Consists of letters and papers of Charles Warren Fairbanks, 1852-1918, and his son, Warren Charles Fairbanks, 1878-1938, newspaper publisher. The Charles Warren Fairbanks material, which comprises the bulk of the collection, consists of correspondence with prominent political figures, businessmen, bankers, friends, relatives and constituents; manuscript and printed speeches of Fairbanks; law office papers; bills and receipts; miscellaneous papers; newspaper clippings; invitations; calling cards; pictures; slides of Fairbanks's trip around the world, 1909-1910; and miscellaneous printed matter. Most of the material belongs to Fairbanks' early years of practice as a railroad attorney and to his senatorial and vice- presidential periods. Subjects dealt with in the collection include federal and Indiana state politics and elections, 1884-1916; federal appointments; railroads; the Spanish American war; the annexation of the Philippine Islands by the United States; Puerto Rico; the United States and British joint high commission for the adjustment of Canadian questions, 1898; Indiana affairs, 1896-1906; temperance, 1898-1900; the tariff; speaking engagements; family affairs; the Indianapolis Switch and Frog Company, 1897-1910; the Springfield Foundry Company, 1897-1902; and the Fairbanks Building Company, 1907-1918.

The Warren Charles Fairbanks papers, 1918-1938, relate to the settlement of the estate of his father, Charles Warren Fairbanks; the Indianapolis News; the Fairbanks Blue ridge farms in Piatt County, Illinois; and the Fairbanks Valley farms in Greene County, Illinois.

The collection consists of both bound and unbound materials. Bound volumes of manuscript material include letterpress copybooks, July 13, 1874- May 10, 1918, inclusive; railroad case records, 1882-1890; campaign speeches, 1890-1892; seven volumes of typescripts of speeches of Charles Warren Fairbanks, entitled vols. I-II-III-IV-V, campaign of 1904, vol. VI, November 8, 1904-October 22, 1906, vol. VII, October 22, 1906-October 8, 1907; personal account books, 1874-1895, a household account book, December, 1906- February, 1907; a volume of copies of letters recommending Enoch G. Hogate for U.S. district judge for Indiana; a history of the Fairbanks building company, 1907-1918; and diaries, 1898, 1901, and 1911, of Robert Fairbanks, son of Charles Warren Fairbanks.

Bound volumes of printed material consist of scrapbooks of newspaper clippings, 1887-1910; invitations, 1898-1900; addresses of Charles Warren Fairbanks, June 18, 1894-December 29, 1905; the Western collegian, Ohio Wesleyan student paper, October 4, 1871-June 27, 1872; and a photograph album.

The unbound material in the collection is arranged in chronological order except for the following groups, which have been removed from the chronological arrangement and filed separately; bills and receipts, 1864-1938; papers relating to postoffice appointments and other postoffice matters in Indiana during Fairbanks' term in the U.S. Senate; miscellaneous printed material; calling cards and rubber stamps; invitations; newspaper clippings; and printed speeches of Fairbanks.

The postoffice papers are arranged alphabetically by names of postoffices or, in some cases where material is too general to be classified by postoffices, by names of counties. Under each postoffice or county, arrangement is chronological. Two types of cross references to the location of postoffice materials have been inserted in this postoffice file: 1) references to letters containing information on Indiana postoffices which have been left in the main chronological file because they also contain matter of interest on subjects other that postoffices: 2) references to letters in the postoffice file which deal with more than one postoffice.

The first box in the collection contains biographical and genealogical material relating to Charles Warren Fairbanks and his family.

Some of the material in the collection is filed in a folio folder.

A pencil sketch of Charles Warren Fairbanks as "Our next Vice President" by Frederick Victor Gillam may be found in the program of First Annual Dinner of Periodical Publishers' Association, New York City, Apr. 7, 1904.

Correspondents are indexed at the item level in the manuscripts index of the Lilly Library.

Note on Indexing Term - "Riley, James Whitcomb, 1849-1916": Charles Warren and Warren Charles Fairbanks both corresponded with Riley and their letters are included in the collection.