Barnes Foundation Archives
2012
Albert C. Barnes
Correspondence
1902-1951
ABC
Finding aid prepared by Barbara Anne Beaucar
This finding aid was produced using the Archivists' Toolkit
June 14, 2017
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
The Barnes Foundation Archives
2025 Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia, PA 19130
Telephone: (215) 278-7280
Email: reference@barnesfoundation.org
Albert C. Barnes Correspondence 1902-1951 ABC
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Table of Contents
Summary Information ................................................................................................................................. 3
Biographical Note.......................................................................................................................................... 4
Scope and Content....................................................................................................................................... 15
Administrative Information .......................................................................................................................19
Related Materials ...................................................................................................................................... 20
Controlled Access Headings........................................................................................................................20
Collection Inventory.................................................................................................................................... 23
Series I. Correspondence....................................................................................................................... 23
Series II. Third Party Correspondence.............................................................................................. 2083
Albert C. Barnes Correspondence 1902-1951 ABC
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Summary Information
Repository
Barnes Foundation Archives
Creator
Barnes, Albert C. (Coombs), 1872–1951
Title
Albert C. Barnes Correspondence
Date
1902-1951
Extent
126.5 Linear feet
Language
English
Abstract
The Albert C. Barnes Correspondence (1872 – 1951) contains personal
and professional letters and records that document the activities of his
chemical companies, Barnes and Hille and the A.C. Barnes Company,
the acquisition of his world-renowned art collection, and the development
of the educational program which led to the establishment of the Barnes
Foundation, an institution over which he presided until his death in 1951.
The bulk of the correspondence (1924 – 1951) reflects Barnes’s work as
a businessman, art collector, author, and educator, and includes evidence
of his evolving educational theories, his finances, travels to Europe and
the American West, essays, lectures, and publications, and his opinions
regarding art and artists.
Preferred Citation
[Author(s)]. Letter to [recipient], [date]. Albert C. Barnes Correspondence, Barnes Foundation Archives,
Philadelphia, PA. Reprinted with permission.
Albert C. Barnes Correspondence 1902-1951 ABC
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Biographical Note
Albert C. Barnes (1872 – 1951) professed a lifelong interest in education, not only for himself, but for
those less fortunate around him, and for the public in general. Both a scientist and an entrepreneur, Barnes
developed and marketed Argyrol, an antiseptic silver compound. The fortune earned from this medicine’s
global distribution allowed Barnes to realize his ideals and create the Barnes Foundation, an institution
established “to promote the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts.”
FAMILY
Barnes was born in Philadelphia on January 2, 1872, the third son of Lydia A. Schaffer (1846 – 1912)
and John J. Barnes (1844 – 1930). Barnes described his father as a man with “good intelligence and
tremendous energy” but lacking in balance.(1) During the Civil War, John Barnes enlisted in Company
D of the 82nd Regiment of the Pennsylvania Volunteers. After the war, he found work as a letter carrier
and met Lydia A. Schaffer, a woman of Pennsylvania German descent and a devout Methodist. They
married on April 4, 1867. Barnes said that his mother was marvelous, “endowed with a keen, penetrating
intelligence…but best of all, she had poise and balance.”(2) Lydia Barnes has been credited for being
the motivating force in Barnes’s early life. She took him to Methodist camp meetings in New Jersey, an
experience that Barnes acknowledged as the source of his affinity for African American art and culture,
especially music.(3)
EDUCATION
In 1885, when Barnes was thirteen years old, he enrolled in Philadelphia’s Central High School. Central
High School was founded in 1838, the second public high school in the nation. Because of its high
academic standards, the Pennsylvania Assembly granted the school the “same and like power to confer
degrees, honorary and otherwise” as possessed by the University of Pennsylvania. Barnes first met artist
William J. Glackens (1870 – 1938) at Central High School, where he claimed that they became friends
through their common interest in sports – the two played baseball for the school team. Barnes also took
a serious interest in Glackens’s drawings, an interest that would eventually rekindle their friendship
twenty years later. During his third year at Central, the Barnes family moved away from the “Neck,” a
particularly rough section of South Philadelphia, to 1331 Tasker Street. Barnes delivered newspapers
for the Philadelphia Ledger where his father worked in the circulation department.(4) He completed
eight consecutive semesters at Central, served as vice-president of his senior class, and, in June of 1889,
graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
In 1889, Barnes matriculated at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and graduated three years
later with a Doctor of Medical Arts (M.D.) degree at the age of twenty. Following his internships at the
Polyclinic Hospital in Philadelphia and Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh,(5) Barnes worked for two years as
a demonstrator of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. However, to finance his continued work in
chemistry, Barnes claimed that he held a variety of unusual jobs until he had finally saved enough money
to travel to Germany and attend the University of Berlin.(6)