Scope and Content Note
The papers of Nancy Dickerson (1927-1997) span the years 1933-2006, with the bulk of the material dating from 1954 to 1995. The papers are in English and are organized into the following series: Personal File, Professional File, Scrapbooks, and Restricted.
The Personal File includes correspondence with family and friends, biographical material, household financial records, material concerning the Dickerson home "Merrywood," the McLean, Virginia, estate that had been the childhood home of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and items from parties attended and especially from those given. Dickerson was a well-known Washington hostess and friends with the Washington elite. Prominent family members include her first husband, businessman C. Wyatt Dickerson, her second husband, former Assistant Secretary of State and Wall Street executive John C. Whitehead, and her son, political journalist John Dickerson. Of special interest are her letters home to her family in Wisconsin detailing her early days in Washington working on Capitol Hill and her start in journalism.
The Professional File documents Dickerson's career in broadcast journalism. The series includes correspondence, financial material from her production company, news clippings, speeches and writings, scripts and related materials from television broadcasts, and a subject file. Dickerson was friends with many of the most prominent political figures in Washington, D.C., and benefitted professionally from these associations. Subject files for many of these individuals contain correspondence, news clippings, and related material, including for the Kennedy family and Lyndon B. Johnson and family. The Johnson material also includes an oral history from 1972 concerning Dickerson's experiences with Johnson. The file for televison broadcasts dates from the 1970s and 1980s when Dickerson ran her own production companies, Dickerson and Company and Television Corporation of America. The files contain correspondence, scripts, publicity material, and related items for the television news documentaries she produced as well as her syndicated program Inside Washington with Nancy Dickerson and her Fox News commentaries. The speeches and writings file includes drafts and related material for her book Among Those Present as well as correspondence, financial and other related material, and speech notes from her many speaking engagements during the 1970s and 1980s. She rarely used a fully written speech, instead speaking from notes and news clippings.
Most, but not all, of the scrapbooks in the Scrapbooks series were compiled by her son, John Dickerson. They provide a useful collection of selected letters, news clippings, and memorabilia arranged primarily by year.
The Restricted series contains address books and diaries from the 1990s and family papers.