American Studies Commons^™

"I Want To Do This Job": More Margaret Bourke-White Letters To Erskine Caldwell, William L. Howard

The Courier

Eleven letters have recently been added to the George Arents Research Library's collection of Erskine Caldwell and Margaret Bourke-White correspondence. In the possession of Caldwell's first wife, Helen Caldwell Cushman, until her death in 1986, these letters were bought from a North Carolina bookdealer acting on behalf of Helen and Erskine's granddaughter. The entire group was written by Bourke-White in 1936, just prior to and immediately after her first tour of the South with Caldwell, during which they gathered material for You Have Seen Their Faces. A page of unsigned journal entries chronicling Bourke-White's behavior on the trip accompanies the …

Past And Present In Hope Emily Allen's Essay "Relics", John C. Hirsh

The Courier

This article sheds light on the American medievalist Hope Emily Allen, specifically the period when she was writing the essay "Relics." Allen Hope Allen probably began work on the essay after she returned to Oneida from Britain in 1912. In the subsequent period, familial obligations, health, and the advent of the First WorId War kept her away from the European libraries on which her work depended, and she turned to material already in hand, or to essays based upon her Oneida home. It was in this period too that, as "an antiquary bred in the bone", she began to record …

Dear Kit, Dear Skinny: The Letters Of Erskine Caldwell And Margaret Bourke-White, William L. Howard

The Courier

This article highlights some of the material found in the Margaret Bourke-White Papers in the Syracuse University Special Collections. The collection contains a good deal of correspondence between Margaret, a journalist for Life magazine and her husband, the American author Erskine Caldwell. The collection provides indispensable documentation of the artists' personal lives in the years 1936 through 1942.

James Fenimore Cooper: Young Man To Author, Constantine Evans

The Courier

This article provides a biographical look at the American author James Fenimore Cooper. It traces his roots from his youth in Cooperstown—named after his father William—to his ill-timed naval career, and on to his time as a self-conscious novelist.

Alistair Cooke: A Response To Granville Hicks' I Like America, Kathleen Manwaring

The Courier

Written at the urging of his friend Louis Birk, managing editor of Modern Age Books, I Like America was Granville Hicks' attempt to present to a middle-class audience "the official line of the Communist Party in the Popular Front period". Published when the slogan 'Communism is Twentieth-Century Americanism' identified the interests of the mass of the American population, which was suffering from the Depression and the inadequate response of the New Deal for relief, with the aims of the Party, the book was later described by Hicks as "a venture in propaganda". The Granville Hicks Papers in the George Arents …

The Stephen Crane Collection At Syracuse University, Edward Lyon

The Courier

This article gives a general overview of the items contained in the Stephen Crane collections at the Syracuse University Libraries. The article divides the collection into letters, manuscripts, presentation inscriptions and annotations, books from Crane's library, and memorabilia. A large portion of the collection is drawn from the Schoberlin collection.

Schoberlin's Annotated Copy Of War Is Kind, Donald P. Vanouse

The Courier

This article explains the controversy that surrounds one of the copies (the Schoberlin copy to be exact) of War Is Kind by Stephen Crane that is contained in Syracuse University's Special Collections. Inaccurate dates, strange annotations, and odd formatting are some of the features that make the copy unique.

Searching For Stephen Crane: The Schoberlin Collection, James B. Colvert

The Courier

This article meticulously recounts the building of the Schoberlin collection, which sought to gather material written by the American novelist Stephen Crane. The task was quite formidable, as competing collectors tried to beat each other to primary sources. The article also points out facts and discrepencies that the sources contain, giving a complex but interesting story about the ill-fated author.

New Stephen Crane Letters In The Schoberlin Collection, Paul Sorrentino, Stanley Wertheim

The Courier

This article recreates several letters written by American novelist Stephen Crane, unique to the Schoberlin Collection. By themselves the letters and inscriptions that are reproduced here do not form a coherent narrative; consequently, brief headnotes and footnotes supply the reader with sufficient detail to understand the context of each document.

Newly Discovered Writings Of Mary Helen Peck Crane And Agnes Elizabeth Crane, Paul Sorrentino

The Courier

Although several members of Stephen Crane's immediate family were writers, scholars know little about their work. Thomas A. Gullason

published writings by Crane's parents and brother Jonathan Townley, but other items remain to be studied and possibly printed. Fortunately, Melvin H. Schoberlin preserved holographs and transcripts of documents by Crane's sister, Agnes, and mother, Mary Helen, that further reveal the family's interest in writing. Because the transcripts, which Schoberlin copied from materials once owned by Crane's niece Edith, are unique to the Schoberlin Collection, researchers cannot verify their accuracy. As scholars examine the Collection, though, they will find that he …

The "Lost" Newspaper Writings Of Stephen Crane, Thomas A. Gullason

The Courier

This article details some of the little-known articles written by Stephen Crane when he was a journalist. He often wrote stories about the local New York society that got him fired from several papers, but served him in creating material for his novels, especially Maggie. The stories are infused with Crane's wit and uncanny sense of irony.

