Query: *
Charles Rau papers
Möllhausen, Balduin, 1825-1905
Rau, Charles, 1826-1887
Berendt, C. Hermann (Carl Hermann), 1817-1878
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At the time of his death in 1887, the library, archaeological collections and private papers of Charles Rau became the property of the United States National Museum. The library, called the Rau Library of Archaeology, became the nucleus of the archaeological department library. The papers represented by this collection are numbers 1180, 1182- 84, 1186-1190 and 1230 of that library, together with some uncataloged personal correspondence, invitations and newspaper clippings, all of which were transferred to the National Anthropological Archives in March of 1976 by the Smithsonian Institution Libraries There were no restrictions on the use of this collection, which is contained in two boxes.
Included in his private papers are the manuscripts of some of his publications; early personal correspondence; copies of research papers; a few research notes and some newspaper clippings. Of the approximately 60 incoming letters, only eight were written after Rau's emigration to the United States from Germany in 1848. Of possible interest to the historian are the boyhood letters from his period of apprenticeship in the iron industry of Westphalia and those from the year 1848 which contain much material on the political upheavals of that year. Charles Rau's letters to Dr. Carl Hermann Berendt (1817-1878), a German political refugee and Central American anthropologist, are concerned mainly with personal matters but contain also comments on the American political scene and much small talk of the contemporary world of anthropology. Included is some rather frank professional criticism of the other scholars and of the Smithsonian Institution hierarchy. This correspondence is in German and for the most part in German script as are the earlier letters. Two letters from Heinrich Balduin Mollhausen, a German artist whose drawings of Indians appear in the National Anthropological Archives are filed with the incoming letters.