Welford D. Taylor Collection on Sherwood Anderson
Scope and Contents
This collection contains several series of materials: correspondence to and from Sherwood Anderson, correspondence and research files about Sherwood Anderson, and a small group of photographs, audio, video, and graphic art materials. Materials generated by Anderson date from 1918-1940. Other materials date from about 1929-2006.
Series I: Correspondence to/from Sherwood Anderson, 1927-1940 includes correspondence to and from Anderson with a variety of colleagues and friends. It contains three subseries. Materials in each subseries in Series I are in chronological order. Undated materials are located at the end of each subseries.
Subseries A: Sherwood Anderson to J. J. Lankes, 1926-1940 consists of Anderson’s letters to artist and friend, J. J. Lankes. The correspondence is a combination of personal conversations and professional. There are also several folders of materials that relate to the correspondence and the Anderson-Lankes collaboration: manuscripts and copies of essays, woodcuts, articles, and reviews. Subseries B: From Sherwood Anderson to various, A-Z, 1925-1940, n.d. contains letters by Anderson to a variety of individuals. In most cases, there is a single letter to each correspondent, with the exception of William and Carrie Wright. Wright built Ripshin, Anderson’s home in Marion, Va. Subseries C: To Sherwood Anderson from various, A-Z, 1931, 1935 consists of a letter to Anderson from his publisher and an invitation.
Series II: Correspondence about Sherwood Anderson, 1929-2006, n.d. contains letters about Sherwood Anderson, including personal correspondence to Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson, artist J. J. Lankes, Anderson scholar Welford D. Taylor, and others. It contains four subseries. Materials in each subseries in Series II are in chronological order. Undated materials are located at the end of each subseries.
Subseries A: To/from Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson, 1941-1977, n.d., includes letters written to and from Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson, written after Anderson’s death in 1941. It is primary correspondence between Eleanor and J. J. Lankes and W. D. Taylor. Subseries B: To/from J. J. Lankes, 1930-1957, n.d. consists of letters to and from Lankes from Anderson’s son, Robert, from publishers working with Lankes and Anderson on Anderson’s books, and other mutual acquaintances. Subseries C: To/from Welford D. Taylor from Various, A-Z, 1929-2006 includes correspondence from other Sherwood Anderson scholars and researchers. The last subseries, Subseries D: To/from various, A-Z, 1932, 1938, 1965, contains a few letters from individuals connected to Anderson (his children) or between individuals interested in Anderson.
Series III: Subject Files, 1918-2006, n.d. includes collected research files, ephemera, and other items related to scholarship about Sherwood Anderson. Materials in each subseries in Series III are in chronological order. Undated materials are located at the end of each subseries.
Subseries A: Writings by & about Sherwood Anderson, 1918-1953, n.d. contains a few drafts of writings by Anderson, along with photocopies of an article about Anderson and one of his newspaper columns from 1918. Subseries B: Sherwood Anderson & His Works, 1964-2006, n.d. includes files of research materials collected by W. D. Taylor on secondary sources or edited collections of Anderson’s works. This includes The Buck Fever Papers, Certain Things Last: The Selected Short Stories of Sherwood Anderson, Sherwood Anderson, Sherwood Anderson: A Writer in America, and Southern Odyssey: Selected Writings by Sherwood Anderson. This subseries also has the transcript of an interview by Taylor with Joseph and Mary Cortina. Subseries C: Ephemera, 1924-2005, n.d. consist of pages from newspapers, programs from events related to Anderson scholarship, and materials from the Sherwood Anderson Foundation. Subseries D: Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson, 1980, 1985 contains obituaries following the death of Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson and a pamphlet relating to her mother.
Series IV: Images, Video, Audio, and Microfilm, 1970s-1991, n.d. contains all the multimedia materials received as part of this collection. Formats include photographs, postcards, a VHS tape, cassette tape and audio reels, and microfilm. Materials in each subseries in Series IV are in chronological order. Undated materials are located at the end of each subseries.
