Papers relating to Publications and Organizations:

American Literature

The quarterly journal American Literature was founded in 1928 by Jay B. Hubbell as a joint effort of the Modern Language Association's American Literature Group (later Section) and Duke University. Published by Duke University Press, the journal was the first to take American literature as its exclusive subject, and was quickly established an important voice in American literary criticism. The Jay B. Hubbell Center is the repository for the journal's editorial and organizational records. These records document the journal's inception and history, its editorial and review procedures, its daily operations, and its contributions to and reflections on shifts of literary critical paradigms. The earliest materials in the collection date from 1927, the most recent from 1989. American Literature's administrative offices continue to donate records as they become inactive. Materials housed in the archive include editorial reviews of articles submitted for publication, correspondence relating to submissions, book reviews, selection of editorial board members, formulation of policy, materials pertaining to the Foerster Prize, and annual reports.

Finding Aid for the American Literature Papers

American Literary Manuscripts

As the introduction to the 1960 edition of American Literary Manuscripts explained, its purpose was "to assist scholars, librarians, dealers, and collectors in locating  primary source materials relating to American authors; to locate primary manuscripts sources with far greater ease and accuracy than formerly; to encourage collectors to deposit manuscripts where they might be of greatest use and utility; and to encourage librarians to think creatively about their collections and lend encouragement to manuscript departments." The American Literary Manuscripts records housed in the Hubbell Center document the process through which this information was gathered and updated. They include descriptions of the project, questionnaires returned by participating libraries, grant requests and reports, editorial correspondence, and minutes of editorial board meetings. The American Literary Manuscripts collection also features materials associated with the long pre-history of the project (which was originally proposed by Jay Hubbell in 1930), as well as documents hinting at the arrival of the new information technologies that would fundamentally re-shape its contours.

Finding Aid for the American Literary Manuscripts Records

American Literary Scholarship

American Literary Scholarship was founded by Professor James Leslie Woodress in 1963 to review the past year's work in American literature. Endorsed by the American Literature Section of the Modern Language Association and published by Duke University Press under Woodress's editorship, the 1963 volume contained essays by seventeen scholars reviewing the work conducted in their specialty over the course of the year. American Literary Scholarship continues to be published annually, offering, in the words of the ALA Booklist: "a systematic evaluative guide to current published studies of American literature." The American Literary Scholarship records document contractual arrangements with Duke University Press.  The extensive correspondence between Ashbel G. Brice of Duke University Press and his assistants map the unfolding policies and procedures relating to the journal's format, length, and coverage. In addition, the papers include manuscripts, statements of sales, and correspondence with contributors about deadlines, galley proofs, corrections, and suggestions.

The Cambridge History of American Literature

The Hubbell Center houses manuscripts, electronic records, and correspondence relating to the third and most recent incarnation of The Cambridge History of American Literature. Under the general editorship of Sacvan Bercovitch (whose professional papers are also housed at the Center), the multi-volume History offers sustained critical essays by prominent scholars offering histories of American literature from its earliest period to the present.

Modern Language Association. American Literature Group/Section

The American Literature Group was formed in 1921, after the Modern Language Association acknowledged a growing scholarly interest in the writing of the United States. At the time, American literature was studied primarily in secondary school; most college and universities offered no courses on the topic. Invested in establishing a national literary tradition worthy of scholarly attention, the members of the Group concentrated their efforts on building American Literature as a discipline. To this end, the Group gathered each December at the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association, compiled bibliographies of manuscript resources and dissertations, and supported the establishment of a journal dealing exclusively with American literature. The Modern Language Association American Literature Section/Group Papers date from 1921 to 1993. Most of the records consist of correspondence saved by the Group's Secretaries and Chairs, as well as copies of annual reports, minutes, ballots, and conference papers.

Finding Aid for the Modern Language Association, American Literature Section Papers

Modern Language Association. Southern Literature Discussion Group

Papers generated and collected by Mary Ann Wimsatt chart the history of the Southern Literature Discussion Group and its precursors, especially the Southern American Literature Conference, an informal MLA-affiliated group, focusing on its continued efforts to be recognized by the Modern Language Association as a permanent group.

Poe Studies Association

Founded in 1973, the Poe Studies Association is a non-profit educational organization of scholars dedicated to exchanging information and ideas relating to Edgar Allan Poe biography and criticism both in the United States and abroad. The Hubbell Center is the repository for the Association's papers, which include copies of the organization's by-laws, minutes from annual meetings, and correspondence pertaining to programs, publications, and ideas for Poe research and criticism.