Delmore Schwartz: Two Lost Poems, Robert Phillips

The Courier

This article details the discovery of two unpublished poems by Delmore Schwartz, written during his youth. The author critically analyzes both, and puts them into the context of Schwartz's life. A collection of Delmore Schwartz's poems can be found in the Syracuse University Special Collections.

Granville Hicks And The Small Town, Leah Levenson, Jerry Natterstad

The Courier

This article tells the story of Granville Hicks' life, especially his life during the 1940s, revealed through journals that are now held in Syracuse University's Special Collections. The author was famously a Marxist critic and member of the Communist party during the 1930s, before defecting in 1939 due to the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact. He then somewhat retreated from intellectual life to become a member of a small community in Grafton, New York, closer to his rural upbringing. He struggled to try to better the small community in areas of civic institutions and racial prejudice, seeing Grafton as a microcosm of …

A Reminiscence Of Stephen Crane, Paul Sorrentino

The Courier

John S. Mayfield (1904-1983), a curator of rare books and manuscripts at Syracuse University from 1961 to 1971, assembled a small, but noteworthy, collection of material by and about Stephen Crane (1871-1900), one of the University's most famous students. Mayfield himself published several articles on Crane, including three in the Syracuse Library Associates Courier, which he edited from 1962 to 1970. Judging from Mayfield's own notes, one can conclude that he intended to publish, perhaps in the Courier, the following brief reminiscence of Crane.

From The Collector's Library: Tales From A Village Bookshop, Roderick Benton

The Courier

Another in the Courier's "From the Collector's Library" series, this article relates the history of the Wolcott Shop in Skaneateles, which sold rare books to famous collectors for years. Many of the rare books sought out had to do with Syracusan history, or were first editions of famous New York authors. The store had a certain grace and manner that is today exceedingly rare.

Samuel Hopkins Adams, His Novel, Revelry, And The Reputation Of Warren G. Harding, Robert W. Coren

The Courier

In November 1926, Samuel Hopkins Adams's novel of Washington politics, Revelry, appeared. Since its central character is an American President easily identifiable as the late Warren G. Harding, it created a great stir. Adams's characterization of Harding was sympathetic, but also uncomplimentary, suggesting several negative personal attributes. A controversy over the appropriateness of Adams's behavior ensued. In the press, Adams was either lauded for telling the truth about Harding or condemned for his bad taste in maligning the President, who died in 1923.

Papers of Samuel Hopkins Adams preserved in the Bird Library of Syracuse University, reveal that the author …

The Westcotts And David Harum, Richard G. Case

The Courier

In the 1890's, the Westcotts lived at 826 James Street, Syracuse. The man of the house was an occasional clerk, banker, and stock broker who worked for the Syracuse Water Commission. When he died, the obituary writer of a Syracuse newspaper described Edward Noyes Westcott as a "clerk," and added, "Mr Westcott was facile with a pen but never indulged himself in writing to any great extent."

Today, few of us recognize the name Edward Noyes Westcott, although we probably know the book he wrote, David Harum, A Story of American Life, which is, by almost any standard, fairly called …

The Modernity Of Stephen Crane's Poetry: A Centennial Tribute, Walter Sutton

The Courier

A hundred years have passed since the birth of Stephen Crane and eighty since his casual stay at Syracuse University, where he was better known as a baseball enthusiast than as a writer of high promise. Yet his writings in prose and poetry, beginning with Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) and The Red Badge of Courage (1895) and continuing through the brief career that ended with his tragic death in 1900, retain a distinctive contemporaneity, a vitality and freshness that have resisted the passage of years. This quality is more evident, perhaps, in his poetry, which until lately …

The Satirical Rogue Once More: Robert Francis On Poets And Poetry, Syracuse University Library

The Courier

When "The Satirical Rogue Once More," a collection of ten roguish comments came to the hands of the Courier editors, it sparked new interest in the writer, who describes himself as "walking round and round Poetry on its pedestal and taking shots at it from every possible angle. Shots with a light gun, a water pistol, a pea shooter." This reawakened interest led directly to another look at the Robert Francis Papers, presented to the University by Mr. Francis from 1967 to 1969, in the manuscript collection of the George Arents Research Library.

Dorothy Thompson's Role In Sinclair Lewis' Break With Harcourt, Brace, Helen B. Petrullo

The Courier

In this article, Helen B. Petrullo utilizes several documents in the Dorothy Thompson Papers to shed new light on the break of her husband Sinclair Lewis with publisher Harcourt, Brace. It was previously thought the break was impulsive, but the documents reveal Dorothy Thompson had a significant influence on Sinclair Lewis' decision. Also describes the relationship between author and publisher in the twentieth century.