Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Restrictions to Use

No usage restrictions.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Louis Addison Dent Papers, #2858, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Gift of Louis A. Dent, Jr., and Edward A. Dent, 1952

Additional Descriptive Resources

Original finding aid is filed in folder 1a.

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: SHC Staff

Encoded by: Noah Huffman, December 2007

Updated by: Adam Fielding and Jodi Berkowitz, October 2010

This collection was rehoused and a summary created with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This finding aid was created with support from NC ECHO.

Diacritics and other special characters have been omitted from this finding aid to facilitate keyword searching in web browsers.

Finding aid updated for digitization by Kathryn Michaelis, August 2010

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Blaine, James Gillespie, 1830-1893.
• Dent family.
• Dent, Louis Addison, 1863-1947.
• Diplomatic and consular service, American--Selection and appointment--History.
• Harrison, Benjamin, 1833-1901.
• Jamaica--Foreign relations--United States--History--19th century.
• Patriotic societies--United States--History.
• Patronage, Political--United States.
• Republican Party (U.S. : 1854- )--History.
• Spanish-American War, 1898.
• United States--Foreign relations--1865-1921.
• United States--Foreign relations--Jamaica--History--19th century.
• United States--Officials and employees--Selection and appointment--History.
• United States. Dept. of State.
• Washington (D.C.)--Officials and employees--History.
• Washington (D.C.)--Politics and government--1878-1967.

Louis Addison Dent (1863-1947) was a lawyer who held several federally appointed positions under Republican administrations. He was often associated with James G. Blaine (1830-1893), assisting him with the publication of Twenty Years of Congress and other writings, and acting as Blaine's secretary while he was secretary of state under President Harrison, 1889-1892. During his career he worked as a secretary to various members of congress; consul to Jamaica in 1892, and again in 1897-1898 during the Spanish-American War; auditor of the District of Columbia Supreme Court; an attorney in private practice; faculty member of the National University Law School; special assistant to the Attorney General, 1925-1927; and vice president of Capitol Title and Guarantee Company. Dent was active in the Republican Party, as well as a member of various commissions, committees, and historic and patriotic societies. He also had a great interest in the geneology of his family.

This collection chiefly contains letters and correspondence regarding Louis Addison Dent's (1862-1947) professional career, particularly 1890-1900, but also includes family correspondence, scrapbooks, and geneological material about the Dent family. The papers primarily concern Dent's personal, public, and professional activities, primarily in 1890-1900, and provide information about Washington, D.C., politics; the machinations behind appointments to various offices; his work for Secretary of State James G. Blaine (1830-1893); foreign affairs, especially in the West Indies, where he visited the United States consulates; abuses in the foreign service during the administration of Grover Cleveland (1837-1908); Dent's appointments to the Jamaican consulate in 1892, 1897-1898; The Spanish-American War; his involvement in the Republican Party; his work as registrar of wills in Washington, D.C., auditor of the District of Columbia Supreme Court, special assistant to the Attorney General, private practice lawyer, and as a member of various commissions, committees, and patriotic and historic societies. Approximately 30 items are correspondence between Dent and Blaine and President Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901) and his secretaries. The scrapbooks primarily contain newspaper clippings relating to law and politics.

• Image folder (PF-2858/1)