Beinecke staff have made available several collections and additions to existing collections, including:
New collections
Alvin Novick Papers (MS 2087)
The papers primarily document Novick’s research and advocacy work related to AIDS prevention, including work with various LGBT and AIDS organizations, the New Haven Mayor’s Task Force on AIDS, and AIDS Project New Haven, as well as national, state, and local agencies related to public policy and treatment of AIDS. Also included is a selection of Novick’s research on bat echolocation, teaching and administrative materials as a Yale faculty member and residential fellow of Jonathan Edwards College, and personal correspondence and photographs. Materials in the papers include correspondence with medical professionals, government officials, and federal health agencies, statistical reports, grant applications, reprints and unpublished manuscripts by Novick, as well as medical and LGBT newsletters and publications. (5.83 linear feet)
Dewey-Lowell Family Papers (YCAL MSS 1616)
The Dewey-Lowell Family Papers consists of correspondence, manuscripts, ephemera, photographs, notebooks, scrapbooks, and other documents created by, used, or possessed by members of the Dewey and Lowell families in New England during the 19th century. Many of the materials relate to, or are directly linked or created by notable politicians, abolitionists, writers, preachers, and businessmen from the mid to late 19th century. The collection spans the years 1779-1942, with the bulk of the material relating to the Civil War and life during the surrounding years. (4.21 linear feet)
Edward G. Levy, and Hortense R. Collection Relating to German Machinery (GEN MSS 2123)
Papers and other materials collected by Edward G. Levy relating to German machinery, approximately 1876-1887. (1.88 linear feet)
Heinrich Kuenemann and William Kunz Furniture Company Records and Photograph Albums (WA MSS S-4529)
Two business ledgers and two photograph albums documenting the business interests and family lives of Heinrich Kuenemann and William Kunz in Fredericksburg, Texas, 1886-1908. The ledgers contain circa 3,300 bills and invoices related to the lumber yards, furniture stores, and hardware stores owned by Kuenemann and Kunz. The ledgers document the supplies Kuenemann and Kunz ordered for their businesses, including hardware, varnish, paint, and glass, as well as the furniture and lumber they sold to their customers. Kuenemann and Kunz had a network of business contacts throughout the southern and midwestern United States, including businesses in Texas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Kentucky. The ledgers also contain bills of lading and shipping bills from railroads such as the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway Company, the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad Company, and the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railway Company. The photograph albums primarily contain family photographs of daily life and recreational activities in Fredericksburg, Texas. The albums lack captions, but may pertain specifically to the Kuenemann family, as a business card for one of Kuenemann’s businesses is laid into the album in Box 3. (4.08 linear feet)
Enrico Scuro Photographs (GEN MSS 2117)
The collection consists of 456 black-and-white and color inkjet prints of photographs by Italian photographer Enrico Scuro that document Movimento ’77 and other social, cultural, and political events in Italy, 1976-1981. (1.46 linear feet)
Helen Solberg Fowler Papers (WA MSS S-4552)
The collection documents the life and career of Helen Solberg Fowler, 1890-1962. Correspondence primarily consists of personal correspondence relating family news. Personal papers include her school records, a teaching contract, her parents’ marriage certificate, ephemera, and a lock of her hair. The bulk of the collection comprises photographs, including photograph albums and scrapbooks. Present are family photographs ranging from Fowler’s childhood to her married life and photographs and ephemera from Fowler’s time at Montana State University and Omnibus College, as well as her career as a teacher in Montana. The collection also includes photographs and ephemera from Fowler’s social and religious life, including teaching Sunday school at her church and cultural events in Montana. (6.21 linear feet)
John T. Downey Papers (GEN MSS 2125)
The papers document the life of John T. Downey spanning his days as a Yale College student, his subsequent 20-year captivity in China as an American prisoner of war (POW), and later activities regarding his personal life and career in public service. Collection materials consist chiefly of printed material and personal correspondence, dating mostly from the time of his capture in 1952 onwards. Much of the correspondence comprises letters between Downey and his friends and family – mostly with his mother, Mary Downey – during captivity. Printed material extensively covers Downey’s captivity within the larger context of Sino-American Cold War-era relations, though also comments substantially on his activities post-captivity. Present in smaller amounts are some photographs and awards, in addition to limited Chinese-language documentation seemingly related to Downey’s 1983 visit to China with his wife and son. (3.88 linear feet)
John Godfrey Papers (YCAL MSS 1617)
The collection documents Godfrey’s personal life and career as a poet, revealing his writing process and evolution through drafts, letters, journals, notes, and emails. The collection also includes materials showing his relationships with some of the most recognizable figures of the second generation of the New York School poets, poets involved with the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, as well as figures from other artistic circles in New York from the 1960s to 2022. The material, along with the structure of the collection’s organization, reveals his writing process, his inspirations, drafts of poems, editing, and selection process (for publication). Many of the materials are accompanied by Godfrey’s handwritten contextualizing notes detailing their relation to Godfrey’s published and unpublished works, his personal life, and connections between works in the collection. (6 linear feet)
Laura McPhee Papers (WA MSS S-4553)
Photographic material including film negatives and contact proofs, gelatin silver photographic prints, and color photographic prints; professional papers including teaching and project files; correspondence; personal papers; and printed materials by or relating to photographer Laura McPhee. Collection materials document McPhee’s artistic processes while travelling and photographing China, Florida, France, India, Maine, Morocco, New Jersey, New York, Sri Lanka, and the American West (including Arizona, California, Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming), among other locations.
