikie’s thoughts on body-building and health and Gulick’s developing vision of the relations among physical training, mental training, and good morals (Hopkins,1951, p. 253).
In addition to writing on the subjects, Blaikie lectured extensively on topics of physical education, the benefits of athletics for the body, and weight lifting. In 1888, Blaikie was also the President of the American Association for the Advancement of Physical Education (AAAPE). Blaikie was a Trustee of the School for Christian Workers, 1889-1890, now Springfield College. He also was a special lecturer at the School. He died in 1904.
The biographical information contained in this note is drawn from:
www.famousamericans.net/williamblaikie/ (accessed 2 October 2005).
Hopkins, Howard C. History of the YMCA in North America. New York: Association Press. 1951.
Extent
11 Linear Feet (15 boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Metadata Rights Declarations
Abstract
William Blaikie was born in York, New York on May 24, 1843. He graduated from Harvard in 1866 and then from the Harvard Law School in 1868. During his time at Harvard and after, he was actively involved with the crew team. Following law school, Blaikie was commissioner of the United States Court of Claims for eight years. The collection reflects Blaikie’s varied interests beyond law, particularly in the areas of physical education, health, and athletics. He lectured and wrote several articles and two books on the subject: How to Get Strong and How to Stay So (1879) and Sound Bodies for our Boys and Girls (1884). A substantial portion of the collection is a compilation of newspaper clippings about health issues, crew, and legal cases as well as correspondence about his book How to Get Strong and Stay So and correspondence with Robert Roberts, the man who coined the term “Body Builder”. The collection documents contemporary trends in health, physical education, and athletics and reveals the major current events during Blaikie’s lifetime.
Arrangement
Within each series the collection has been arranged by type of material. Publications are arranged alphabetically and correspondence is, for the most part, not arranged chronologically. The original order of the collection is not known. As much as possible, the arrangement used by the processor in 2005 has been maintained. Original documentation on the receipt of the materials and the original finding aid do not state whether this was the original order of the collection or the created arrangement of the processor.
Folders list box #, folder #, series, and sub-series such that Box 1, folder 1, series 1, (first) subseries Publications is listed as Box 1, folder 1, series 1A [A being first sub-series, Publications].
The collection is organized into 4 series. The first series contains 6 sub-series, the second series contains 4 sub-series, the third series contains 3 sub-series and the fourth series contains 6 sub-series:
1. Athletics and Health: A. Publications, B. Newspaper articles, C. Correspondence, D. Notes, E. Photographs, and F. Scrapbooks.
2. Law: A. Publications, B. Newspaper articles, C. Correspondence, D. Scrapbooks
3. Harvard University: A. Publications, B. Newspaper articles, C. Photographs
4. Miscellaneous: A. Publications, B. Printed materials (mostly newspapers), C. Correspondence, D. Notes, E. Photographs, F. Scrapbooks
History of the Collection
Acquisition information for the materials in this collection is unknown. The original processor noted the collection was originally acquired in 1913. During the reprocessing, however, we were unable to verify this date.
An accession number was given on April 8, 2005 before it was first processed.
The accession Number is Z05-03.
Collection processed and arranged by Jennifer Hawkes, November 11, 2005.
Additional processing was performed by Dr. Betty L. Mann, May, 2012.
Digital Materials
Browse digitized materials from this collection. This collection is partially digitized.
Digital Objects
Processing Note
The original collection was organized into four series: 1. Athletics, 2. Law, 3. Politics and Harvard University, and 4. Scrapbooks. Sub-series within each series were arranged as follows:
1. Athletics
a. Publications
b. Newspaper Articles
c. Correspondence
d. Notes
e. Photographs
2. Law
a. Publications
b. Newspaper Articles
c. Correspondence
3. Politics and Harvard University
a. Publications
b. Newspaper Articles
c. Correspondence
d. Notes
e. Photographs
4. Scrapbooks
To better reflect the content, Athletics was changed to Athletics and Health. Because of the diversity of issues in sub-series 3 that included some health related topics, Politics was extracted and assembled within a series titled Miscellaneous with some content being moved to Series 1, Athletics and Health. It was thought that the Scrapbooks could be logically placed in each series rather than listing them as a separate series. The three series, Athletics and Health, Law, and Harvard University seem to be reflective of significant components of Blaikie’s life.
See original finding aid and acquisition information, located in the Acquisition File Z05-03; Please contact College Archivist to see file.
Subject
- Blaikie, William, 1843-1904 (Person)
- International Young Men's Christian Association Training School (Springfield, Mass.) (Organization)
- School for Christian Workers (Organization)
- Springfield College (Organization)
Cultural context
Function
Topical
Uniform Title
- Title
- William Blaikie Papers
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Jennifer Hawkes
- Date
- 2005-11
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Revision Statements
- 2012-05: Revisions made to the finding aid by Betty L. Mann
- 2023-03: Transferring information from the original Word document to ArchivesSpace.
Repository Details
Part of the Springfield College Archives and Special Collections Repository
Springfield College
Judd Gymnasia
263 Alden Street
Springfield Massachusetts 01109 U.S.A. US
413-748-3309
jmonseau@springfieldcollege.edu