Collection Description

This collection contains approximately 7,200 photographs in 19 boxes, 68 volumes, and 8 oversize boxes. These photographs, collected by Leverett Saltonstall and the Saltonstall family, span the years 1872-1977.

The majority of the collection is contained in 43 photograph albums documenting each year of Saltonstall's life from 1914-1972, assembled by family friend Ted Stavredes. Among the images are photographs of Saltonstall performing various official duties as governor at the State House in Boston, Mass.; his campaigns for U.S. Senate; performing various Senatorial duties, often with his wife Alice Saltonstall; attending various political events; and meetings with various political friends, senators, groups visiting from Massachusetts, military groups, and dignitaries, including several United States presidents. The photographs include views of Nazi concentration camps visited by Saltonstall and other officials after the end of the war, as well as photographs of atomic bomb tests on the Bikini Atoll. Also included are photographs from Harvard class reunions, images of Saltonstall with visiting actors and actresses, and individual and group portraits of the Saltonstall family.

This collection also contains four volumes assembled by Ted Stavredes that document Alice Saltonstall's public role from 1937-1945. 21 volumes dating from 1930 to 1979 document personal and political events, including reunions of the 1914 Harvard crew team, the 350th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower, the funeral of John F. Kennedy, the Merrimack College commencement, various dedication ceremonies, and the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in Moscow in 1963.

19 boxes and four oversize boxes of loose photographs also document Saltonstall's political career from 1920-1977, including his governorship of Massachusetts and his 22 years as a United States senator. These photographs depict Saltonstall on a number of committees, such as the Appropriations Committee and the Committee on Armed Services, as well as his travels to Europe as a member of the Senate committee to survey war damage and evidence of Nazi war atrocities. There is significant overlap in subject matter between the volumes and the loose photographs.

This collection also includes one box of loose photographs of Leverett Saltonstall interviewing various political figures, including senators and White House staff during his television interview program "Report to Massachusetts." Among Saltonstall's guests were Senators J. W. Fulbright, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Everett Dirksen, Barry Goldwater, and Hiram Fong; journalist Barbara Gunderson; and Vice President Richard Nixon.

The remainder of the collection consists of two boxes and one oversize box of loose personal photographs, one narrow box and one oversize box of loose views, one box of negatives, and three oversize boxes of scrapbooks. The personal photographs and scrapbooks document the early years of the life of Leverett Saltonstall sports teams at the Noble and Greenough School in Dedham and Harvard College (where Leverett was part of the crew that won the prestigious Henley Regatta in London in 1914), the Saltonstall family, including army photographs of Peter Saltonstall, and family portraits taken from 1927-1973. Views include images of Washington, D.C., the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, ships, military bases, World War II battle scenes, historical houses and statues, and the flooding of Plum Island, Mass. in 1974. The negatives include images of Senator Leverett Saltonstall with senators and other public figures from 1957-1966; these images do not appear to overlap with the prints in this collection, and many are unidentified.

Most of the photographs in the collection were taken by various national and local news and official military services, including the Boston Post (Boston, Mass.), the Boston Herald (Boston, Mass.), the Boston Globe (Boston, Mass.), U.S. Air Force (Washington, D.C.), U.S. Army Signal Corps (Washington, D.C.), World Wide Photos Boston Bureau (Boston, Mass.), Acme Newspaper, Inc. (New York, N.Y.), and Gravelle Pictorial News (Pittsfield, Mass.). Other photographers include Marvin Richmond, Fay Foto Service, Inc. (Boston, Mass.), and Egan Photo Service (Boston, Mass.). Most photographers are unidentified.