The Christopher A. Dorrance collection consists primarily of original autographs of important and/or famous people of the United States of America from its founding to the early 21st century. The subjects of the autographs include presidents and first ladies, government officials, political and military figures, musicians, authors, actresses and actors, athletes, reformers and civil rights era activists, foreign leaders and celebrities, flyers and people associated with aviation and aeronautics, etc. The autographs in this collection are written on various mediums including, framed posters, official documents, photographs, books, cards, letters, and various forms of paper ephemera. The series titles reflect what the donor prescribed to his collection. The one change made at the discretion of the archivist was to change the word "foreign" to "international." The signatures were originally housed in three ring binders. The order established by the donor has been maintained. Several signatures are part of larger manuscript pieces, such as letters or ephemeral items such as programs.
Donated by Christopher Dorrance
This collection is open for research.
The materials from Washington and Lee University Special Collections are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study, pursuant to U.S. Copyright law. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials, including but not limited to, infringement of copyright and publication rights of reproduced materials. Any materials used should be fully credited with the source.
[Identification of item], Christopher A. Dorrance Collection (WLU Coll. 0653), Special Collections and Archives, James G. Leyburn Library, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Va.
Fred Astaire, Lauren Bacall, Edgar Barrier, Al Barr, Warren Beatty, Eg Begley, Yul Brynner, Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart on one piece, Richard Chamberlain, Sydney Chaplin, Maurice Chevalier, Catherine Cornell, Kevin Costner, Bing Crosby, Angie Dickinson, Kirk Douglas, Kevin Dobson, Jamie Farr, Douglas Fairbanks, Henry Fonda, Jose Ferrer
James Garner, Farley Granger, Gene Hackman, Jean Hensholt, Charlton Heston, Dustin Hoffman, Bob Hope, Rock Hudson, Tommy Lee Jones, Gene Kelly and Catherine Deneuve on one item, John R. King, Charles Laughton, Gene Lockhart, Harve Presnell, Paul Lukas, Jeffrey Lynn
Lee Marvin, Roddy McDowall, Wayne Morris, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward on one item, Pat O'Brien, Laurence Olivier, Fess Parker, Gregory Peck, Tyrone Power, Sidney Poitier, Vincent Price, George Raft, Tony Randall, Robert Redford, Cornelia Skinner, George Scott, Robert Stack, James Stewart, Ed Sullivan, Kent Taylor, Richard Thomas, King Vidor, Warner Brothers, Johnny Weissmiller
Wiley Post, Harold Gatty, possibly Hugo Eckener, General Doolittle, Richard E. Byrd, Igor Sikorsky, Charles Butler, Amelia Earhart, John H. Glenn, Jr., Sir Edmund Hillary, Frank Hitchcock, Maurice Bellonte, Charles Lindbergh
Robert Bacon, Bruce Barton, Nicholas Biddle, Louis Koemmenich, Melvin Calvin, Joseph H. Choate, Peter Cooper, J. M. Draper, George Eastman, Cyrus W. Field, Malcome Forbes, Steve Forbes, Edward H. and Averill Harriman, Henry Hubbard, George Meany, Roger Milliken, Louis Rukeyser, David Sarnoff, Charles Schwab, Ted Turner, Hank Steinberg, some illegible.
Julian Bond, Ralph J. Bunche, George Washington Carver, Benjamin L. Hooks, Roy Innis, John L. Lewis, Jesse Jackson, Helen Keller, Coretta Scott Kings, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., James H. Meredith, Rosa Parks, Paul Robeson, Booker T. Washington, Andrew Young
Richard Avedon, Ralph Avery, Chris Browne, Chester Gould, Johnny Hart, Bob Kane, Georgio, Norman Rockwell, Jerry Scott, James Thurber, Don Trachte, Gary Burden, Jamie Wyeth
Edward Arnold, Art Buchwald, Boake Carter, Walter Cronkite, Lynne Gibson, Barry Gray, Seymour Hersh, Alfred Knopf, Francis Lederer, Walter Lippman, H. V. Kaltenborn, James Mitchener, Ed Murrow, Lloyd Nolan, William P. Rogers, William L. Shirer, Raymond Swing, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, Herbert B. Swope, Lowell Thomas, Marcel Wallenstein, [?] Rosenwald, Walter Winchell, Edward Weeks, Bob Woodward, Herbert Agar, Henry Haskell, some illegible.
