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Series 2: Writings, 1899-1964, bulk: 1918 - 1930

 Series

  • Staff Only

Scope and Contents note

This is the largest series of the collection and it consists of a wide variety of materials authored by Wright, the bulk of which are drafts or clippings of newspaper articles that he wrote while serving as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Daily News. In addition, this series also includes Wright's diaries during most of the time he was stationed abroad, as well as a trip he took to Europe while in college. It appears, however, that a number of pages were removed from these diaries, either by Wright himself or his family, before the collection was accessioned.

Besides the newspaper articles and diaries, Wright also wrote several poems and essays, a monograph about the geology of Chicago, and a booklet about developments under the National Defense Act of 1920. In addition, Wright put together another book entitled A Newsman Goes East by West, which is a collection of some of his newspaper articles, most of which he edited substantially for the compilation. Wright worked on A Newsman Goes East by West for a number of years and completed it shortly before his death. He had hoped to have this work published, but it never was.

The frequency of Wright's newspaper articles varies a great deal, but his busiest periods seem to be when he was in Manchuria in 1929 and in Shanghai in 1927, when he posted articles almost every day for months at a time. There are almost no clippings relating to the period when Wright was attached as a correspondent to the American Expeditionary Force in Siberia (1918-1919), but drafts of some of the stories he wrote during this time exist, as does a partial draft of "The Log of the See Chass.," which is a lengthy account by Wright of his travels across Siberia by train. ("The Log of the See Chass." was apparently written in at least seven installments, of which numbers 1, 2, and 5 are missing.)

Dates

  • Creation: 1899-1964
  • Creation: Majority of material found within 1918 - 1930

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

The Paul Randall Wright papers are open for research in the Special Collections Reading Room; 1 box at a time (Priority III).

Arrangement note

The series is arranged alphabetically by title or type of material. Diaries and notebooks are then arranged chronologically. With the exception of the various pieces that he wrote in Chicago, which have been placed at the end of the category, Wright's newspaper articles are arranged alphabetically by the location from which he reported, and then chronologically within each folder. In a few instances, however, article clippings from multiple dates and/or locations were affixed by Wright to a single scrapbook page. These pages have been arranged in the folders based on the predominant subject of the articles contained on the page. Note also that the Daily News published a few of Wright's general interest articles with by-lines from Manchuria and Russia in 1931 even though Wright had already returned to Chicago the previous year.

Repository Details

Part of the The Newberry Library - Modern Manuscripts and Archives Repository

Contact:
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