The collection is open for research.

Cite as: Juan Mauricio Rugendas Letters (MS 271). Special Collections and University Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Acquired from Robert Potash, Dept. of History, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 1988.

The collection was originally the property of Marta Madler, a descendant of Rugendas. In January 1968, Oscar Carlos Avalle of Munich's Argentine Consulate received a cable from Ms. Madler offering to sell the letters. Avalle contacted a series of officials in Argentina's Foreign Relations Department, offering them the opportunity to purchase the letters from Ms. Madler. The letters were eventually passed to historian, Carlos Maria Gelly y Obes, in Buenos Aires, who turned them over to Professor Robert Potash at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst in 1988. Professor Potash in turn donated them to the Special Collections and University Archives Department at the University of Massachusetts. The collection originally contained 427 items; however, the location of 231 of them is unknown. Of the missing items, 225 were letters from Dona Carmen Arriagada Guticke, and 2 letters and 4 poems were from the Cuban poet, Rafael Valdes, both personal friends of Rugendas.

Processed by Madeleine Charney, January 1991.