Background
Raymond Emerson was born to Doctor Edward Waldo Emerson and Annie Shepard Keyes on November 28, 1886 in Concord, Massachusetts. Raymond"s father, Edward, was the son of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Lidian Jackson Emerson.
Raymond Emerson was born to Doctor Edward Waldo Emerson and Annie Shepard Keyes on November 28, 1886 in Concord, Massachusetts. Raymond"s father, Edward, was the son of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Lidian Jackson Emerson.
Harvard University.
He is known for his large donations of personal Ralph Waldo Emerson letters and other documents for educational purposes. He was part of the Emerson family, Ralph Waldo Emerson"s grandson. He was the youngest of seven children born to the couple, and one of only four that survived to adulthood.
Raymond worked as a civil engineer after graduating from Harvard in 1910.
His surveying and engineering work took him across the United States and also to Canada and Brazil. In 1927, he joined J.M. Forbes & Company in Boston as an investment banker and partner in the company.
He continued as partner until 1958. In 1924, Raymond and Claflin funded an expedition into Southern Utah for survey and excavation work performed by John Otis Brew and others
This expedition became known as the Claflin-Emerson Expedition, which lasted four years.
While at the museum, Raymond was "particularly involved" with Alfred V. Kidder under the latter"s mentorship at the museum. After his death, Ralph Waldo Emerson"s papers and works got passed down through the next generations, and Raymond allowed publications to use some of those works. He was considered the closest kin of Ralph Waldo Emerson after Ralph Waldo Emerson"s children died.
Some of the works that Raymond let benefit from Ralph"s work by waiving copyrights include:
After Walden: Thoreau"s Changing Views on Economic Manitoba by Leo Stoller.
The Days of Henry Thoreau by Walter Harding. The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson Volume One.
The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson Volume Five. The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume 10.
Raymond also donated generously to the Peabody Museum, including funding some of its archaeological expeditions.
On April 12, 1913, Raymond married the heiress Amelia Forbes, daughter of the yachtsman and capitalist John Malcolm Forbes and Sarah Coffin Jones. Forbes was the granddaughter of railroad magnate John Murray Forbes and grew up in the mansion he built, called Fredonia, which had passed to Amelia"s father. The Emerson and Forbes families were intermarried many times over.
In 1938 Raymond replaced Ingersoll Bowditch as a member of the museum faculty, and was part of the museum oversight body until he retired in 1956.