Sherwood Anderson papers
Collection
Identifier: Midwest-MS-Anderson
Scope and Content of the Collection
Correspondence, scrapbooks, clippings, photographs, audiovisual material, royalty statements, personal financial records, artifacts, miscellaneous ephemera, autographed works, and literary manuscripts (many unpublished; also fragments, notes, and tentative sketches for short stories).
[archivist's note, 2023: Audiovisual recordings in this collection have been digitized and are available online. Access to the original audiovisual items is restricted.]
[archivist's note, 2023: Audiovisual recordings in this collection have been digitized and are available online. Access to the original audiovisual items is restricted.]
Dates
- 1872-1992
Creator
- Anderson, Sherwood, 1876-1941 (Person)
Language
Materials are in English.
Conditions Governing Access
The Sherwood Anderson papers are open for research in the Special Collections Reading Room; 5 folders at a time maximum, and items in each folder will be counted before and after delivery to the patron (Priority I).
Audiovisual recordings in this collection have been digitized and are available online. Access to the original audiovisual items is restricted.
Ownership and Literary Rights
The Sherwood Anderson papers are the physical property of the Newberry Library. Copyright may belong to the authors or their legal heirs or assigns. The Literary Executor for the Sherwood Anderson papers must be contacted in order to receive permission to publish or reproduce any materials from this collection. For further information, contact the Roger and Julie Baskes Department of Special Collections.
Biography of Sherwood Anderson
Sherwood Anderson was born Sept. 13, 1876, in Camden, Ohio, the third child of seven born to a harnessmaker and his wife. The family moved often, settling in Clyde, Ohio in 1884. Sherwood didn't spend much time in school; he was nicknamed "Jobby" as a young boy due to the numbers of odd jobs he took on instead to help support his family. After his mother's early death in 1895 Anderson moved to Chicago for a couple of years, until he joined the army and was an infantryman in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. After his service he moved to Springfield, Ohio and enrolled in Wittenberg College for a year (1899-1900), where he met a friend who found him a job as an advertising copywriter and space salesman for Long-Critchfield Company in Chicago. In 1906 he moved with his first wife, Cornelia Lane Anderson, to Cleveland, Ohio, to set up a mail order house. A year later he established his own mail order paint business in Elyria, Ohio. It was there on Nov. 27, 1912 that Anderson suddenly left his office and wandered the countryside for four days, until he was found and hospitalized for exhaustion. Whether this incident was a nervous breakdown or a veiled attempt to leave his business and family to pursue a more artistic lifestyle is still under speculation. Whatever the reason, he soon left Ohio for good and moved back to Chicago to work again for the Long-Critchfield Company. This time, however, he was determined to also be a novelist, and joined the Chicago literary and journalist circles, which included Margaret Anderson of the Little Review, Harriet Monroe of Poetry Magazine, and writers Ben Hecht and Carl Sandburg. He began publishing short stories and poetry regularly in the aforementioned magazines, and his novel-writing career began in 1916 with the publication of Windy McPherson's Son. His real fame as a writer came in 1919, with the publication of his classic work, Winesburg, Ohio.
From the late 1910s through the mid 1920s, Anderson moved frequently, to New York City, Fairhope Alabama, New Orleans, Reno Nevada, and back to New Orleans. He met Gertrude Stein and James Joyce on his first trip to Paris in 1921, and remained friends with Stein for the rest of his life. In 1922 he befriended William Faulkner in New Orleans; Faulkner considered Anderson a mentor. In 1926 he bought a home near Marion, Virginia, which he named "Ripshin" (after a nearby creek of the same name) and, aside from travelling, lived there for the rest of his life. With money borrowed from his patron Burton Emmett, he bought two newspapers in Marion, the Marion Democrat and the Smyth County News. From this time forward he continued to write novels, short stories, autobiographical works, articles in his newspapers, and essays in other publications.
Anderson was married four times: To Cornelia Lane (1904-1916), with whom he had two sons and a daughter; to artist and music teacher Tennessee Mitchell (1916-1924); to Elizabeth Prall (1924-1932); and to Eleanor Copenhaver (1933-1941). Copenhaver, an executive with the YWCA, was interested in labor conditions in the South, and was inspiring to Anderson in terms of topics for his articles on social justice and the plight of the American workingman and African Americans. In early 1941, he embarked on the S.S. Santa Lucia with Eleanor, Thornton Wilder, and others on an unofficial good-will tour of South America. He became gravely ill at sea, was taken to a hospital in Colon, in the Panama Canal Zone, and died of peritonitis on March 8, 1941. The newspaper accounts reported one month later that before embarking on his trip, he apparently accidentally ingested a wooden toothpick, which pierced the abdominal wall and caused the fatal infection.
From the late 1910s through the mid 1920s, Anderson moved frequently, to New York City, Fairhope Alabama, New Orleans, Reno Nevada, and back to New Orleans. He met Gertrude Stein and James Joyce on his first trip to Paris in 1921, and remained friends with Stein for the rest of his life. In 1922 he befriended William Faulkner in New Orleans; Faulkner considered Anderson a mentor. In 1926 he bought a home near Marion, Virginia, which he named "Ripshin" (after a nearby creek of the same name) and, aside from travelling, lived there for the rest of his life. With money borrowed from his patron Burton Emmett, he bought two newspapers in Marion, the Marion Democrat and the Smyth County News. From this time forward he continued to write novels, short stories, autobiographical works, articles in his newspapers, and essays in other publications.