G. T. Beauregard, Jefferson Davis, John C. Breckinridge, Winfield Scott, Daniel E. Sickles, Alexander Stephens, Robert Toombs, Douglas MacArthur, John J. Pershing, Oliver North, Bernard Baruch, James Byrnes, John C. Calhoun, Jim DeMint, Strom Thurman, Carroll Campbell, Jim Hodges, David Beasley, some illegible.
Thurgood Marshall, Byron White, William J. Brennan, Harry A. Blackmun, David Davis, Robert H. Jackson, Louis Brandeis, Hugo L. Black, Warren Burger, Ramsey Clark, William O. Douglas, Oliver Ellsworth, Stephen J. Field, Abe Fortas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, J. Marshall Harlan, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Hughes, Robert H. Jackson, Jay John, Anthony M. Kennedy, Frank Murphy, Sandra Day O'Connor, Timothy Pickering, Stanley Reed, David Souter, Harlan Fiske Stone, Roger B. Taney
Jeffrey Amherst, Samuel Canning, Fidel Castro, Charles De Gaulle, Stanley Baldwin, Ramsay MacDonald, Anthony Eden, David Lloyd George, Walter Edgar, Edward, Duke of Windsor, Queen Elizabeth II, Foulette, Alexander Kerensky, Helmut Kohl, Jawaharlel Nehru
Jose Navarro, Ramon Novarro, C. Nungesser, Benito Mussolini, Syngman Rhee, Percy Sanderson, Leon Trotsky, Desmond Tutu, Queen Victoria, Lach Walsea, Harold Wilson, some illegible
Robert Oberlin, Walter W. Bacon, Harold H. Burton, Bill Dix, J. M. Doane, Nicholas Fessenden, Alvin Fuller, Walter Hickel, Fiorello LaGuardia, Barbara Roberts, Kurt Schomoke, Donald Schaefer, J. W. Sturdevant, Jeb Bush, Celbert Wheeler, some illegible
Horatio Alger, Desi Arnaz, Jr., Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Kim Hunter, George Bancroft, Charles Beard, Henry Beecher, William C. Bryant, Pearl S. Buck, Art Buchwald, Erskine Caldwell, James F. Cooper, Michael Crichton, John Dewey, James Dickey, John Dos Passos, John D. Eisenhower, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Ellison, John K. Gailbraith, William Lloyd Garrison, Bret Harte, Nathaniel Hawthorne, M. Hearst, Ernest Hemingway, William D. Howell, Harper Lee, Sinclair Lewis, Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, some illegible
Vincente Minnelli, Jessye Norman, Cole Porter, Archibald MacLeish, Edwin Markham, Carl Sandburg, Upton Sinclair, W. Somerset Maugham, G. L. Kipling, Damon Runyon, A. A. Milne, Lincoln Steffans, Ida Tarbell, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Anne Tyler, Robert Penn Warren, John Whittier, T. Wilder, John Updike, Thomas H. Kean, Barbara Tuchman
Thad Cochran, John Warner, Paul Volcker, John Breaux, Reubin Askew, Shirley Chisholm, Newt Gingrich, Richard Lugar, Trent Lott, John McCormack, Scott Lucas, G. W. Norris, Sol Bloom, Henry Gonzalez, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, Earl Butz, Carl Albert, Barbara Jordan, Alan Cranston, Lindsey Graham, Albert Reeves, Alva Adams, Carl Albert, Charles O. Andrews, Warren Austin, some illegible
J. H. Bankhead, Thomas H. Benton, William E. Borah, Chester Bowles, Styles Bridges, Edward Brooks, Fred Brown, Joseph Bryson, Robert Bulkley, H. F. Byrd, Arthur Capper, Hattie W. Carrway, Lawton Chiles, Bennett Clark, Dan Coats, Marcus Coolidge, Royal S. Copeland, James Davis, Chauncy DePew, Allan Ellender
W. P. Fessenden, William P. Frye, Walter George, Carter Glass, Bob Graham, Ernest Gruening, Joseph Guffey, Frederick Hale, Pat Harrison, Paula Hawkins, Rush Holt, Kay B. Hutchinson, Henry M. Jackson, Hiram Johnson, Josh Lee, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., W. M. McAdoo, Joe McCarthy, George McGill, V. R. Messall, Sherman Minton, Justin Morrill, Wayne Morse, Edwin Muskie
Peter Norbeck, G. W. Norris, Sam Nunn, G. P. Nye, John Overton, Otto Passman, Claiborne Pell, Claude Pepper, Charles Perry, Thomas Reed, Robert Reynolds, Henry Schwartz, Stuart Simongton, Alan K. Simpson, Robert Stafford, Charles Sumner, Robert A. Taft, Miller E. Tydings, Arthur Vandenberg, Robert F. Wagner, Burton K. Wheeler, William A. Harrison, Jr.
