Background

He was born in Brooklyn, New York, the eldest son among the eight children of Gordon Lester Ford, businessman and book collector, and Emily Ellsworth (Fowler) Ford.

Education

With his brother Paul Leicester Ford he shared a precocious interest in books and scholarship.

Worthington was sent to Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and then enrolled in Columbia College with the class of 1879, where he shone in classical and economic studies; but his deafness caused him to withdraw before graduation, and he spent several years as cashier of an insurance company and as a writer on finance and political economy for the New York Evening Post and Herald.

Career

Both sons were aided and encouraged by their father in editing and printing the eighty or more bibliographical and documentary compilations they issued over the imprint of the Historical Printing Club of Brooklyn from 1876 to 1899. Worthington was sent to Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and then enrolled in Columbia College with the class of 1879, where he shone in classical and economic studies; but his deafness caused him to withdraw before graduation, and he spent several years as cashier of an insurance company and as a writer on finance and political economy for the New York Evening Post and Herald. He was only twenty-one when he published his first book, a revised edition of Wells' Natural Philosophy for the Use of Schools, by David A. Wells (2 vols. , 1879).

His next, The American Citizen's Manual (2 vols. , 1882 - 83), was more important: the first American textbook in civics worthy of the name, it was at once learned and illuminating on the complexities of the different state governments and displayed decidedly frank and progressive views in favor of civil service reform, railroad regulation, and unrestricted immigration, while opposing high tariffs.

These views were those of the Cleveland Democrats, and during Grover Cleveland's two presidential terms Ford held government appointments, first as chief of the Bureau of Statistics in the State Department, 1885-89, and later, with the same title, in the Treasury Department, 1893-98.

His real contribution as a government servant, however, resulted from the circumstance that the State Department in the 1880's housed the most valuable assemblage of official and personal sources for early American history in existence. These included the records of the Continental Congress and the personal papers of Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, acquired by the nation at various times earlier in the century.

This treasure trove cast its spell on Ford and submerged the statistician-economist in the historian-archivist-editor. Ford projected a plan for publishing these bodies of historical material in scholarly editions at government expense. Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard gave the plan official support, and President Cleveland recommended it in a message to Congress in 1888.

But the project was hopelessly premature. Congress's indifference freed Ford to undertake negotiations with G. P. Putnam's Sons, which, with Ford performing his editorial work at the remarkable pace he maintained throughout life, published The Writings of George Washington in fourteen volumes between 1889 and 1893.

Ford's brother Paul meanwhile undertook a comparable edition of Jefferson's Writings, and still other editions followed from other hands. Though by no means definitive, the Putnam editions, thanks to the Fords, set new standards for historical sources in typographical excellence, fidelity of text, and authoritative annotation.

In 1898 Worthington Ford moved to the Boston Public Library to become head of the department of documents and statistics newly established by its librarian, Herbert Putnam. Ford moved vigorously to develop services essentially anticipating those of a modern business reference library, but once again he was drawn to neglected historical riches, in this case the manuscripts that had accumulated over the years in the library without much notice.

In 1899 he was given the added title of chief of the department of manuscripts, and for five years (1900 - 04) he issued a handsomely printed annual volume of Historical Manuscripts in the Public Library of the City of Boston. In 1902 Herbert Putnam, now Librarian of Congress, summoned Ford to head the Library's comparatively new Division of Manuscripts. During his six-year tenure the division became the outstanding center of its kind in the country.

With Putnam's support and the active intervention of President Theodore Roosevelt (see his Executive Order of March 9, 1903), Ford gathered in from the State Department and other government agencies the records and other accumulations of historical material not needed for administrative purposes. Private owners were persuaded, and funds were found, to bring to the Library the papers of Presidents Jackson, Van Buren, Polk, Andrew Johnson, and Pierce, as well as those of other prominent American statesmen and intellectual and cultural leaders.

Ford instituted effective procedures for processing these often massive bodies of manuscripts and making their contents known to scholars. He himself undertook the editing, for the Library, of the Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, completed a dozen (of the ultimate thirty-four) volumes, and left three more in or ready for the press.

Late in 1908 Ford moved to Boston to become director of research and publication at the Massachusetts Historical Society, with the title of editor.

There he strove as if possessed by demonic force to make the vast unpublished resources of the Society available in print. In his twenty-year incumbency he prepared for the press no fewer than fifty substantial volumes of Proceedings, Collections, and special publications.

Many of these were largely, and some were wholly, his own work, including his chief monument as a learned editor, William Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation (2 vols. , 1912), and such still standard bibliographies as Broadsides, Ballads, &c. Printed in Massachusetts, 1639-1800 (1922). To the fifty volumes must be added the 261 publications of "Photostat Americana, " which Ford initiated in 1914 by operating one of the first photostat machines himself.

