Scope and Content Note
The papers of Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897-1973) consist largely of manuscripts, typescripts, and research notes used in the production of her books. This material is arranged in the Speeches and Writings File series, which also includes correspondence, printed copies of speeches and articles, and miscellaneous items. The collection is dated from 1793 to 1980, but most of the material is concentrated between the years 1934-1972. The papers are organized in five series: Family Correspondence, General Correspondence, Speeches and Writings File, Miscellany, and Addition.
Though reproved by some critics for her novelistic devices, Bowen, unlike other popular writers of fictionalized biography, enjoyed the respect of many academicians for the integrity of her research as well as for her vivid writing style. Julian P. Boyd in a letter to Bowen wrote, "If we differ in our interpretation, we at least agree that the historian must go to the sources . . . . On that issue I know that you and I stand together." [*] Despite such support, Bowen found it necessary to defend her interpretive approach to writing biography; correspondence in the Speeches and Writings File series provides documentation of this problem.
Correspondence in the Speeches and Writings File series is arranged under the respective book title and under speech and article groupings. The creative and corporate processes from literary creation through book distribution are reflected in this correspondence. Letters exchanged between Bowen and Harold Ober, her literary agent, Edward Weeks, publisher at Atlantic Monthly Press, and Barbara Rex, Bowen's longtime friend and editorial helpmate, are of particular importance; supplementary material also exists for each individual under specific folder headings in the General Correspondence series. The latter series also contains photocopies of letters from Bowen to Bernard Augustine De Voto from 1934 to 1952. A loyal admirer and friend of De Voto, Bowen's letters encompass a variety of subjects and constitute one of the more fully documented exchanges of correspondence in the collection.
Bowen was a frequent participant at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference held during the summer at Middlebury College in Vermont. Her activities at these sessions are chronicled in the correspondence relating to speeches. Other subjects of interest in the Speeches and Writings File include correspondence with J. H. Powell, historian, friend, and adviser to Bowen, and the controversial censorship fight over the Soldiers Vote bill, which barred her book, Yankee from Olympus, from publication in Armed Services editions in 1944.
Scrapbooks in the Miscellany series supplement the Speeches and Writings File and contain book reviews, photographs, awards, and printed matter. Scattered items of correspondence can also be found in these scrapbooks.
Correspondents include Julian P. Boyd, John Ciardi, Henry Steele Commager, Norman Cousins, Bernard Augustine De Voto, Felix Frankfurter, Hubert H. Humphrey, Lady Bird Johnson, Archibald MacLeish, Richard M. Nixon, Harold Ober, Ezra Pound, J.H. Powell, James Reston, Barbara Rex, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Barbara Wertheim Tuchman, Earl Warren, and Edward Weeks.