Scope and Contents note
The Kate Stevens Bates papers include correspondence, diaries, manuscripts, and miscellaneous papers. Correspondence concerns family matters, business matters, and social news. Correspondence includes letters to Edward W. Bingham (1886-1904), Hazard Stevens (1878-1916), Mrs. Isaac I. Stevens (1878-1913), and Maud Stevens (1912-1927) and letters from James H. Bates (1912- 1927), Edward W. Bingham (1885-1903), Helen Eskridge (1916-1940), Richard Eskridge (1916-1940), Edmond S. Meany (1902-1934), Hazard Stevens (1886-1918), Mrs. Issac I. Stevens (1888-1913) and others. Diaries of Kate Stevens (Bingham-Bates) are included for 1880-1881, 1885-1902, 1913-1915, 1918, 1920-1922, 1924-1932, 1935-1936. Her diary entries are not regular. Manuscripts include travel and historical articles (1883-1930) by Kate S. Bates. Miscellaneous papers include a scrapbook of E. W. Bingham containing publications of and articles about the Ballot Reform League of Oregon (1890-1892), and account books.
Dates
- Creation: 1860-1941
Creator
- Bates, Kate Stevens, 1852-1941 (Person)
Conditions Governing Access note
Collection is open to the public. Collection must be used in Special Collections and University Archives Reading Room. Collection or parts of collection may be stored offsite. Please contact Special Collections and University Archives in advance of your visit to allow for transportation time.
Conditions Governing Use note
Property rights reside with Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries. Copyright resides with the creators of the documents or their heirs. All requests for permission to publish collection materials must be submitted to Special Collections and University Archives. The reader must also obtain permission of the copyright holder.
Biographical/Historical note
Kate Stevens Bates lived from 1852 to 1941. She grew up in Newport, Rhode Island, and Dorchester, Massachusetts. She was the daughter of Isaac Ingalls Stevens, governor of the Washington Territory from 1853 to 1857. She was married to Edward Wingard Bingham in 1886. After her first marriage, she moved to Portland, Oregon, where her husband had a home and a mother. E. W. Bingham and his brother John invented an improved horseshoe, and went to Boston and New York to promote it. They founded the Bingham Sectional Horseshoe Company. Kate Bingham accompanied her husband, and lived in Dorchester and New York from 1887-1888. The horseshoe business failed, so the couple returned to Portland, Oregon in 1888, where Mr. Bingham practiced law. His most famous case was the Terwilliger will case. He also was involved in ballot reform. Mrs. Bingham was a member of the Unitarian Society in Portland, prominent socially, and an amateur writer for newspapers and magazines. The diaries refer to such prominent Portlanders as the Strongs, Eliots, Deadys, Catlins, Griswolds, Failings, and McArthurs. At various times she and her husband visited Bingham Springs in Eastern Oregon and she visited friends in Olympia, Washington. Both places are fully described in her diaries. Mr. Bingham died in 1904, and in 1913 she married James H. S. Bates. After her second marriage, Mrs. Bates lived for a time in Massachusetts and after 1918 at Cloverfield Farms, near Olympia, Washington.
Extent
6 linear feet (4 containers)
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
Kate Stevens Bates was an author. The collection includes her correspondence, diaries, manuscripts, account books, and scrapbooks. The diaries span from 1880 to 1936. Her diary entries are not regular; often several weeks pass between entries. The correspondence spans from 1878 to 1934 and concerns family matters, business, and social news.
Arrangement note
Collection is organized into the following series: Series I. Correspondence; Series II. Diaries; Series III. Manuscripts; Series IV. Miscellaneous Papers.
Processing Information
Collection processed by staff.
This finding aid may be updated periodically to account for new acquisitions to the collection and/or revisions in arrangement and description.
Subject
- Ballot Reform League of Oregon (Organization)
- Bates, James H. S. (Person)
- Bingham, Edward Wingard, -1904 (Person)
- Dye, Eva Emery, 1855-1947 (Person)
- Meany, Edmond S. (Edmond Stephen), 1862-1935 (Person)
- Stevens, Hazard, 1842-1918 (Person)
- Stevens, Isaac Ingalls, 1818-1862 (Person)
- Stevens, Margaret Lyman (Person)
- Unitarian Society (Portland, Or.) (Organization)
Genre / Form
Geographic
Topical
- Title
- Guide to the Kate Stevens Bates papers
- Status
- Complete Description
- Author
- Finding aid prepared by Vida Germano
- Date
- ©2004
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- English
- Sponsor
- Funding for encoding this finding aid was provided through a grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Repository Details
Part of the University of Oregon Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives Repository
