Finding Lost Voices: Inspiration in the Archives of the Morgan Library and the New York Public Library
A weekly email that brings back the voices of those who have been forgotten or misremembered.
The archives are the beating heart that draws me to this work. Since childhood, I’ve been fascinated with the treasures one can discover in these spaces. Documents and objects create new narratives that spin-off from the ones we’ve been told. Last week, I was lucky to tour two curated selections of archival artifacts at the Morgan Library and the New York Public Library in New York City. And today, I want to tour you through some of the treasures I found there.
Morgan Library and Museum
The first tour I went on was at the Morgan Library and Museum. I was with a group of biographers, and we all gathered in a small, elegant sitting room at the front of the Morgan, where an array of archival highlights from the collection had been set out for us. Philip S. Palmer, the Robert H. Taylor Curator and Department Head of Literary and Historical Manuscripts at the Morgan Library, gave us an extraordinary tour of the collection.
The first person we were introduced to in the archives we were shown at the Morgan Library was Belle da Costa Greene (1879–1950), who ran the Morgan Library for forty-three years. She began her career as the private librarian of J. Pierpont Morgan, then later became the inaugural director of the Pierpont Morgan Library (later known as the Morgan Library). Belle da Costa Greene was Black but she passed as white in the segregated and deeply racist society she was living in. Want to learn more about her? Watch this incredible video about an upcoming exhibition that’s being created at the Morgan Library.
The next item we were introduced to almost made my eyes pop out of my head. It was a 1938 diary of John Steinbeck written around the time that he first met my subject, Sanora Babb.
My reaction caught the attention of our tour leader, Palmer. When he asked if I was working on Steinbeck, I smiled and said no. I’m working on Sanora Babb. And to my surprise, Palmer knew about Babb. (Can you believe it?!) Needless to say, I read through this important, recently acquired diary and found some treasures to add to my manuscript. Stay tuned for my book coming out on October 15, 2024 Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb. Steinbeck had worked in the Morgan in the late 1950s while he was researching and writing what would become, The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights. Because he had such a positive experience doing his research there, he donated “a large group of his literary manuscripts, diaries, and letters to the Morgan” (according to Palmer).
We were also shown photographs and correspondence from Rebecca West (1892 –1983), the novelist, literary critic, and travel writer who notably covered the history of the region that was Yugoslavia and the Nuremberg trials. She began her career publishing in The Freewoman and The Clarion. She was also a biographer. Her first book, written when she was only twenty-four, was a biography of Henry James. She wrote seven novels and according to William Shawn, her former editor at the New Yorker, ''Rebecca West was one of the giants and will have a lasting place in English literature. No one in this century wrote more dazzling prose, or had more wit, or looked at the intricacies of human character and the ways of the world more intelligently.''
New York Public Library - Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature
My second tour was at the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library. I was again surrounded by fellow biographers who had attended the Biographers International conference. Carolyn Vega, the Curator of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature at The New York Public Library, was our tour guide, and she had filled two tables in the reading room on the third floor of the NYPL with treasures. Most of the treasures I’ll be sharing with you now are from the first table where we found the letters and writings of Frances Burney d'Arblay (1752 – 1840). She was an English novelist, diarist, and playwright most well known for her novel Evelina (1778). We saw her letters and drafts of Evelina, where she used pins to secure revisions and notes on top of her drafts. This process of using pins to connect thoughts, revisions, etc., to an existing draft (like we use sticky notes) was used by many writers, most notably to me being my first subject, Charmian Kittredge London, whom many thought was crazy for using this standard method. I was so happy to see that the Berg had kept the pins intact so we could see where each piece of information was tethered to the original text. (In Charmian’s archive these pins were removed, so we will never know where they were meant to be pined exactly).
Other treasures included the travel desk of Charlotte Brontë (1816 – 1855). A desk that had come to them locked and had taken them years to figure out how to unlock. Inside were calling cards, pens, ink, and small trinkets she’d kept with her. We also saw a scrap of her dress and a cobbler’s sample shoe. These physical treasures are crucial for those who write biographies, as they give us a visceral connection with our subjects. Now, one can write about the color and pattern of the dress she wore, as well as the types of objects she’d carry with her in her writing desk. It’s these small intimacies that help connect a reader to who our subjects were really like in their world.
Finally, I’ll end with the belongings of Virginia Woolf (1882 - 1941), which were also housed in this collection. It was a thrill to see anything of Woolf’s, but to see Woolf’s original, handmade diaries and a first edition of Orlando (1928), the “biography” she wrote based on her friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West, was especially amazing.
This post pained me because I’ve had to keep what I’ve said about these amazing authors. However, I hope I’ve given you at least a taste of what it was like to be in those rooms and to see these incredible artifacts. I’m grateful to both Philip S. Palmer and Carolyn Vega for their work in selecting these artifacts for us to see and weaving us into the web of these artifact’s stories. I left New York with my inspiration ignited.
Upcoming Readings and Events
Judy Halebsky, Lee Kravetz, and Iris Jamahl Dunkle will be presenting at the Bay Area Book Festival "Break Through: Finding the Unexpected in Your Own Writing" on Saturday, June 1 from 2:45 PM - 3:45 PM, Berkeley Public Library - Community Meeting Room.