Scope and Content Note
The papers of Hugh Joseph Chisholm (1913-1972), span the years 1917-1993, with the bulk of the material dated 1932-1972. Born in 1913 at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, Chisholm was educated at Yale University, where he was the class poet of 1936, and King's College of Cambridge University. His early poems were published in Harper's Bazaar, Spur, and other magazines, and included in New Poems, 1942: An Anthology of British and American Verse. His books of poetry include some privately printed volumes in the 1930s, and Several Have Lived (1942), The Prodigal Never Returns (1947), Atlantic City Cantata (1951), and a translation from the French of Saint-John Perse's Winds (1953). He co-edited Hellas, a travel book on Greece in 1944, and worked briefly as an assistant editor for the Bollingen Foundation in New York City during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Chisholm's papers focus on his literary career and include unpublished versions of poems, essays, articles, and books, along with a letter from Henry Miller and a note from John Hersey. His experience as an ambulance driver in Italy during World War II is reflected in the book proposal "Dear All: Being a Collection of Open Letters on Closed Matters." Other material relates to the Chisholm family, wealthy industrialists residing in Port Chester, New York.