Also documented are McPhee’s relationships with her family including her sisters Jenny McPhee, Martha McPhee, Sarah McPhee, and Joan Sullivan, mother Pryde Brown, father John McPhee, husband Mark Lapore, daughter Isobel McPhee, and others. (206.92 linear feet)
Living Theatre records, Judith Malina Diaries, Calendars and Notebooks (YCAL MSS 1038)
Judith Malina was a prolific diarist and kept an almost daily diary for over 70 years, documenting both her personal and professional lives in great detail. Malina wrote about daily events in her diaries and excluded almost no details. She comments on her physical and mental state, her sexual activities, and her family history. She writes about conversations, feelings, relationships, and events both in her personal life and in the wider world. Malina also wrote about her family, including her parents, her life with Julian Beck, her husband from 1947 until his death in 1985 and co-creator of The Living Theatre, her children, as well as her life with Hanon Reznikov, co-director of The Living Theatre who she married in 1988. (55 linear Feet)
Additional series will be opened as they are processed.
Manhattan Project Medical Group Collection (WA MSS S-4551)
The Manhattan Project Medical Group collection consists of memoranda, scientific sketches, graphs, notes, and reports related to Trinity, the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon, conducted by the United States Army on July 16, 1945 at the White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico (now known as the White Missile Range) as part of the Manhattan Project. Materials in the collection were created by the Manhattan Project Medical Group and document the group’s process of researching the medical implications of the test. The collection includes documents that were previously classified. (2.2 linear feet)
Oliver Ellsworth Huntington Family Papers (MS 2136)
The collection documents the life and family of Oliver Ellsworth Huntington, particularly life in Norwich, Connecticut, his time as a student at Yale College, and his career as a pharmacist and merchant in New York, Connecticut, and Ohio. Included are Huntington’s commonplace book, Yale College disputations, indentures, business records, and correspondence. Also present are deeds, indentures, correspondence, and other legal and financial records related to other members of the Huntington family, including Oliver Ellsworth Huntington’s father Joseph Huntington (1768-1837); grandfather Andrew Huntington (1745-1824); grandfather Joseph Carew (1738-1818); Jedediah Huntington (1743-1818); Jonathan Huntington (1696-1773); Joseph Huntington (1661-1747); Joshua Huntington (1751-1821); Roger Huntington (1757-1835); Roswell Huntington (1763-1836); Governor Samuel Huntington (1731-1796); Jabez Williams Huntington (1788-1847); Ebenezer Devotion (1740-1829); and Eunice Huntington Devotion (1742-1827). The collection also contains an account book, political petitions, newspaper clippings, printed material, and other documents concerning social, political, and religious life in Norwich, Connecticut. A small quantity of twentieth century material relates to Oliver Ellsworth Huntington’s grandson Ellsworth Huntington, primarily correspondence and newspaper clippings. (3.33 linear feet)
Otto F. Ege Collection, Series I and Series II (GEN MSS 1498)
The collection is comprised of manuscript volumes, manuscript and incunabula leaves and fragments, and bound and unbound partial volumes of manuscripts and print volumes, dating from approximately 1100-1900, collected by educator, collector, and dealer, Otto F. Ege. The collection consists of religious texts, such as bibles, books of hours, prayer books, hymnals, missals, psalters, choir books, and well as histories and literature from Europe, Persia, and Asia. The collection also contains a small amount of material documenting the life and career of Otto F. Ege, including writings, correspondence, photographs, newspaper clippings, and catalogs or advertisements.
Additional series will be opened as they are processed.
