Biography of Rosanna Duncan Sanderson (1901-1972)
Between 1937 and 1947, Rosanna Duncan Sanderson held a position in the Department of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. She was born in Weston, Massachusetts, in 1901, married steamboat agent Floyd B. Sanderson sometime before 1930, and died in California in 1972.
Scope and Content
The Collection Rosanna Duncan Sanderson is comprised of the contents of eighteen notebooks of Sanderson’s research into late-seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century shipping from the United States to points throughout the world. The majority of the notebooks contain lists of ships, captains, and voyages, with indexes for each notebook. Other notebooks contain her notes from various published sources and logbooks. Sanderson appears to have conducted research in various repositories in New York, New England, Hawaii, Virginia, and Australia . The purpose of this research is unknown. The collection also includes Sanderson’s correspondence with the institutions possessing those sources. The correspondence indicates her involvement in the founding of the journal of the Peabody Museum, “The American Neptune,” and her plans to publish Captain Samuel Hill’s log book of the Ship OPHELIA.
Restrictions
Restrictions on Access
Available for use in the Manuscripts Division.
Restrictions on Use
Various copying restriction apply. Guidelines are available from the Manuscripts Division.
Index Terms
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the G. W. Blunt White Library. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.
Subjects:
International trade
Maritime history–United States–19th century–Study and teaching
Maritime history–United States–Sources
Shipmasters, Lists of
Watercraft, Lists of
Document Types:
Letters
Notebooks
Administrative Information
Coll. 273, Manuscripts Collection, G. W. Blunt White Library, Mystic Seaport Museum, Inc.
Detailed Description of the Collection
The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in the collection.
| Notebooks; 1937-1947 | |||||||||||||
| Box | Folder | ||||||||||||
| 1 | 1 | Captains and ships index to notebook; c. 1937-1947 (127 leaves) | |||||||||||
| 2 | “Old notes, notebook I” containing lists of captains, their ships, ships’ register numbers, voyages, and nationalities. Pages are numbered in reverse order; c. 1937-1947 (153 leaves) | ||||||||||||
| 3 | “Hill notes” including call slips, note cards, and notebook pages containing notes from printed sources in the New York Public Library and the New York Historical Society; c. 1937-1947 (65 leaves) | ||||||||||||
| 4 | Notebook containing list of captains, their ships, voyages, and ports, along with index of list ; c. 1937-1947 (105 leaves) | ||||||||||||
| 5 | “Winter Book” containing lists of ships and index of ships and captains; 1946-1947 (30 leaves) | ||||||||||||
| 6 | Notebook containing notes taken from printed sources and logbooks in the Dartmouth Historical Society, New Bedford Public Library, Sag Harbor Whaling Museum, Library of Congress; c. 1937-1947 (58 leaves) | ||||||||||||
| 7 | “Early notebook” containing notes lists of captains, their ships, voyages, sources of information, and an index; c. 1937-1947 (33 leaves) | ||||||||||||
| 8 | Notebook containing notes from printed sources, lists of captains, their ships, voyages, and index; c. 1937-1947 (90 leaves) | ||||||||||||
| 9 | Notebook containing lists of captains, their ships, voyages, and index; c. 1937-1947 (88 leaves) | ||||||||||||
| 10 | Notebook pages, typed pages, and notecards of notes taken from printed sources; c. 1937-1947 (57 leaves) | ||||||||||||
| Box | Folder | ||||||||||||
| 2 | 1 | Correspondence with repositories, including letters from Walter Muir Whitehill, a prospectus for The American Neptune, discussions of a manuscript about the Ophelia (ship), and some notes; 1939-1942 (117 leaves) | |||||||||||
| 2 | Notebook pages containing lists of captains, their ships, voyages, and an index; c. 1937-1947 (163 leaves) | ||||||||||||
| 3 | Notebook pages containing lists of captains, their ships, voyages, and an index; c. 1937-1947 (75 leaves) | ||||||||||||
| 4 | Notebook pages and notecards containing notes from printed sources; c. 1937-1947 (106 leaves) | ||||||||||||
| 5 | Notebook pages containing notes from printed sources, lists of captains, their ships, voyages, and an index; c. 1937-1947 (62 leaves) | ||||||||||||
| 6 | Notebook pages containing lists of captains, their ships, voyages, and an index; c. 1937-1947 (40 leaves) | ||||||||||||
| 7 | Notebook pages containing notes from printed sources; c. 1937-1947 (60 leaves) | ||||||||||||
| 8 | Notebook pages containing lists of captains, their ships, voyages, and an index; c. 1937-1947 (94 leaves and top cover) | ||||||||||||