John Russell Bartlett

John Russell Bartlett (October 23, 1805 – May 28, 1886) was an American historian and linguist.

Early life

Bartlett was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on October 23, 1805, the son of Smith Bartlett and Nancy (Russell) Bartlett. In 1819 he was a student at the Lowville Academy in Lowville, New York, which he attended for two years. From 1807 to 1824 he lived in Kingston, Canada. From 1824 to 1836 he lived in Providence where he worked first as a clerk in his uncle's dry goods store (1824–1828), then as a bookkeeper and acting teller at the Bank of North America (1828–1831), and finally as the first cashier of the Globe Bank (1831–1836).

Intellectual life, business

In 1831, he was one of the founders of the Providence Athenaeum, and was elected its first treasurer. That year he was also elected to membership in the Rhode Island Historical Society. The following year he was ordering books for the newly founded Providence Franklin Society, an early lyceum. Over the course of his life he became involved with a number of other organizations including the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and being elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1856.

Bartlett moved to New York City in 1836, where he became a partner in the dry goods commission house of Jesup, Swift and Company. In 1840 he and his friend Charles Welford started the bookselling and publishing firm of Bartlett and Welford which was located in the Astor House hotel on the west side of Broadway between Vesey and Barclay streets. The firm, which was known for its large stock of foreign books, issued five catalogs between 1840 and 1848. While in New York, he became friends with a number of leading intellectuals, including the ethnologist and public servant Albert Gallatin. In 1842, he helped Gallatin found the American Ethnological Society. Bartlett later served as the Foreign Corresponding Secretary of the organization.