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Included are drawings made by Avery while studying under Jules Andre at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and sketchbooks containing sketches made in Paris and on excursions, 1872-1879. Architectural drawings and photographs of architectural drawings for proposed or executed residential and commercial buildings, churches, art galleries, monuments, and other structures, 1880s; competition drawings for public monuments, 1883-1887; experimental studies, 1885, for the pedestal of Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty; and 39 studies and finished drawings, 1888-1890, made for a competition for a memorial for Ulysses S. Grant which he did not win. Also, magazine articles by or about Avery and his work, 1883-1890; obituaries and death announcements, 1890; miscellaneous photographs, certificates, and papers; and invitations, clippings, illustrations, and photographs, circa 1892-1894, relating to the founding of the Avery Architectural Library at Columbia University.

Correspondence, specifications, contracts, invoices, financial statements, memoranda, and architectural drawings pertaining to the construction of St. Paul's Chapel (Columbia University, New York, N.Y.), a project designed by Howells & Stokes, and by Stokes independently. Correspondence is between Howells & Stokes and Columbia University officials, contractors, and suppliers, including Nicholas Murray Butler, R. Guastavino Co., Tiffany Studios, Coppède, Paul Manship, and McKim, Mead & White, as well as Stokes' aunts Olivia Egleston Phelps Stokes and Caroline Phelps Stokes.

This collection is primarily concerned with Prof. James Renwick and his professional correspondence and papers, both as Professor of Natural Philosophy (Physics) at Columbia College and as a leading engineer. Many certificates of membership in honorary societies are included. There are letters from Washington Irving (1783-1859) to Prof. Renwick and to his mother, Jane Jeffrey Renwick, pertaining to contemporary events and Irving's own activities. The letters to Mrs. Renwick are about the travels and experiences of Irving and Renwick abroad. The collection also covers the affairs of the Prof. Renwick's grandfather, including documents concerning his land grants in New York State, and those of James Armstrong Renwick, including his valedictory address at Columbia College in 1876 and his class reunion in 1916. There are many legal documents, letters, and manuscripts of various members of the Renwick and Brevoort families; among these are Prof. Renwick's notes on his family genealogy and a memoir of Jane Jeffrey Renwick. Correspondents include Clement Clarke Moore, John A. Dix, Martin Van Buren, Secretary of State John Forsyth, and Secretary of the Navy James K. Paulding. There is one letter from Sir Edward Sabine (1788-1883), President of the Royal Society, giving his views on the American Civil War.