G. Burton Pearson, Jr., papers

The G. Burton Pearson, Jr. Papers include personal correspondence, papers, and photographs from his birth in 1905 until shortly before his death in 1999. The Pearson papers also contain correspondence, papers, and photographs from some of Burton Pearson’s ancestors, dating from about 1840 to the 1950s. The collection has been arranged in two series: I. George Burton Pearson, Jr.’s papers; and II. Pearson family papers, which contains the papers of relatives from the Pearson, Cochran, Warren, and Hardcastle families. Family photographs and correspondence between Pearson, his parents, and his aunt, Oka Cochran Warren, between about 1880 and 1950, form the bulk of the collection.

The collection, especially the photographic series, (I.3 and II.3), is strong as a source of Delaware local and family history. For example, the collection includes photographs of members of the Pearson, Cochran, Warren, and Hardcastle families of Delaware and Maryland. Photographs of early-twentieth century Middletown depict Delaware architecture, children at school and at play, pets, domestic life, and leisure activities. The collection contains a real estate advertisement and several photographs of the Pearson family home at 94 East Main Street, Newark, Delaware. Extensive genealogical information on the Pearson, Cochran, and Hardcastle families of Maryland and Delaware is available in the collection, (Series I.4).

The collection reveals much more about Burton Pearson’s relationships with his parents and his aunt, Oka Cochran Warren, than about his professional life. The Princeton materials, (F2, F3, F25 through F36, and F86), contain correspondence between Pearson, his parents, and his aunt about daily matters such as pocket money and laundry, as well as student life. One letter has a piece of the goalpost from the Princeton Yale game of 1925 pierced through the top of it. Course notes, grade reports, exams, bills for tuition and housing, social activities, yearbooks, and photographs of Princeton colleagues are also included.

Much of the correspondence from Pearson’s mother, Estelle, and her sister, Oka, contains Christian Science messages and clippings from the Christian Science Monitor (F11). Another strength of the collection is the large assortment of valentines, Christmas cards, birthday cards, greeting cards, and photographic postcards. Some of the valentines are handmade from wallpaper scraps; there are also many examples of early-twentieth-century manufactured cards, such as Tuck’s valentines and postcards. Photographic postcards depict early-twentieth-century street scenes of Middletown, Delaware. There are several sets of photographic postcards of Europe in the 1920s and the Los Angeles Expo of 1939.

The collection includes a few pieces of correspondence between Pearson and Hugh Morris, in whose office Pearson worked from 1931 until 1939 (F5). There are several photographs of Pearson’s judical associates, including one of Judge Victor B. Woolley (F94). The oral history that Pearson contributed in 1993 for the Delaware Bar history project on the Delaware Supreme Court, along with Pearson’s revisions, is included in Series I.2 (F76 and F77). There are a small number of papers and photographs related to Pearson’s work on the Board of Trustees of the University of Delaware (F68 through F72). Pearson apparently became involved in the General Semantics movement in the late 1940s. The collection includes papers and minutes of congresses of the Institute of General Semantics, including essays by Count Korzybski, S.I. Hayakawa, and one that Pearson delivered at the Institute’s Third Congress in 1949 (F51 through F58).