Edwin McKaig Clendening (1852-1930) Papers (KC0262)
Edwin McKaig Clendening was born on October 7, 1852 to Dr. John Day and Mary Ann Clendening in Frankfort Springs, Pennsylvania. He married Lida Logan of Wheeling, West Virginia, on October 22, 1878, and they had one child, a son Logan, who went on to achieve prominence as a physician in the Kansas City area. E.M. Clendening came to Kansas City in 1882 and had business interests in a shoe company which failed in 1892. Clendening became Secretary of the Commercial Club in that year, a position he held until 1918, when he was appointed Assistant to the President of the Chamber of Commerce. Clendening helped organize the plan for erecting Convention Hall and was on the three-member committee which supervised the rebuilding of the hall within ninety days after it burned in the spring of 1900. He took great interest in navigation and transportation issues regarding the Missouri River. He became a member of the Sons of the American Revolution after a family tree search in 1895-1996. Clendening was a charter member and original board member of the National Association of Commercial Organization Secretaries. Clendening was a member of Grace and Holy Trinity Church, the Round Table Club, Kansas City Art Institute, YMCA, Kansas City Country Club, and Kansas City Athletic Club. E.M. Clendening died in 1930.
This collection chiefly consists of personal and professional correspondence and early records of the Kansas City Commercial Club, later the Kansas City Chamber of Commerce. Correspondence is both personal and professional in nature until approximately 1920, after which it is almost exclusively Chamber business. Beginning in the early 1900s, Clendening was interested in shipping and transportation on the Missouri River and other waterways. Also included is correspondence with and about E.M. Clendening's son, Logan, referring primarily to Logan's high school and college education and to his early medical practice. Between the years 1910-1920 Clendening kept correspondence with a black medical student named J.H.H. Riley. The collection also contains other correspondence from blacks who wrote to ask for Clendening's assistance. From the 1890s through the late 1910s, Clendening maintained regular correspondence with Edgar Tilton of the Stonnard Tilton Milling Company in St. Louis. Although it is chiefly personal in nature, there are many references to the grain business and other commercial matters. The activities of the Commercial Club and Chamber of Commerce, such as banquets, excursions, meetings, minutes, and day-to-day business, are documented. Included are many inter-office memos concerning worker efficiency in the mid-1920s. Other subjects of local interest in the collection include the China Famine Relief fund, the Kansas City Country Club and the Kansas City Club, and references to statues such as the Scout, Pioneer Mother, Swope Memorial, and Meyer Memorial. 1887-1929.
114 folders; 9 volumes.
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updated:
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Western Historical Manuscript Collection-Kansas City
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