Personal, 1817 - 1986

Terry Ramsaye (1885 - 1954), former editor of the Motion Picture Herald and author of A Million and One Nights, an early history of the motion picture industry, was a prolific writer and respected film historian. His papers, comprising 5 boxes (6.75 linear feet), are arranged in six series: a Dope File Series, Individual Series, Subject Series, Manuscripts Series, Photographic Series, and Personal Series.

Items of interest indexed in Terry Ramsaye's papers are a TLS by Wm. Kennedy Laurie Dickson, 1 TLS by George Eastman, 2 TLS by Thomas Edison, and TLS by Frank Dyer, Edison's attorney, and Wm. Meadowcraft, Edison's assistant. Terry Ramsaye's papers are, of course, of great value to those interested in the early history of the motion picture. But they are also fascinating to those who wish to explore how history is written. They represent a painstaking compilation of information which Terry Ramsaye collected to write A Million and One Nights and continued to collect until his death in 1954. His correspondence with Thomas Armat, Billy Bitzer, members of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, and others presents a picture of a man continuously struggling and researching in order to "get the facts straight" and end the myths which were continuously reappearing about early motion picture history and who invented what when. Researchers interested in Terry Ramsaye may also wish to look at Georgetown University's Martin Quigley Collection or copy of A Million and One Nights or Harvard University's collection in the Baker Library which Ramsaye mentions in his correspondence with the Harvard Business Historical Society.