Jeanette Expedition collection

The collection contains correspondence, diaries, journals, photographs, an account book, receipts, clippings, ephemera, maps, a scrapbook, and writings by John W. Danenhower while he was on board the USS Jeannette during its search for a Pacific route to the North Pole, and the USS Vandalia in the Mediterranean Sea. Materials related to his time as a lecturer for the Redpath Lyceum Bureau are also included. The correspondence contains primarily letters to his parents, his sisters, Belle (Birdie) and Rae and his brother Washington. Of note are his journals while he was a navigator on the Jeannette and a Carte-de-Visite album which includes photographs of the Russian royal family. Some material related to his family and extended family including Helen Danenhower, Elizabeth Uber Danenhower, Ruth Danenhower Wilson and George B. Sloan is also included.

The second part of the collection relates to Danenhower's grandson Geoffrey Wilson’s book “Life’s Wild Restless Sea,” an biography of his grandfather and his journey on the Jeannette. Included in this series are two drafts of Wilson’s unpublished manuscript, correspondence with researchers and scholars, clippings, printed material, diary and letter transcriptions, microfilms, writings and notes.