GRIFFIS RELATED MATERIALS

Summary: This sub-group is comprised of archival and published materials that were not part of the original William Elliot Griffis collection, but are related to Griffis or to contacts between the West and Japan during the Meiji and Taisho periods. The materials fall into two categories:

1) Materials related to the Griffis Collection but not strictly derived from it. These include nineteenth-century Japanese materials originally acquired separately from the Griffis accessions, but removed to the collection or photocopied by earlier curators. Also included are materials originally from the Rutgers University Archives. These items were amassed by or document Griffis, other members of the Class of 1869, the Yatoi (early foreign employees in Japan), and the ryugakusei (early Japanese students at Rutgers University and other institutions). Some of the material dates from Griffis's days as a student at Rutgers (1865-1869), before he was employed in Japan.

2) Scholarship based on or related to the Griffis Collection, dating from the early twentieth century to the present.

Document types represented in the sub-group include correspondence, research, notes, diaries, pamphlets, periodicals, books, manuscripts, audio and videotapes, photographs, and sheet music. The sub-group dates from the late 1860s to the present and is roughly 5 cubic feet in size, but is expected to keep growing as more materials are added. The sub-group is arranged with the largest series first, and the rest following in decreasing size order.