James Harris Fairchild Presidential Papers, 1771-1926, 2000 | Oberlin College Archives

SERIES DESCRIPTIONS

Series I. Correspondence, 1852-1903, undated (Calendared)

The correspondence (largely incoming) of James Harris Fairchild is housed in Boxes 1-19 of this collection and calendared in six volumes (including index) prepared in 1955-1956 by Susan F. Zearing. In Boxes 1-18, correspondence is chronologically arranged; in Box 19, correspondence is alphabetically arranged by correspondent.

Series II. Correspondence, 1819-1900, undated (Uncalendared)

Includes a series of letters from James Fairchild to Mary Kellogg (1838-1841) and a series from Mary Kellogg to James Fairchild (1838-1841) written during their engagement. Fairchild’s letters describe his activities as a student in Oberlin’s Theological Department. These letters, together with a group of letters received by James H. Fairchild (1838-1864), are too fragile to handle and must be viewed either on microfilm, or patrons must use the bound volumes found in Series 8. In this three-volume set, some letters are not dated, others appear in abbreviated form (being edited down), and apparently two original letters were not included. Four letters appearing in the typescript form no longer exist in original form. Among the personal papers filed here is the will (1898) of James H. Fairchild. Files are arranged alphabetically by writer and chronologically thereunder.

Series III. Courtship Correspondence of James H. Fairchild and Mary Fletcher Kellogg (typescript), 1838-1841

This series contains Fairchild Family materials including Mary Kellogg Fairchild’s autograph album (1835-1838) and a photograph album presented to Nancy Harris Fairchild on her golden wedding anniversary in November 1863. Also filed here is “Where Liberty Dwells: the letters of James Harris Fairchild and Mary Fletcher Kellogg from the Western Reserve [1838-41]” a three volume work edited by their son, James Thome Fairchild, and granddaughter Dorothy Kellogg Fairchild Graham (1939). See also above, series description for Series 2.

Series IV. Miscellaneous Institutional Records Kept by James H. Fairchild, ca. 1833-1840, 1854-1884

Includes an incomplete run of President Fairchild’s Annual Reports (1867-1884); notebooks containing Fairchild’s lectures on theology, international law, and painting (1862-1882); and various date books and account books which include lists of subscribers to Oberlin College (ca. 1867) and to the Organ Fund (n.d.). Early faculty records (ca. 1833-1840) may have been collected by Fairchild while President for the purposes of historical research. Materials are arranged alphabetically by type.

Series V. Miscellaneous Non-Institutional Records Kept by James H. Fairchild, 1771-1909, 1926, undated

Contains detailed meteorological observations (1849-1858) made in Oberlin by Fairchild and Professor of Natural History (1849-1864) George N. Allen, which include data on atmospheric pressure, temperature, moisture, and sidereal and planetary movements; several ms. sermons collected by Fairchild (1771-1865), and three ms. letters to “the people of Oberlin” relating to temperance (1881). Two folders, marked “Folder 1” and “Folder 2” include miscellaneous papers such as passports, poems, sermons, and maps. Records are arranged alphabetically by type of material.

Series VI. Teaching Files of James H. Fairchild, 1862-1882, undated

Contains lecture notebooks in 14 volumes spanning 1862-82, academic grade sheets, miscellaneous teaching files, and a manuscript draft of regulations prohibiting pilfering by students, undated.

Series VII. Travel Diaries, 1870-1871, 1884

Diaries are arranged chronologically. Letters of introduction (1870), written for Fairchild prior to the European tour described in three of the diaries (1870-1871), are housed in Series 2, Box 21.

Series VIII. Writings by James H. Fairchild, 1852-1910, undated

Writings by Fairchild separated into manuscript and printed materials. These writings treat matters of theology, morals, historical Oberlin, and travel.  Most ms. writings are undated.  Writings about Fairchild include both typescript and printed essays by J.G.W. Cowles, Judson Smith, and C.J. Ryder, as well as one modern scholarly study (1966).

Series IX. Sermons, 1869, ca. 1870, 1874-75, 1877, 1880-83, 1885-89, undated

Sermons by James H. Fairchild are arranged in three subseries. Subseries 1. Old Testament Sermons and Subseries 2. New Testament Sermons are arranged by the order of the verses in the Bible on which they are based, and are undated.  Series 3 contains sermons delivered at commencements, and are arranged in date order.

Series X. Miscellaneous Printed Writings by James H. Fairchild, 1852-1897

These printed writings consist of newspaper articles and pamphlets of addresses of a much shorter nature than those contained in Series VIII.