Ford was continuously active in the affairs of the American Historical Association and served as its president in 1917. From 1916 to 1923 he was consulting librarian at the John Carter Brown Library in Providence, Rhod Island, devoting one day a week to its affairs and supervising publication of four volumes of its new Catalogue covering a good part of its seventeenth-century Americana.

He also gained access to the archives of the Adams family, the greatest assemblage of its kind in the nation but until Ford's advent virtually closed to inquirers. Earning the trust of the family, he became unofficial custodian of the collection and obtained permission to prepare an edition of the Writings of John Quincy Adams, of which seven volumes were published, 1913-17, before it became a wartime casualty. He also saw both Charles Francis Adams's Autobiography (1916) and the first trade edition of The Education of Henry Adams (1918) through the press, and edited a splendidly readable collection of transatlantic Adams correspondence, A Cycle of Adams Letters, 1861-1865 (2 vols. , 1920), as well as, late in his life, the Letters of Henry Adams (2 vols. , 1930 - 38).

Amid such strenuous editorial and publishing activity, it is not surprising that faults of haste and carelessness sometimes crept in: mistakes in dating documents, assigning their authorship, and rendering their texts.

The most serious instance was the first volume (1925) of the Massachusetts Historical Society's new series of Winthrop Papers, which had to be recalled, reedited, and reprinted because of errors and inconsistencies that were pointed out by reviewers and by a special committee of the Society.

Ford thereupon submitted his resignation, which took effect in 1929. Later that year he went to Europe as director of "Project A" for the Library of Congress, to search out and reproduce materials for American history in foreign archives and libraries. To this was joined a more general roving mission as the Library's "European representative" for acquisitions and related matters. Budgetary restrictions brought both missions to an end by 1933, but Ford continued to live abroad.

When the German army invaded France in June 1940, Ford left his home at Le Vesinet, near Paris, and, at the age of eighty-two, "rode the crest of the invasion wave into unoccupied France. " Remaining there until February 1941, he made his way to Lisbon and obtained passage to New York on the American Export Line's Excalibur.

He died on shipboard after a week at sea.

Achievements

• He served in a variety of government positions: first, as the chief of the Bureau of Statistics for the U. S. Department of State, from 1885–1889, then at the U. S. Department of Treasury, 1893–1898, then as chief of the manuscripts division at the Library of Congress from 1902-1908. He also served as Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University from 1917-1922.

Works

More photos

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  • General Orders Issued by Major-General Israel Putnam: When in Command of the Highlands, in the Summer and Fall of 1777 (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from General Orders Issued by Major-General Israe...)

  • British Officers: Serving in the American Revolution 1774 1783 (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from British Officers: Serving in the American Re...)

  • The Federal Constitution in Virginia : 1787-1788

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • The United States and Spain in 1790 : an Episode in Diplomacy Described From Hitherto Unpublished Sources

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • Washington's Farewell Address. With a Prefatory Note by Worthington Chauncey Ford

    (Leopold is delighted to publish this classic book as part...)

  • George Washington

    (Biographer Worthington Chauncey Ford captures the emotion...)

  • Correspondence And Journals Of Samuel Blachley Webb V1: 1772-1777 (1893)

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • Diary Of Cotton Mather 1681-1709 V1

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • General Orders Issued by Major-General Israel Putnam, when in Command of the Highlands, in the Summer and Fall of 1777

    ( About the Book By the 1770s, 13 British colonies held 2...)

  • The Writings of George Washington, Vol. 12: Collected and Edited (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Writings of George Washington, Vol. 12: ...)

  • John Quincy Adams

    (" JAMES MONROE TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. DEAR SIR, — I enclo...)

  • A Cycle of Adams Letters - Vol. I

    (A Cycle of Adams Letters - Vol. I by Worthington Chauncey...)

  • The Writings of George Washington (1748-1776) (With Active Table of Contents)

Membership

He was a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Personality

Ford's deafness had increased with age, but he continued to communicate through a lifelong habit of wide correspondence.

His letters are marked by the same crisp, often sardonic, and always lucid style found in his published writings.

Connections

On October 11, 1899, he had married Bettina Fillmore Quin of Washington, D. C. ; they had two daughters, Crimora Chauncey and Emily Ellsworth.

Father:

Gordon Lester Ford

mother Emily Ellsworth (Fowler) Ford

Wife:

Bettina Fillmore Quin

daughter Crimora Chauncey Ford daughter Emily Ellsworth Ford

Brother:

Paul Ford

References

• The Isle Of Pines (1668) and An Essay in Bibliography by Worthington Chauncey Ford