Scope and Content Note
The papers of Peter Marshall (1902-1949) and Catherine Marshall (1914-1983), husband and wife, span the years 1927-1964, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1933-1956. Personal materials of Peter Marshall comprise about a fourth of the collection, including a small amount of correspondence and a large file of notes for his sermons. The sermons, about 850 in number, cover the period 1933 through January 1948 and include such well-known sermons as “Singing in the Rain,” “Go Down Death,” “Under Sealed Orders,” “The King is in the Audience,” and “Rendezvous in Samarra.” There are also synopses of many of the sermons and various indexes that list the sermons by title, date, location, subject matter, and quotations used. The collection is organized into seven series: Peter Marshall: Sermons , Peter Marshall: Correspondence , Catherine Marshall: Correspondence , Catherine Marshall: Book and Article File , Scrapbooks , Addition I , and Addition II .
Catherine Marshall's papers, in addition to treating her own career as an author and lecturer following the death of her husband, are mainly oriented to the life of Peter Marshall and to her biography of him, A Man Called Peter. Most of her correspondence consists of mail from persons who read her numerous books and saw the motion picture based on the biography.
A significant portion of the papers concerns the production by Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation of A Man Called Peter. There are verbatim records of the conferences attended by Catherine Marshall and representatives of Twentieth Century-Fox during planning of the film. In addition to many versions of the film script, these records present the metamorphosis of the work from printed page to celluloid. Important correspondents include screenwriter Eleanor Griffin, producer Samuel G. Engel, and the film's principal performers, Richard Todd, Jean Peters, and Marjorie Rambeau.
Also in the collection are other manuscripts of Catherine Marshall's published works, some of which include both original drafts and corrected copies of proofs.
The Scrapbooks series is composed mainly of printed material including some correspondence relating to Peter Marshall's election as chaplain of the United States Senate, his death, and Catherine Marshall's subsequent career as an author. Addition I and Addition II contain miscellaneous sermons and ideas for sermon, written prayers, seminary papers of Peter Marshall, and other material.
An appendix to this finding aid lists the names and dates of correspondents in the Peter Marshall: Correspondence series of the collection.