Lady Bird Johnson, Dolly Madison, Helen Taft, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Truman, Rosalynn Carter, Hillary Clinton
John Adams, John Quincy Adams, James Buchanan, George H. W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Grover Cleveland, Bill Clinton, Calvin Coolidge, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gerald Ford
James Garfield, Ulysses S. Grant, Warren G. Harding, Benjamin Harrison, Rutherford Hayes, Thomas Jefferson, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy
James Madison, James Monroe, Richard Nixon
Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Tyler, Martin Van Buren, Woodrow Wilson
Joe Biden, Alben Barkley, J. G. Blaine, William J. Bryan, Lewis Cass, Schuyler Colfax, James M. Cox, William Crawford, Charles Curtis, Thomas Dewey, Bob Dole, Stephen Douglas, Michael Dukakis, Geraldine Ferraro (includes Mondale's signature), Barry Goldwater, Al Gore
Hannibal Hamlin, Hubert Humphrey, Bobby Kennedy, Robert LaFollette, Alf Landon, Eugene McCarthy, Walter Mondale, Levi Morton, Ralph Nadar, Dan Quayle, Nelson Rockefeller, James Sherman, Alfred Smith, Adlai Stevenson, Henry Wallace, Daniel Webster, Wendell Willkie, illegible, Whig Party circular circa 1846
Charles Adams, Dean Atchison, Newton Baker, Ezra Benson, Robert Blinderon, Herbert Bromwell, Jr., Warren Christopher, Clark Clifford, Howell Cobb, Bainbridge Colby, Commerce Shipping notes, Homer Cummings, Harry Daugherty, Josephus Daniels, Swight Davis, James Davis, Henry Dearborn, Edwin Denby, George Dern, Jacob Dickinson, William Doak, Elizabeth Dole, John F. Dulles, James Farley, Hamilton Fish, Arthur Flemming, Marion Folsom, John Forsyth, Orville Freeman
Albert Gallatin, Lindley Garrison, Howard Gore, Alexander Haig, Alexander Hamilton, Averill Harriman, Will Hays, Leon Henderson, Frank Hitchcock, Arthur Hyde, Oveta Hobby, J. Edgar Hoover, Henry Hopkins, David Houston, Cordell Hull, George Humphrey, Harold Ickes, William Jardine, Frank Kellogg, Amos Kendall, George Kennan, Joseph Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Philander Knox, Franklin Lane, Franklin MacVeagh, William McAdoo, Hugh McCulloch, Neil McElroy, Douglas McLay, Robert McNamara
Edward Meredith, George Meyer, James Mitchell, John Miller, Ogden Mills, Henry Morgenthau, Francis Perkins, Eliot Richardson, Elihu Root, W. M. Rogers, Daniel Roper, Albert Rush, Dean Rusk, Fred Seaton, William Seward
John Sirica, Edwin Stanton, Henry Stimson, Lewis Strauss, Arthur Summerfield, Claude Swanson, W. Stuart Symington, [?] Vance, Henry Wallace, John Weeks, Sinclair Weeks, Curtis Wilbur, Ray Wilbur, Charles Wilson, James Wilson, William Wilson, some illegible, one signature is attributed to a photograph of William Neil Dennison.