Series XI. Writings about James H. Fairchild, 1883-1910, 1966, undated

Includes typescripts of undated tributes and an essay, as well as various printed writings and clippings.

Series XII. Photographs, 1835-1838, 1863, undated

Consists of one photograph of four of Fairchild’s daughters and an album containing fifty albumen portraits of the Fairchild Family. The pictures are arranged by family, with the children in each family following their parents. Some subjects are unidentified. (This album was formerly described as the one presented to Nancy Harris Fairchild on her golden wedding anniversary in November 1863; however, Nancy Fairchild’s album was received in accession 2001/94 and is filed in Series 8.)

Series XIII. Miscellaneous Fairchild Correspondence, 1881, 1887-1889

This late accretion contains a lot of 45 original handwritten letters and postcards, primarily consisting of correspondence (professional and personal) received by President James H. Fairchild, 1887-89.  Also included are letters sent and received by other members of the Fairchild family.

James Harris Fairchild (1817-1902), teacher and theologian, served as third President of Oberlin College with which he was associated from its beginnings and for sixty-eight years thereafter. He was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts to Grandison (1792-1890) and Nancy (Harris) Fairchild (1795-1875). The family joined the westward current of migration in 1818, settling in the town of Brownhelm in the Western Reserve of Northern Ohio, nine miles from Oberlin. At the age of fourteen, Fairchild attended the newly opened high school in Elyria, and at seventeen, he entered the first freshman class at Oberlin Collegiate Institute (as Oberlin College was known until 1850). Fairchild graduated from the College Department in 1838 and entered the graduate Theological Department, completing the theological course in 1841. He was married November 29, 1841 at Minden, Louisiana to Mary Fletcher Kellogg (1817-1890), one of the first women to enroll in the College course in 1837. Six girls and two boys were born to the Fairchilds, all but one of whom attended Oberlin.

During his years in the Theological Department, Fairchild served as Tutor in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew for the College Department (1839-1842), becoming Professor of Languages in 1842. In 1847, he was appointed Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, and in 1858, he was named to the chair of Systematic Theology and Moral Philosophy. During Charles Grandison Finney’s tenure as President (1851-1866), Fairchild assumed most of the administrative duties of the office. Upon Finney’s resignation in 1866, Fairchild, then chairman of the faculty, was elected President. During his twenty-three year tenure as President, the college’s assets increased to a value of one million dollars, and its faculty grew from ten to twenty-three professors. Through Fairchild’s personal example and theological bent, Oberlin’s reputation evolved away from that of the Finney-inspired reformist enclave towards the mainstream. At Oberlin, Fairchild encouraged a respect for pure reason and expressed his belief in the power of education to shape human character. Although he supported the education of women and their right to the vote, he nevertheless wrote in an 1870 article, “Woman’s Right to the Ballot,” that the ballot had been “withheld from woman because the work of government seemed incompatible with the womanly character and work,” adding, “If a woman chooses to feel dishonored by the arrangement, it is merely a matter of her own interpretation.” His anti-slavery stance is well known, particularly after he provided the refuge of his own garret to the fugitive slave, John Price, in 1858. In questions of reform, Fairchild was a moderate.

In 1870 and 1871, President Fairchild traveled in Europe, Egypt, and the Holy Land. In 1884, he visited California and Hawaii. Fairchild resigned the presidency in 1889 and retired as Professor of Theology in 1898, but he continued to teach as Professor Emeritus until 1902. He served as a member of the Prudential Committee from 1847 to 1901, as a member of the Board of Trustees from 1889 to 1901, and, during the last year of his life, was prevailed upon to continue his service as an honorary member of the Board.

In addition to numerous essays, commencement addresses, and sermons, Fairchild published several books, including Moral Philosophy or the Science of Obligation (1869) and Elements of Theology, Natural and Revealed (1892). His pamphlet, “Coeducation of the Sexes,” appeared in the annual report of the United States Commissioner of 1867. Fairchild’s Oberlin, the Colony and the College (1883) and his inaugural address published in 1866, “Educational Arrangements and College Life at Oberlin,” remain major sources for the study of early Oberlin history.

Fairchild’s last years in Oberlin were occupied with writing, teaching, and lending counsel to the college with which he had become wholly identified over more than six decades; yet, he was not an unbroken man. Grief was a constant companion for Fairchild, who had endured the untimely deaths of six of his eight children: Emma Frances (d. 1859), Alice Cowles (d.1876), Grace Augusta (d. 1893), George Hornell (d. 1894), Mary Fletcher (d. 1897), and Catherine Cooley (d.1902). Just one month after losing daughter Catherine, Fairchild himself died in Oberlin on March 19, 1902, at the age of 84.