Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

Papers of Robert J. Harris, Accession #12794, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

This collection was given as a gift to the University of Virginia Library by Robert J. Harris on September 11, 1990.

Biographical/Historical Information

Robert Jennings Harris, who served as Dean of Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia (1963-68), was born in Tennessee on October 25, 1907. He took his academic education in the early 1930s at Vanderbilt University (A.B., 1930), the University of Illinois (A.M., 1931), and at Princeton (Ph.D., 1934). Harris taught political science at the University of Cincinnati for two years before settling at Louisiana State University in 1936 where he served for 18 years as professor of government and as department chairman (1941-1954). Harris' subsequent appointment at Vanderbilt (1954), as professor of political science and then as department chairman (1962-63), covered a period of nine years and ended with his move to Charlottesville, Virginia in July, 1963.

Harris' academic activities and achievements were varied and widespread. He was visiting Professor at Vanderbilt and Columbia Universities and at the Universities of Minnesota and North Carolina. He was the Edward Douglas White lecturer at Louisiana State University in 1959, served as a special staff member of the Library of Congress, and, in 1968, was elected to be James Hart Professor of Government and Professor of History at the University of Virginia. Harris was vice president of the American Political Science Association, vice president and president of the Southern Political Science Association, and served as editor and later as member of the Board of Editors of the Journal of Politics.

Harris retired from the University of Virginia in 1972.

Scope and Content Information

This is a small collection (178 items, .2 shelf feet) of letters, reprints, newspaper clippings, and a framed photograph.

Most of the collection is a correspondence of letters between Harris and Edward S. Corwin, under whom he studied while at Princeton. These letters contain an exchange of commentary on constitutional issues, political and world events, activites of colleagues and friends, and personal family matters.

The letters exchanged with Hubert Horatio Humphrey are primarily congratulatory messages, acknowledgements of campaign support, reminiscences of past associations, and informal comments on political matters. They cover the periods during which Humphrey served as Mayor of Minneapolis, Senator from Minnesota, and Vice-President of the United States.

The John F. Kennedy correspondence relates to Senate committee work and involves, in one instance, a solicitation of comments from Harris about presidential powers under the constitution and, in an another, a request to him to serve as a committee panel member to help nominate past U.S. Senators for "portrait enshrinement" in the Senate reception room.