Price: $11,000.00
Unbound. An archive of material by and about College Football Hall of Famer and two-time Olympic Medal winner T. Truxtun Hare, including the manuscript for his unpublished autobiography. Also included are photographs from his playing days, two different sheets of rare perforated photos showing him in his University of Pennsylvania uniform; more than 50 letters sent to him from friends and family, including a Typed Letter Signed by Walter Camp, the Father of American Football; and assorted ephemera, such as a broadside for a 1898 game against Cornell. Overall very good or better with typical light wear to the material included toning, wear at the edges with nicks and small tears and letters folded as mailed.
Thomas Truxtun Hare (1878-1956) was born in Philadelphia but attended St. Mark’s School in Massachusetts before being accepted to the University of Pennsylvania. He played multiple sports but excelled at football, playing every minute of every game for all four years. He was one of just four players to be named a four-time All-American, and was named a charter member of the Football Hall of Fame in 1951. Hare also twice achieve Olympic glory, first as an undergraduate winning a silver medal for the hammer throw in 1900 and a bronze medal four years later in St. Louis in the equivalent of the decathlon (then called the “all-around”). In his post-sports career Hare was a practicing lawyer until his retirement in 1941, as well as the author of nine fictional football books for boys, over two series: *The Graduate Coach Series* (four volumes) and the *Kent of Malvern Series* (five volumes).
Hare’s writings in this collection total 108 holograph pages. The manuscripts are largely separated into gatherings that are between two to nine pages of unlined paper, each gathering secured by a paperclip. Each gathering has been edited and corrected by Hare with eight of the gatherings accompanied by typed versions totaling just over 30 pages. One loose manuscript sheet contains a preliminary list of chapters, with several directly corresponding to the titles of the individual gatherings (“Equipment,” “The Field,” and “Tactics”). In a note accompanying the list Hare relates that a hip injury has limited his mobility and that he had “turned to these random thoughts compiled over many years and put them into shape & submit them for what they are worth.” The manuscripts contain anecdotes from his career, his thoughts about various coaches, players and teams, discussions of both his personal and team strategies, an overview of football history and the evolution of play during his collegiate years, as well as Hare’s opinion of the (then) current state of football and the introduction of the pass and its effect on play (which he largely disapproved of). Additionally there are individual notes about other topics to include or brief anecdotes to expand on later.
Additional writings in the archive include a typed 12-page speech given at the “Phila Club – 1941” presenting the history and development of football (with an accompanying partial five-page manuscript draft); a typed three-page eulogy of William W. Barber, headmaster of St. Mark’s school; and eight typed pages - taken from his personal diary – relating the details of his 1901 Canadian hunting and fishing trip to Lake Champlain, accompanied by letters from his Canadian guide relating to the trip.
Of the more than 50 letters received by Hare in the archive, the most notable is probably a one-page typed letter from Walter Camp in 1908, thanking Hare for a photograph he sent of himself for Camp’s forthcoming book (*The Book of Foot-Ball*): “The photograph in uniform reminds me of a young man whom Mrs. Camp and I watched with the greatest interest and admiration when he fought such a plucky game at Cambridge.”
About half of the correspondence was received from fellow Penn students, many of them from Dorothy Sims, the daughter of the president of the University of Penn Athletic Association, John C. Sims. Her letters reference various parties, get-togethers, and other social activities of their group of friends, include acknowledging several gestures (“thanks so very much for the roses”) that suggest a possible romantic relationship.
Other letters include: four from Truxtun’s father, university professor Horace Binney Hare; one from friend Benjamin Franklin Pepper, who was killed in World War I, describing staying at California Senator George Hearst’s house on a trip out West; and three letters from his friend Louis Rush, who served in France at the end of the WWI.
The archive is rounded out by several rare pieces of ephemera: two sheets of perforated and gummed "postage stamp-style" photographs of Hare in uniform, one a full-body shot and the other from the chest up. These are also accompanied by two additional shots of college-era Hare camping and with friends posing with their bikes, along with a third image of him as a boy. Five much later 8” x 10” images show an older Hare before a University of Penn football game, being award his Hall of Fame Certification and posing with former teammates. Finally there are present a few other pieces of ephemera: an 1898 three-color printed broadside for a game between Penn and Cornell that list both team’s lineup, an issue of *The College Athlete*, which features Hare throughout; and his contract with Penn Publishing for his boy’s book series.
A unique archive of material from one of the greatest college football players of the 19th Century.
Item #434195