Rosanna Warren Papers (YCAL MSS 1611)
The Rosanna Warren papers consist of subject files, writings, and personal papers that document Warren’s professional and personal activities. The bulk of the papers range in date from Warren’s youth to the library’s acquisition of the papers in 2022. Correspondents include William Arrowsmith, John Ashbery, Saul Bellow, Harold Bloom, Peter Blume, Cleanth Brooks, D. S. Carne-Ross, Eleanor Clark, Donald Davie, Joan Fitzgerald, Robert Fitzgerald, Louise Glück, Linda Gregerson, Seamus Heaney, John Hollander, Rika Lesser, Christopher Middleton, Christopher Ricks, Arnold Stein, Mark Strand, Dorothea Tanning, and Robert Penn Warren. (39.03 linear feet)
Sandra Govan Collection of Gwendolyn Bennett and Richard Bruce Nugent Interviews (JWJ MSS 381)
The Sandra Govan collection of Gwendolyn Bennett and Richard Bruce Nugent interviews includes correspondence, transcripts, and audiocassettes relating to Gwendolyn Bennett and Richard Bruce Nugent. (4 linear feet)
The Stephen Reinhardt papers document Reinhardt’s service as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, as well as his work as a legal writer and speaker. Materials primarily document his judicial career and include only a small amount of material from his career prior to his appointment to the Ninth Circuit. Personal material is not included. The papers consist of case files from Reinhardt’s judicial career, as well as files related to articles and speeches by or about Reinhardt. (63 linear feet)
Susan Cole Papers (YCAL MSS 1615)
This collection contains writings, typescripts, research files, notes, bibliography cards, photographs, publicity materials, printed material, and materials related to the life and work of Susan Cole, including papers related to Cole’s publications: The Absent One: Mourning Ritual, Tragedy, and the Performance of Ambivalence, Directors in Rehearsal: A Hidden World, and Playwrights in Rehearsal: the Seduction of Company. Research files related to Joseph Chaiken are also included. (12.25 linear feet)
Tom Mandel Papers (YCAL MSS 1608)
Correspondence, drafts of work, journals, ephemera and photographs, research and administrative files, and computer files by or relating to poet Tom Mandel, as well as works by others, 1962-2022. Collection materials document Mandel’s writing process, as well as his discussions of writing and personal life with poets, artists, film makers, family members, and friends including Charles Bernstein, David Degener, Lyn Hejinian, Beth Joselow, Ron Padgett, Ted Pearson, Kit Robinson, Ron Silliman, and Barrett Watten. (5.33 linear feet)
Walter Jack Cunningham and Barbara Virginia Collection of Materials relating to M. E. M. Davis (YCAL MSS 1614)
Materials collected by Walter Jack Cunningham and his wife Barbara Virginia Cunningham relating to M. E. M. Davis, circa 1908-1966. Includes a 1908 calendar and photograph of Davis’s home in New Orleans, Louisiana; a 1966 xerox copy of a booklet about Davis for her niece, playwright Mollie Moore Godbold; three volumes of the Texas Monthly (1930 April-June) with articles by Davis; and a scrapbook album (Box 2) containing clippings of poems and other writings by Davis and others. (1.38 linear feet)
William Steele West Family Papers (WA MSS S-4127)
The collection documents the life, career, and family of William Steele West, particularly his life in Alaska and work with the Wild Goose Placer Mining & Trading Company. Present are West’s diaries and correspondence during his time in Alaska. Several photograph albums contain photographs of the mining operations of the Wild Goose Placer Mining & Trading Company, mining facilities, and miners, including Japanese miners. Many of the mining photographs were taken by A. B. Kinne (1853-1925). There are also photographs of Eskimos and other Alaska Natives, as well as informal family photographs and formal portraits. The collection also contains a small quantity of William Steele West’s personal papers, professional papers relating to his later career, his daughter Margaret West Goodrich’s correspondence, financial records, and legal papers, other personal and family papers, and realia, including commemorative spoons, ivory souvenirs, and beaded gloves from Alaska. (18.06 linear feet)
Additions to existing collections
AIDS Collection (MS 1834)
Addition of publications, conference materials, and educational materials related to AIDS and the experiences of people living with HIV and AIDS. (3.17 linear feet)
Bernadotte Perrin Papers (GEN MS 1018)
The accession primarily contains leather bound personal diaries dating between 1867 – 1920, typewritten diary transcripts and correspondence between Bernadotte Perrin, his first wife Luella, his children, brother, parents, and in-laws. It also includes photocopies of Perrin’s marriage certificate to Luella, newspaper articles, a compiled book of Perrin’s research publications, church programs, memorial programs, booklets commemorating his life and work, and two photographs featuring Perrin. One photograph depicts his 1869 membership of the Yale senior society Skull and Bones. The other photograph is an undated Yale faculty group portrait. (1.25 linear feet)
