Yale Collection of American Literature

The Yale Collection of American Literature documents the creative lives, the artistic communities, and the literary achievements of American writers. The collectionis noted for its strength in nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first-century poetry, fiction, and dramatic writings. The archives of writers of diverse backgrounds underscore the collection’s interest in the indigenous and immigrant cultures that shape American literature.

  • Getting Started

    September 3, 2021

    Research in American and African American Literature at Beinecke Library: Getting Started Archival research is fascinating and fun – but it can be complicated...

  • Juneteenth 2021 and the work still to do

    June 18, 2021

    Yale’s libraries and collections are another important source of educational enrichment and inspiration in the spirit of Juneteenth. For example, the Beinecke Library has a pair of films by Solomon Sir Jones that show Juneteenth celebrations in Texas and Oklahoma in the 1920s. The Beinecke’s collections also include an address by Frederick Douglass delivered on April 16, 1883 in the Congregational Church in Washington, D.C. for the 21st anniversary of emancipation in the District of Columbia; and the gold pen used by President Lincoln to sign the Emancipation Proclamation.

  • Queer Shoulders at the Wheel (Boston Review)

    May 21, 2021

    A lot of Wieners’s later writing is lost: much was never published, and though his papers are spread across several university collections, from which the letters in Yours Presently are drawn, many later manuscripts were in all likelihood lost after his death. But we know that Wieners continued producing elusive, obscure, often waspishly humorous texts for his own pleasure and sometimes for that of others. Some of these late poems appeared in o·blēk, The East Village, and Big Bridge, and others were mailed to his younger friend and last devoted Occult School member Lansing, and are therefore deposited in Lansing’s archives at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. When Wieners died in 2002, at his side were his longtime supporters Shively and Jim Dunn.

  • Restored Richard Wright novel hits bestseller lists (AP via The Oakland Press)

    May 13, 2021

    In 2010, Julia Wright was seated in "the comfortable, secluded, air-conditioned calm of the Beinecke Archives where my father's manuscripts are housed at Yale University." She told the AP that she "came across a long version of the short story I knew so well but augmented by the 50 pages on police brutality. Bringing the whole work to light was not only timely, it was a cure against the physical dismemberment suffered by the James Byrds of our dark history."

  • Yale poets, experts weigh in on relationship between social media, poetry (Yale Daily News)

    May 7, 2021

    Nancy Kuhl, Beinecke Curator of Poetry for the Yale Collection of American Literature, said that the publishing history of American poetry is rich and fascinating. Innovation made by American poets, such as Walt Whitman and Emily Dickison, provided a “fertile ground” for later writers. “Social media platforms add a new layer — allowing poets to reach new audiences around the world and providing a virtual space for the development of dynamic new poetry communities,” Kuhl said.