Herb Adderley, Muhammad Ali, Mel Allen, L. Alworth, Luke Appling, Al Arbour, Arthur Ashe, Doug Atkins, Chuck Bednarik, John Belivau, Bobby Bell, Yogi Berra, Raymond Berry, Jim Brown
Wilt Chamberlain, Roger Clemens, George Connor, Joe Cronin, Denny Crum, Larry Csonka, Glenn Davis, Andrew Dawson, Jack Dempsey, Bill Dickey, Anthony Dilweg, Joe DiMaggio, Bobby Doerr, Art Donovan
Cliff Drysdale, Don Drysdale, Bill Dudley, Joe Durham, Leo Durocher, Carl Erskine, Boomer Essiassian, Tom Fears, Bob Feller, Ray Flaherty, Peggy Fleming, Whitey Ford
Gary Gait, Steve Garvey, Frank Gatski, Charles Gehringer, Bob Gibson, Panche Gonzalez, H. Granger, Mike Greenwell, Forest Gregg, Rosevelt Grier, Jason Grimsley, Lou Groza, George Halas, Orel Hershiser, Elroy Hirsch, Gordon Howe, Paul Hornung, Kenny Houston, Carl Hubbell
Monford Irvin, Walter Johnson, Harmon Killebrew, Tom Landry, Dick Lane, J. Langer, Willie Lanier, Yale Larry, Don Larsen, Tom Lasardo, Rod Laver, Bob Lemon, Buck Leonard, Chris Lloyd, Ronnie Lott, Sid Luckman, Steve Lyons
Mickey Mantle, Ollie Matson, Marty Marion, Eddy Matthews, Willy Mays, George McAfee, Hugh McElhaney, Ben McDonald, Randy Milligan, Bobby Mitchell, Johnny Mize, Eddie Murray, Stan Musial, Bryon Nelson, Don Newcombe, Bobby Orr, Mickey Owen
Allen Page, Arnold Palmer, James Alvin Palmer, Brad Park, Jim Parker, Walter Payton, Gary Player, Pete Pihos, Kirby Puckett, Maurice Richard, Jim Ringo, Cal Ripken, Jr., Phil Rizzuto, Robin Roberts, Brooks Robinson, Andy Robustelli, Pete Rose
Johnny Sain, Bob St. Clair, Gayle Sayers, Joe Schmidt, Mike Schmidt, Matt Schmidt, Tex Schramm, Tom Seaver, Bill Sharman, Art Shell, O. J. Simpson, Enis Slaughter, Bill Skowron, Sam Snead, Duke Snider
Warren Spahn, Ernie Stautner, Fred Stolle, Darryl Strawberry, Lawrence Taylor, Anthony Telford, Gene Upshaw, Johnny Unitas, Charlie Trippi, Bobby Thompson, Doak Walker, Lloyd Waner, Paul Warfield, Arnie Weinmeister, Ted Williams, Mark Williamson, Bill Willis, Larry Wilson, Joe Wood, W. Wood, one item signed by multiple major league baseball players.
Frank Frisch, Stan Musial, Pete Rose, George Kell, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, Preacher Roe, Pee Wee Reese, [?] Fitzsimmons, Duke Snider, John Mize, Vic Raschi, Tom Henrick, Joe Page, Frank Crosetti, Red Rolfe, Jerry Coleman, Red Ruffing, Charlie Keller, Eddie Joost, Jimmy Dykes, Elmer Valo
Lou Brissie, Larry Doby, Sam Chapman, Mel Harder, Mike Garcia, Dale Mitchell, Ellis Kinder, [?] Moses, Dom Di Maggio, Bill Goodman, Vern Stephens, Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky, Birdie Tebbetts, Mel Parnell, Tommy Holmes, Sam Jethroe, Warren Spahn, [?] Stanky, Bob Elliott, Bob Chipman, Gene Mauch, Paul Burris, Virg Jester, [?] Sisti, Johnny Sain, Bob Addis, Alvin Dark, Vern Bickford, Andy Seminick
Joe Cummiskey, Robin Roberts, Richie Ashburn, Sid Gordon, Walker Cooper, [?] Marshall, Hank Sauer, Hank Edwards, Ewell Blackwell, B. Walters, Eddie Robinson, Gus Zernial, Cass Michaels, Alfonso Carrasquel, Luke Appling, Bob Kuzava, Mickey Vernon, Bucky Harris, Ray Scarborough, Walt Masterson, Phil Cavarretta, Red Schoendienst
Martin Marion, Harry Brecheen, Burt Shotton, Terry Moore, Bob Dillinger, Ralph Kiner, Zack Taylor, Albert Chandler, Jim Rice, Tom Lasorda, Roger Clemens, Wade Boggs, Alex Rodriguez, various illegible
Steve Carlton, Ted Williams