Papers of Individuals:

Gay Wilson Allen

Through correspondence, scrapbooks, photographs, manuscripts, teaching materials and books, this collection documents Gay Wilson Allen's career as a Whitman scholar and a professor of English. The Hubbell Center is the repository for Allen's extensive correspondence with Whitman scholars from the United States and abroad, as well as documents detailing Allen's own work on the poet (which included the 1955 book The Solitary Singer: A Critical Biography of Walt Whitman). The archive also houses papers of important scholars who preceded Allen, including those of Clifton Joseph Furness, who undertook to write a definitive biography, an extensive bibliography, and a reception study, and Clara Barrus, whose research centered on Whitman and his followers, with an emphasis on John Burroughs.

Finding Aid for the Gay Wilson Allen Papers

Carl Lennart Anderson

The papers of Carl Lennart Anderson, Emeritus Professor of English at Duke University, document the assembly of a festschrift honoring his Duke colleague, Arlin Turner. In addition, this collection includes three letters written by former students, celebrating the teaching career of Robert Spiller, including one penned by Professor Anderson himself.

Charles Roberts Anderson

The papers of Charles R. Anderson, Caroline Donovan Professor of American Literature Emeritus at Johns Hopkins University, chart Professor Anderson's mission to place a plaque in honor of Henry James at Westminster Abbey. In addition, Anderson donated papers related to his book Emily Dickinson's Poetry: Stairway to Surprise and a reminiscence of his long professional association with Jay B. Hubbell.

Sacvan Bercovitch

Sacvan Bercovitch is Powell M. Cabot Research Professor of American Literature at Harvard University. This collection of his papers contains research notes, manuscripts on paper and floppy disks, and general correspondence with students and colleagues. Manuscripts housed in the collection include corrected drafts of several essays ("A Cultural Model of Literary Studies," "Deadpan Huck," etc.) and earlier versions of his books The American Jeremiad, The Office of the Scarlet Letter, and Rites of Assent: Transformations in the Symbolic Construction of America. About half of the documents register Professor Bercovitch's 20-year work as the General Editor for the 8-volume Cambridge History of American Literature. In addition, the Bercovitch collection contains files of writings by other literary scholars, curriculum vitae, and English translations from Yiddish.

Finding Aid for the Sacvan Bercovitch Papers

Walter Blair

Professor Walter Blair, who spent his career in the English Department at the University of Chicago, published numerous books on the subject of American humor, including Mike Fink, King of Mississippi Keelboatmen (1933), Native American Humor, 1800-1900 (1937), Horse Sense in American Humor (1942), Tall Tale America (1944), Half Horse Half Alligator (1956), and America's Humor, From Poor Richard to Doonesbury (1978). Blair's papers contain editorial correspondence, drafts, illustrations, biographical information, reviews, and advertisements for his books, as well as an article entitled "Memoirs of a Drudge" penned by James Thurber in response to a statement Blair made about him in Horse Sense in American Humor. A 1975 edition of Studies in American Humor honoring Walter Blair contains a near-complete bibliography of his contributions to the field.

Edgar Marquess Branch

The papers of Edgar Marquess Branch, Research Professor Emeritus of the English Department at Miami of Ohio University, document his career as a scholar of Mark Twain. The collection includes manuscripts for Branch's edition of Twain's Early Tales and Sketches, the two-volume Early Tales and Stories, and his extensive correspondence with other Twain scholars.

Matthew Joseph Bruccoli

Professor of English at the University of South Carolina, Bruccoli's work on F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway is highly respected.  The Bruccoli collection consists of editorial correspondence, manuscripts, and page proofs for his 1973 publication, The Chief Glory of Every People: Essays on Classic American Writers.

Louis John Budd

Emeritus editor of American Literature, Duke English Professor, and Twain scholar Louis Budd played a major role in soliciting materials for the Jay Hubbell Center. His papers include correspondence about American Literature, the American Literature section of the MLA, and the Jay Hubbell Center; information about American studies in India, where Professor Budd was a Fulbright-Hayes lecturer; and materials relating to his work for the journal Studies in American Humor.

Edwin Harrison Cady

Edwin Harrison Cady, writer and educator, taught at the University of Wisconsin, Ohio State University, Indiana University, Syracuse University, and Duke University, where he was the Andrew Mellon Professor of English. Cady was the editor of American Literature from 1980-1986. The Cady Papers include correspondence (much of it with Jay Hubbell and John Olin Eidson), drafts of writings by Cady and others, teaching and research notes, and materials related to American Literature.

