STANLEY WASHBURN:

Stanley Washburn was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on February 7, 1878. He was born to Minnesota Republican congressman William Drew Washburn and Elizabeth Washburn. Washburn attended Williams College (Williamstown, Massachusetts) from 1897-1901, and Harvard Law School in 1901.

Washburn began a journalism career as a police reporter with the Minneapolis Journal in 1901 and later became a staff writer with the Minneapolis Times in 1902. In 1904, Washburn joined the Chicago Daily News and served as war correspondent, covering the Russo-Japanese War and the Russian Revolution from 1904 to 1906. During the Russo-Japanese War, Washburn was attached to Nogi Maresuke's Third Japanese Army.

On November 27, 1906, he married Alice Langhorne. The couple had three children: Fawan Washburn, Stanley Washburn Jr., and C. Langhorne Washburn.

In 1909 he led an exploration party for the projected route of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway from Edmonton, Alberta to Prince Rupert, British Columbia.

Washburn returned to Europe in 1914 to cover World War I as a war correspondent for Colliers Weekly and the London Times. He was first attached to the Russian army from 1914 to 1916, and later the Romanian and French armies. In 1917, he served as a military aide to Russia for two American diplomatic missions. The United States Army commissioned Washburn as a major of cavalry in 1918 and he subsequently served with the 26th Division in the French Toul and Chateau-Tierry sectors.

His time as a war correspondent and his exploration into western Canada produced the bulk of Washburn’s published works, including: The Cable Game, 1911; Nogi, The Man Against the Background of a Great War, 1913; Trails, Trappers, and Tender-feet in the New Empire of Western Canada, 1913; Field Notes from the Russian Front, 1915; The Russian Campaign, 1915; and Victory in Defeat, 1916.

Post World War I, the secretariat of the U.S. State Department appointed Washburn to serve as a member of the American Delegation to the Washington Disarmament Conference of 1921. He was later appointed a military aide to Queen Marie of Roumania during her visit to the U.S. in 1926. In 1931, he was commissioned lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Military Intelligence Department.

In 1921, Washburn began working as a coal mine operator, and eventually rose in various leadership roles. This included serving as the president to the Washburn Lignite Coal Co. of Williston, North Dakota (1926 to 1929) and president of the North Dakota Coal Operators Association (1925 to 1935). In the same period, Washburn actively participated in Republican politics, and ran two unsuccessful congressional campaigns in the state of New Jersey in 1924 and 1932.

Stanley Washburn died at the age of 72 at Paul Kimball Hospital in Lakewood, New Jersey on December 14, 1950.

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The collection includes scrapbooks, book manuscripts, and correspondence and letters related to Washburn's career as a war correspondent, author, and his military service. Materials also focus on his personal life, business interests, foreign policy interests, and political ambitions.

Scrapbooks contain newspaper clippings, correspondence, photographs, and other material. The scrapbooks cover Washburn’s time at Williams College (circa 1897-1900), his work with the Minneapolis Times (1902-1903), his war correspondent work during the Russo-Japanese War (circa 1904-1905) , his war correspondent work in Russia during World War I (circa 1915-1917), and his military service in World War I (circa 1917-1918). Also included is a scrapbook of clippings (1893-1894) related to Stanley’s father William D. Washburn, Republican senator from Minnesota. Additional scrapbooks cover the Republican Party, including material on the Republican national conventions of 1900 and 1912, and Washburn’s unsuccessful political campaigns in 1924 and 1932. Scrapbooks related to the North Dakota Lignite Coal Operators Association (circa 1914-1924), the Paul Kimball Hospital Community Appeal (1925), and the visit to the U.S. of Queen Marie of Romania (1926) are also included.

The book manuscripts include typescript drafts and copies of Washburn’s autobiography (1939?), his diaries (1899-1903, 1909), and draft manuscripts for the books The Object of War (1931) and Russia’s Role in World War I (undated). Miscellaneous correspondence and newspaper clipping files are also included.

The correspondence and letters are related to Washburn’s career as a war correspondent for the Chicago Daily News in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) and his war correspondent for the Colliers Weekly and the London Times and military service experiences in World War I. Correspondence and letters also cover his experiences as an explorer in western Canada (1909-1910). Later materials (1920s-1950) also relate to personal matters between family and friends, business interests, military service, U.S. foreign policy, political campaigns, and civilan activities during World War II. Much of the correspondence also regards his various books, articles, and other writings, and detail reviews of his work, communications between editors and publishers, and responses from readers. The correspondence and letters also contain typescript copies of Washburn’s letters that were reproduced by the Library of Congress on the request of his daughter Fawan Washburn. Miscellaneous newspaper clippings and photographs are also interfiled among the correspondence and letters.

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Washburn assigned numeric filing system to his correspondence and letters, but the file numbers are not necessarily in order nor applied consistently. The numeric classifications have been retained in the detailed description.

These papers are organized into the following sections:

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Stanley Washburn papers. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession number: 12076; 12262; 13323

Processing Information:

Processed by: John M. White, November 1977 and February 1978; and Bonnie Palmquist, February 1984.

Catalog ID number: 990017360500104294

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