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COLLECTION Identifier: MS Am 1449

Alexander Woollcott correspondence

Overview

Correspondence with the American drama critic Alexander Woollcott from authors and actors about the theater and the film industry.

Dates

  • Creation: 1856-1943
  • Creation: Majority of material found in 1920-1943

Language of Materials

Collection materials are in English.

Conditions Governing Access

There are no restrictions on physical access to this material.

Part of this collection is shelved offsite. Retrieval may require advance notice. Readers should check with Houghton Public Services staff to determine retrieval policies and times.

Extent

22.93 linear feet (28 boxes)

Primarily letters to Alexander Woollcott concerning life in the film industry and theater in the New York and London, from authors and actors, including Irving Berlin, Willa Cather, Charles Chaplin, Noel Coward, John Dos Passos, F. Scott Fitzgerald, George Gershwin, Moss Hart, Jerome Kern, Margaret Mitchell, Edward R. Murrow, Dorothy Parker, Rebecca West, and Thornton Wilder, among many others. Also includes letters from his radio broadcasts listeners, correspondence concerning his alumnus activities at Hamilton College, and correspondence with Helen Keller, Annie Sullivan, and his associations with the Seeing Eye and Talking Books for the Blind. Collection also contains clippings, photographs, expense accounts, and copies of court documents.

Biographical / Historical

Woollcott was an American author, theatrical actor, drama critic for The New York Times, and a radio commentator, known as "The Town Crier."

Arrangement

Organized into the following series:

  1. I. Letters to Woolcott from various correspondents
  2. II. Letters from Woollcott and other papers

Immediate Source of Acquisition

43M-836. Estate of Alexander Woollcott; gift of Joseph P. Hennessey, Esq., 18 East 48th St., New York, NY; received: 1943 November 11.

Processing Information

11 boxes of folders are located in GEN.

Title
Woollcott, Alexander, 1887-1943. Alexander Woollcott correspondence, ca. 1856-1943: Guide.
Author
Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
Language of description
und
EAD ID
hou00746

Repository Details

Part of the Houghton Library Repository

Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.

Contact:
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