Scope and Content Note
The papers of Ann Cottrell Free (1916-2004) span the years 1854-2018, with the bulk of the material dating from 1935 to 2000. The collection documents Free’s personal life and professional career as a journalist, author, environmentalist, and animal welfare advocate. The papers are primarily in English, with French, Spanish, and Chinese. The collection is organized into eight series: Personal File, Correspondence, Speeches and Writings, Subject File, Photographs, Notebooks and Diaries, National Security Classified Information, and Oversize.
The collection focuses on both Free’s personal life and professional career. The bulk of the collection is arranged by subject and reflects file groupings and folder titles created and maintained by Free. As a result, the collection is highly interconnected with related topical files found in multiple locations within and across series. Prior to donation to the Library of Congress, Free’s daughter, Elissa Blake Free, also arranged some of the material, sometimes including personal notes to provide greater context to the files. Some personalized or unconventional folder headings were placed in quotation marks to reflect Free’s original terminology and language used throughout the collection. The collection reflects the many topics Free was passionate about and explored in her writing throughout her life. Prominent topics include animal welfare, the environment, nature, civil rights, the plight of refugees, and the empowerment of women.
The collection’s series are listed and briefly described below. A fuller description of each series and a list of its contents can be accessed in the series descriptions within the container list.
The Personal File series primarily contains biographical material that provide an overview of Free’s life and career.
The Correspondence series comprises personal and professional correspondence from Free’s family, friends, and colleagues, the bulk of which spans from 1937 to 1997.
The Speeches and Writings series comprises articles, books, short stories, speeches, and essays written by Free.
The Subject File series largely consists of working and background files that document the breadth of topics Free wrote about throughout her career.
The Photographs series comprises prints, negatives, and scrapbooks that mostly document Free, her family, her friends, and her travels in the late 1940s.
The Notebooks and Diaries series contains Free’s notebooks and diaries spanning from her college years in the late 1930s until her death in 2004.
The remaining series contain Oversize and National Security Classified Information material.