Henry Clay Frick Papers, Series V: Subject Files

Henry Clay Frick's Subject Files, 1848-1966 and undated, consist of correspondence, financial records, legal documents, notes, and printed material on a variety of topics relating to Frick's personal and business interests. These files were organized by Frick's office staff in Pittsburgh, and do not adhere to any chronological or alphabetical filing system. Instead, documents on a particular topic were gathered into an envelope, and envelopes were assigned sequential numbers. Four separate runs of numbers have been arranged in this series as the following four subseries: I: General Subject Files, II: Unfinished Matters, III: Finished Matters, and IV: Agreements. The last subseries among these papers, Subseries V: Bound Volumes, contains a handful of miscellaneous volumes used by Frick's office staff.

Subseries I: General Subject Files, 1848-1966 and undated, is the most voluminous of the materials in this series. These files largely concern real estate transactions, loans and financial assistance to family members, friends, and business associates, and investments in railroads, utilities, mining, banking, and manufacturing. Other topics of interest include Frick's private railroad car “Westmoreland,” the family's box at the Metropolitan Opera; social events hosted by the Frick family, and membership in a range of clubs, societies, and other organizations. These papers also document philanthropic endeavors and the lease of various properties, including the Vanderbilt mansion at 640 Fifth Avenue in New York, the Robert S. Bradley house in Prides Crossing, Mass., a vacation cottage in Palm Beach, Fla., apartments at Louis Sherry's in New York, and the charter of the steam yacht Shemara. An alphabetical index of topics and their corresponding envelope numbers is filed in the beginning of the subseries. Note that some gaps exist among the sequence of envelope numbers, and that some envelopes are empty, indicating that their contents may have been removed and stored elsewhere by Frick's office staff. The location of materials transferred out of these files is often unclear.

Subseries II: Unfinished Matters, 1903-1949 and undated, and Subseries III: Finished Matters, 1907-1921 and undated, appear to be two parts of the same sequence of numbered envelopes. As in the General Subject Files subseries, documents pertaining to a transaction or topic were assigned a numbered envelope. Notations were made on the envelopes concerning action taken and the existence of relevant documentation. Matters considered unresolved at the time of Frick's death were probably left in their envelopes, even though action may have been taken and recorded in the course of handling Frick's estate. For those matters considered resolved during Frick's lifetime, the envelope was stamped "Closed" and the contents of the envelopes were removed to another location as indicated on the envelope, with the empty envelope remaining in the file. Documentation from closed matters was transferred into the General Subject Files above (sometimes referred to in notes as the "regular file") or the Henry Clay Frick's Voucher Files, also in this repository (http://www.frick.org/archives/FindingAids/HCFVouchers.html). While the envelopes in the Unfinished Matters subseries are largely empty, they do contain detailed summaries of action taken and existing documentation, and can provide references to materials filed elsewhere among Frick's papers.

Subseries IV: Agreements, 1884-1925 and undated, pertain largely to real estate transactions and investments in in various companies. Exceptions to this include an agreement with F.J. Osterling for renovations at Clayton, and contracts for utilities at Clayton and the Frick Building. A bound record of agreements filed at the beginning of the subseries contains details such as the parties involved, pertinent dates (i.e. expiration, payment, renewal, cancellation, etc.), a synopsis, and the location of related documentation. As with the General Subject Files, Unfinished Matters, and Finished Matters, there are unexplained gaps in the sequence of numbered agreements in this subseries.

A small group of materials, Subseries V: Bound Volumes, 1911-1920s, contains an address book, an index to a file case, and an inventory of securities held in a safe deposit box.