Finding Aid for the Edwin Harrison Cady Papers

Cathy N. Davidson

Ruth F. DeVarney Professor of American Literature and Vice-Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University, Professor Davidson served as the editor of American Literature from 1989-1999. The Hubbell Center is the repository for her papers, including correspondence relating to and manuscripts for the Oxford Companion to American Women Writers, Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America, The Book of Love: Writers and their Love Letters, 36 Views From Mount Fuji, and Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory.

John Olin Eidson

Educator, President of Georgia Southern College from 1968 to 1971, and editor of the Georgia Review from 1950 to 1957, John Olin Eidson's papers chiefly pertain to his research on Alfred Lord Tennyson in America.

Benjamin Franklin Fisher

The Benjamin Franklin Fisher collection includes materials pertaining to his editorship of the journal the University of Mississippi Studies in English, as well as information related to the Poe Studies Association Papers, which Professor Fisher donated to the Hubbell Center. In addition there are personal exchanges with Robert E. Spiller, Earl M. Harbert and Frank A. Krutzke, as well as several early volumes of University of Mississippi Studies in English..

Finding Aid for the Benjamin Franklin Fisher Papers

Charles Howell Foster

Charles H. Foster, Emeritus professor of American literature, was first a pupil and then a colleague of Norman Foerster's at Iowa State University. Through correspondence, this collection documents their long personal and professional friendship that began in 1936 when Foerster sent Foster an encouraging letter about his writing, along with an application to graduate school, and ends with Foerster's death in 1972.  The collection also contains some clippings and printed materials.

William Merriam Gibson

The papers of William M. Gibson, a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, pertain to the American Studies Research Centre, Hyderabad, India, and Gibson's membership on the Committee on International Exchange of Persons and the Literature Screening Committee for Fulbright- Hayes appointments. Several of the letters and clippings are concerned with the closing of American libraries abroad, especially in London.

Clarence Louis Frank Gohdes

Educated in the 1920s at Ohio State, Harvard, and Columbia, where he studied with Bliss Perry, J.L. Lowes, G.L. Kittredge, and Ralph Rusk, Gohdes went on to become a professor of English at Duke University and the managing editor of American Literature. From 1954 to his retirement in 1971, he served as the chairman of the journal's editorial board. Gohdes's papers document his career as a teacher of American literature and an editor. Among these papers is a copy of Vernon Parrington's syllabus for a survey course in American literature. A major portion of the Gohdes collection is given over to his research on the scuppernong grape, which culminated his book Scuppernong, North Carolina's Grape and Its Wines.

Claud Bethune Green

Claud B. Green, Professor of English, Dean of Undergraduate Studies at Clemson University, and a Duke University alumnus, willed his professional papers to the Jay B. Hubbell Center. The Center houses Professor Green's correspondence with colleagues, which includes letters from Jay B. Hubbell and Clarence Gohdes, as well as lecture notes, syllabi, reprints, research on the subject of John Trotwood Moore, reviews of his book on Moore, and correspondence concerning Fulbright lectureships.

Harriet Rebecca Holman

Professor Holman received her Ph.D. from Duke University in 1948, serving as a professor of English at Erskine College and Clemson University. Her papers consist of correspondence from editors and colleagues relating to teaching and writing about American literature, as well as letters from South Carolina writers and members of the families of Thomas Nelson Page, and John Fox, Jr.  The papers also include a group of letters and records of interviews with prominent professors concerning the establishment of an endowed chair in American literature at Clemson. Correspondents include Jay B. Hubbell, Claud Green, Hugh Holman, Guy Davenport, and Rayburn Moore.

Theodore Roosevelt Hornberger

Theodore Hornberger, who was an English professor at the University of Pennsylvania, worked for many years on the manuscript of a book on Puritanism and science. The bulk of Hornberger's papers consists of the third version of this project, which he died before completing. Along with the manuscript of the book are notes, bibliographies, records of his research, lecture notes, notes for papers he delivered, and reprints of his articles. In addition, this collection includes a photograph, a vita, and an obituary of Dr. Hornberger; a bibliography of his works; and a tape of a speech he gave about Benjamin Franklin.

Jay Broadus Hubbell

Jay Broadus Hubbell, professor of American Literature at Duke University, was born on May 8, 1885 in Smyth County, Virginia. He received his Master's degree from Harvard University and his Ph.D. from Columbia. After serving as the Chairman of the English Department and the E.A. Lilly Professor of English at Southern Methodist University, Dr. Hubbell became a Professor of English at Duke University, where he remained until his retirement in 1954.

Hubbell was also the founding editor of American Literature, which made its debut in 1929 as the first journal dedicated to what was then a new field of study. Hubbell served as board chairman until 1954. A leader in many of the organizations dedicated to developing American literature as a discipline, Hubbell played a crucial role in establishing American literary studies in the United States.