Cecile Starr Papers Relating to Mary Ellen Bute (GEN MSS 679)
Consists of printed materials relating to Mary Ellen Bute. (0.42 linear foot)
Edward G. and Hortense R. Levy Autograph Collection, part two (OSB MSS 137)
The Edward G. and Hortense R. Levy Collection, Part Two consists of several thousand clipped autographs, franked envelopes, autographed photographs and printed cards and slips, and autograph notes and letters. The collection spans the dates 1666-1975, but the overwhelming majority of the autographs are by nineteenth century British notables. The Levys acquired groups of autographs in occupational categories of interest to them, including artists and authors; clergy; lawyers and judges; military men; political notables; members of the British royal family and the British nobility; musicians; scientists, and theatrical figures including actors, actresses and producers. Many of the items are accompanied by their original annotated wrappers. (0.21 linear feet)
Eleanor Clark Papers (YCAL MSS 315)
The May 2022 acquisition includes additional writings, correspondence, photographs, personal and family papers relating to Eleanor Clark. Writings consist chiefly of drafts and printed versions of shorter works, as well as a few pieces relating to Rome and a villa and The Oysters of Locmariaquer. The bulk of the general correspondence consists of incoming letters to Clark dating from the early to mid 1990s. There are also a small number of outgoing letters from Clark to her mother, Eleanor Phelps Clark, and her husband, Robert Penn Warren, dating from the 1930s and 1950s respectively. Photographs include snapshots of Clark, Robert Penn Warren and family, as well as older studio portraits of members of the Phelps family, specifically, Clark’s mother, her maternal grandfather, Charles Henry Phelps, and her maternal great grandfather, Charles William Phelps. Other papers include a bibliography of Clark’s published work, biographical information, certificates, contracts, financial, legal, medical, and school records, notebooks, a passport, and printed materials.
In addition to Clark’s papers, there is a clutch of material dating from the late 1920s through early 1930s pertaining to a school proposed by Clark’s mother, Eleanor Phelps Clark, for the education of young women. Identified on one document as the “Clark school for girls,” instruction would be provided in French and English, and the school located strategically in the quiet of the countryside, in Westchester county, but in proximity to the “opportunities in music, art, and drama” available in the city. Materials include correspondence, drawings, financial records, planning documents, and property surveys. (6.8 linear feet)
Geraldine Page Papers (YCAL MSS 774)
This accession contains scripts, correspondence, printed material, photographs, realia, ephemera, and other materials related to the life and work of Geraldine Page. (5 linear feet)
Gianni Emilio Simonetti Papers (GEN MSS 1497)
This accession includes letters, postcards, and photographs send to or from Gianni Emilio Simonetti. (0.42 linear foot)
James Marshall Osborn Research Files (OSB MSS 333)
Addition consists of materials relating to Joseph Spence and/or gardening, 1938-1979 (1.38 linear feet)
James Stevenson Papers (GEN MSS 1693)
This accession contains artwork, personal papers, photographs and other materials created by or related to the life and work of James Stevenson. (42.67 linear feet)
Jonathan Barnett Papers (MS 1733)
Addition of writings, lectures, reports, teaching materials, notebooks and calendars documenting Barnett’s research, teaching, and consulting career. (9 linear feet)
Judy Blume Papers (GEN MSS 1481)
This accession contains press, personal papers, and ephemera related to the life and work of Judy Blume. (5.92 linear feet)
Kurt Seligmann Papers (YCAL MSS 827)
Addition of print materials. (1.42 linear feet)
Leslie A. Falk Papers (GEN MS 1652)
This accession contains correspondence (typed, handwritten, and photocopied), article and book chapter drafts on different social-medical topics, research notes, newspaper clippings, and photographs. Materials document research and political commentary on socialism by Leslie A. Falk and his colleagues dating between 1940—1999, with the bulk of materials dating from the 1990’s. The materials also cover Henry E. Sigerist’s philanthropic activities, life, family, and the impact he had on Falk and other mentees through correspondence and publications commemorating Sigerist’s work. (1 linear feet)
Lloyd Richards Papers (JWJ MSS 176)
Addition of printed material and financial records. (3.6 linear feet)
Monroe Wheeler Papers (YCAL MSS 136)
Addition of printed materials. (0.42 linear foot)
Olga Rudge Papers (YCAL MSS 54)
Addition of clippings removed from correspondence. (0.21 linear foot)
Vladimir Samarin Correspondence and Other Papers (GEN MSS 295)
Three hundred thirty-seven letters to Samarin from Russian professors, publicists, historians, poets, writers–some of the third emigration–as well as nevozvrashchenets, the Russian term for citizens of the USSR who refused to return to their country from the trips. (0.63 linear foot)