Anderson was married four times: To Cornelia Lane (1904-1916), with whom he had two sons and a daughter; to artist and music teacher Tennessee Mitchell (1916-1924); to Elizabeth Prall (1924-1932); and to Eleanor Copenhaver (1933-1941). Copenhaver, an executive with the YWCA, was interested in labor conditions in the South, and was inspiring to Anderson in terms of topics for his articles on social justice and the plight of the American workingman and African Americans. In early 1941, he embarked on the S.S. Santa Lucia with Eleanor, Thornton Wilder, and others on an unofficial good-will tour of South America. He became gravely ill at sea, was taken to a hospital in Colon, in the Panama Canal Zone, and died of peritonitis on March 8, 1941. The newspaper accounts reported one month later that before embarking on his trip, he apparently accidentally ingested a wooden toothpick, which pierced the abdominal wall and caused the fatal infection.
Extent
54.7 Linear Feet (121 boxes and 3 oversize boxes)
2 items (1 open reel and 1 DVD)
Abstract
Correspondence, scrapbooks, clippings, photographs, audiovisual material, royalty statements, personal financial records, artifacts, miscellaneous ephemera, autographed works, and literary manuscripts (many unpublished; also fragments, notes, and tentative sketches for short stories) of Chicago Literary Renaissance novelist and poet best known for his 1919 novel, Winesburg, Ohio.
Organization
Papers are organized in the following series:
- Series 1: Outgoing Correspondence, 1915-1941
- Boxes 1-14
- Series 2: Incoming Correspondence, 1913-1941
- Boxes 15-32
- Series 3: Eleanor Anderson Correspondence, 1941-1981
- Boxes 33-35
- Series 4: Family Correspondence, 1904-1968
- Boxes 36-44
- Series 5: Works, 1903-1992
- Boxes 45-98
- Series 6: Legal/Financial Files, 1920-1976
- Boxes 99-102
- Series 7: Publicity, 1893-1984
- Boxes 103-105
- Series 8: Development, 1941-1973; bulk 1947-1951
- Boxes 106-107
- Series 9: Photographs, Sound Recordings, and Moving Image Material, approximately 1876-1977
- Boxes 108-10; audiovisual boxes (restricted)
- Series 10: Scrapbooks, 1914-1935
- Boxes 113-117
- Series 11: Artifacts and Artwork, 1917-1938
- Boxes 118-119
- Series 12: Miscellaneous, 1872-1992, bulk 1920s-1968
- Boxes 120-121
Collection Stack Location
1 2 4-7; 1 16 1
Provenance
Gift, Mrs. Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson, 1947, with subsequent donations and purchases.
Processed by
Martha Briggs, Alison Hinderliter, Pamela Olson, and Monica Petraglia, 2004
Acknowledgements
This inventory was created with the generous support of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this inventory do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
- Anderson, Eleanor Copenhaver, 1896-1985
- Anderson, Margaret C.
- Artifacts
- Authors, American -- 20th century
- Boni & Liveright
- Brand, Millen
- Clippings (information artifacts)
- Connick, Charles J. (Charles Jay), 1875-
- Conroy, Jack, 1898-1990
- Cowley, Malcolm
- Crane, Hart
- Dell, Floyd, 1887-1969
- Dos Passos, John
- Dove, Arthur Garfield
- Dreiser, Theodore
- Emerson, John, 1874-1956
- Emmett, Burton
- Emmett, Mary
- Esherick, Wharton
- Faulkner, William
- Fitzgerald, F. Scott (Francis Scott)
- Funk, Charles
- Geismar, Maxwell, 1909-1979
- Harris, Julia Collier
- Hecht, Ben
- Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961
- Horace Liveright, Inc.
- Huxley, Aldous
- Lankes, Julius J.
- Library of Congress
- Liveright, Horace Brisbin
- Liveright, Otto
- Loos, Anita
- Manuscripts, American -- Illinois -- Chicago
- Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis)
- Monroe, Harriet
- Moving images
- Nathan, George Jean
- Newberry Library
- Novelists, American -- Illinois -- Chicago
- O’Keeffe, Georgia
- Perkins, Maxwell E. (Maxwell Evarts)
- Photographs
- Princeton University. Library
- Rosenfeld, Paul
- Sandburg, Carl
- Schevill, Ferdinand
- Scrapbooks
- Sergel, Roger L.
- Sound recordings
- Stein, Gertrude
- Stieglitz, Alfred
- Toomer, Jean, 1894-1967
- University of Chicago
- University of Pennsylvania
- World Congress Against War (1932 : Amsterdam, Netherlands)
- Young, Stark
Creator
- Anderson, Sherwood, 1876-1941 (Person)
- Title
- Inventory of the Sherwood Anderson papers, 1872-1992
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Alison Hinderliter
- Date
- ©2004.
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Revision Statements
- 2011-07-28: Revisions, additions, and updates were made.
- 2023-01-17: Audiovisual materials have been permanently removed from the collection for preservation. Access to the original audiovisual items is restricted.
Repository Details
Part of the The Newberry Library - Modern Manuscripts Repository
Contact:
60 West Walton Street
Chicago Illinois 60610 United States
312-255-3512
reference@newberry.org
60 West Walton Street
Chicago Illinois 60610 United States
312-255-3512
reference@newberry.org