Digging into the Oriental Institute: The Director's Office Correspondence of James Henry Breasted, 1916-1935

Summary

The Director's Office Correspondence of the founding director of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, James Henry Breasted (1865-1935), comprises the most important hidden collection in the Oriental Institute's Archives and serves as a significant body of source materials for scholars researching institutional and biographical histories, archaeological and philological projects, and US-Middle East cultural relations. The correspondence includes office letters, reports from the field (archaeological missions), and letters to and from Middle Eastern government officials. The project will involve the re-housing of the materials and the generation of a finding aid that will list the contents of the collection at the item level.