The Center documents Hubbell's career as a pioneer in the field of American literary studies through his correspondence with colleagues, students, University officials, and family; and plans for projects launched at Duke University and the American Literature Section of the MLA. The collection also contains manuscripts of lectures; course outlines; photographs; articles; reprints; reviews, and clippings. Highlights of the correspondence include letters exchanged with John Hall Wheelock, Gay Wilson Allen, George Bond, Herbert Brown, Matthew Bruccoli, Mary Sue Carlock, John Chapman, James Emanuel, Benjamin F. Fisher, Herbert Gambrell, Theodore Gross, Hugh Holman, Howard Mumford Jones, Maureen C. Mabbott, Rayburn Moore, Albert Robbins, Henry Nash Smith, Hope Stoddard, and Edward Stone. In addition, this collection houses many tributes written in honor of Hubbell, as well as sketches and reminiscences of other important figures in the field.

David Kelly Jackson

David K. Jackson, a student of Jay B. Hubbell in the early 1930s and Secretary for American Literature, later worked for the Home Security Life Insurance Company in Durham, NC. After twenty-eight years in the insurance industry, Jackson returned to the study of American literature, dedicating his retirement to research on Edgar Allen Poe. His papers pertain to this endeavor and include correspondence with Poe scholars, librarians, and others.

Lewis Gaston Leary

An educator, writer, and critic who taught at Duke University, Columbia University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Leary collection contains notes, lectures, addresses, and articles on American literature, with a special concentration on its early authors, as well as correspondence dating from 1958 to 1985. In a 1982 sketch written for the Hubbell Center entitled "The Adventures of a Young Man in American Literature, Especially at Duke," Leary describes his relationships with mentors Jay B. Hubbell and Clarence Gohdes.

Finding Aid for the Lewis Gaston Leary Papers

Egbert Samuel Oliver

A Melville scholar and an emeritus member of the Portland State University Department of English, Egbert Oliver's dedication to the study of Melville, to his students both at Portland State and in India (where he spent much time as a visiting lecturer in American literature), and to the Christian Church are documented in his papers.

William Peirce Randel

Edward Eggleston scholar William Peirce Randel studied with Ralph Leslie Rusk and Lionel Trilling in the 1940s. The papers in this collection relate to Randel's research and writing on Eggleston. They include correspondence with Eggleston family members, research librarians, drafts of articles, introductions to editions of Eggleston edited by Randel, addresses, page proofs, and reviews. In addition the archive contains three letters addressing the quality of dissertations in the mid-1980s.

Ralph Leslie Rusk

Ralph Leslie Rusk (1888-1962) was a professor of American Literature at Columbia University from 1925 until his retirement in 1954. Rusk was the editor of a six-volume edition of Emerson's letters and a biography of Emerson, and was awarded the National Book Award for non-fiction in 1949. A member of the 1928 committee that assisted Jay B. Hubbell in the founding of American Literature, Rusk also was one of the first members of the journal's editorial board, upon which he served until 1938. He was also one of the founders of the American Literature Group (now Section) of the MLA.

The Rusk papers include diaries, photographs, clippings related to his publications, and correspondence relating to his research and teaching of American literature. Many of the letters were exchanged with pioneers in the field of American literature, including Newton Arvin, Harry Hayden Clark, John Erskine, Ernest Erwin Leisy, George Clinton Densmore Odell, Bliss Perry, Henry August Pochmann, Randall Stewart, and Stanley Thomas Williams.

(Henry) Arlin Turner

This collection contains correspondence, clippings, articles, reprints, and biographical information relating to Arlin Turner's career as a professor of American literature at Duke University. His correspondents include Daniel Aaron, James Dickey, John Dos Passos, John Hersey, Jay B. Hubbell, Howard Mumford Jones, Thomas O. Mabbott, F.O. Matthiessen, Norman H. Pearson, Reynolds Price, and Randall Stewart. Organizations represented in his correspondence include the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Studies Association, and the American Literature section of the MLA.

Finding Aid for the Arlin Turner Papers

Mary Ann Wimsatt

Please see the entry for the Modern Language Association/Southern Literature Discussion Group.

James Leslie Woodress

The bulk of Woodress's papers are housed in the papers dedicated to American Literary Scholarship, of which Woodress was an editor. In addition, the Woodress collection contains correspondence with the contributors to four books edited by Professor Woodress, including Eight American Authors, List of Dissertations, and Essays Mostly on Periodical Publishing in America, a Festschrift honoring Clarence Gohdes.