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"Grant's Final Campaign, first draft" - holograph with biographical timeline, undated

 Item — Box: 82, Folder: 27-28

Scope and Content

From the Collection:

The Hamlin Garland papers consist of nearly eight hundred manuscripts of Garland's writings, dozens of his literary notebooks, many hundreds of photographs and other memorabilia, and parts of Garland's personal library (cataloged separately from his papers). It also contains close to 10,000 letters, largely unpublished, including many letters from such correspondents as James M. Barrie, Joseph Conrad, Thomas Hardy, and A. A. Milne of England, and from Americans such as Walt Whitman, William Dean Howells, Stephen Crane, Gertrude Atherton, and Willa Cather. Lastly, this collection holds Garland family memorabilia belonging to Garland's wife, Zulime Taft Garland and his daughters, Mary Isabel Garland Lord and Constance Garland Doyle, along with supplementary material added to the collection by USC librarians and researchers through their processing and use of the Hamlin Garland papers.

Collection highlights include sheets of then-fashionable spirit-writing; transcripts of séances in which Garland participated; a handwritten translation of Salvatore Farina's play "Il Signor Io" made by Garland's close friend, Henry Blake Fuller; and a 100-page fragmentary dramatization of William Dean Howells' novel, "A Hazard of New Fortunes"--later published by New York University Press in "The Complete Plays of W. D. Howells".

Artifacts in the collection trace the story of Garland's life, starting with the well-worn slate he carried to school as a small boy in Wisconsin and Iowa in the 1870s, pictures and autographs of schoolmates, and the 1881 graduation program of the Cedar Valley Seminary of Osage, Iowa (where Garland debated the question, "Should the Negro exodus be encouraged?"). Other items include the ledger-type notebooks in which Garland transcribed passages from Thomas Paine, notes from his time of intensive study in the Boston Public Library, and clippings of his first writings and announcements of lectures accompanied by the manuscripts of the lectures themselves.

Programs and announcements in the collection document Garland's leading role in founding an independent, naturalistic theater in 1891-1892 with James A. Herne, while further notebooks record his interviews with Civil War veterans during the preparations of his biography, "Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character". Itineraries and speech outlines tell of his campaign on behalf of Henry George and the Single Tax movement. Book contracts and manuscripts indicate Garland's rise as a leading author in American literature.

The Hamlin Garland papers also hold the manuscript of Garland's last, unpublished memoir documenting his California years, "The Fortunate Exiles", and a copy of the 1940 Venice High School yearbook, "Argonaut", with its posthumous tribute to Garland, who had died that spring.

[Adapted from notes by Lloyd Arvidson, from "Library Staff Bulletin" (March 15, 1960)].

Thanks to generous support from the National Historical Publications & Records Commission, the USC Libraries digitized Garland's collection of correspondence for online public access. Digital surrogates of all of Garland's letters can be found via the USC Digital Library.

Dates

  • Creation: undated

Creator

Access

Advance notice required for access.

Extent

From the Collection: 78 Linear Feet (143 boxes)

Language of Materials

From the Collection: English

Repository Details

Part of the USC Libraries Special Collections Repository

Contact:
Doheny Memorial Library 206
3550 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles California 90089-0189 United States