Subseries A: Photographs and Postcards, c.1970s, n.d. includes pictures of art works relating to Anderson, formal and candid images of Anderson, of Ripshin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripshin_Farm), his home in Grayson County, Virginia, and of locations around Marion, Virginia, which were significant to Anderson's life and career. Subseries B: Video, 1991 includes the recording of a 1991 event on the Virginia Tech campus. Subseries C: Audio, 1976, 1982, n.d. includes a partial interview with an unknown friend of Sherwood Anderson and cassette tapes with interviews of Anderson scholars and Eleanor Anderson. Subseries D: Microfilm, 1925-1931, n.d. contains microfilm of Smyth County newspapers purchased and published by Anderson in the 1920s and 1930s.
Series V: Graphic Arts Materials, n.d. includes a small group of art works, primarily woodcuts. This series contains prints and photocopies of J. J. Lankes woodcuts, some of which were used in Anderson publications. It also includes bookplates for the libraries of Sherwood Anderson and Welford D. Taylor. Materials in Series V are organized by material type.
List of Major Correspondents
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- Anderson, Eleanor Copenhaver (1896-1985)
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- Anderson, Sherwood (1876-1941)
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- Anderson, Robert Lane (1907-1951)
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- Campbell, Hilbert
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- DeVries, Carrow
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- Hurd, Thaddeus B.
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- Lankes, J. J. (1884-1960)
- ·
- Modlin, Charles E.
- ·
- Rideout, Walter B.
- ·
- Taylor, Welford Dunaway
- ·
- Wright, William and Carrie
Dates
- Creation: 1918-2006, n.d.
Creator
- Anderson, Eleanor Copenhaver, 1896-1985 (Person)
- Anderson, Robert Lane, 1907-1951 (Person)
- Anderson, Sherwood, 1876-1941 (Person)
- Lankes, Julius J., 1884-1960 (Person)
Access Restrictions
The collection is open for research.
Use Restrictions
Permission to publish material from the Welford D. Taylor Collection on Sherwood Anderson must be obtained from Special Collections, Virginia Tech.
Biographical Note: Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941)
Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941) was born in the small town of Camden, Ohio, to a large and impoverished family. An outstanding student, Anderson quit school at 14 to help support his family. In 1895 he volunteered for the Spanish-American War, then spent one year in Wittenburg College. He worked as a laborer in Chicago and later as a writer in an advertising agency. Unable to resist the urge to write and live a bohemian lifestyle, Anderson suffered an emotional breakdown and walked away from his family and his mail-order paint business. He had three children (two sons and a daughter) from his first marriage. Anderson eventually married three more times.
Anderson published 27 books, plays, and volumes of short stories, along with numerous articles in periodicals. Often controversial, he wrote about issues as diverse as the sexual awakening of adolescence to the alienation caused by industrialization. He was very active in the intellectual community of the day and was instrumental in helping both Faulkner and Hemingway to be published for the first time.
Anderson wrote to his daughter from Kansas City in March, 1933, "As you know, my dear, I never did domesticate well," but he always maintained relationships with his children. Later in life, Anderson embarked on his fourth marriage to Eleanor Copenhaver, a native of Marion, Virginia. They traveled extensively and spent summers on their rural farm, "Ripshin," near Marion. Anderson bought and operated both of Marion's local newspapers and eventually passed ownership along to his eldest son, Robert.
Sherwood Anderson died on the first leg of a long-anticipated trip to South America. He developed peritonitis and was hospitalized in Panama, where he passed away on March 8, 1941.
See the Sherwood Anderson Foundation website for additional biographical information and a chronology of his major works.
Biographical Note: Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson (1896-1985)
Eleanor Gladys Copenhaver (1896-1985) was born on June 15, 1896 in Marion, Virginia, to Bascom Eugene and Laura Lu Scherer Copenhaver. Laura Lu's father founded Marion Female College, which was located next door to the family home, "Rosemont." Laura Lu attended Marion College and later taught English there. Her husband, B.E. Copenhaver, first taught at Marion and then became Smyth County superintendent of schools.
Eleanor Copenhaver attended Marion College, then Westhampton College in Richmond, completing a B. A. in English in 1917. After spending a year teaching and time as a camp director, she spent more than ten years working for the YWCA, specializing first in rural community organizing and later in industrial communities. During this time, she met and eventually married Sherwood Anderson in 1933.
From 1937 to 1947 Copenhaver Anderson was head of the National YWCA's Industrial Program, later accepting a 2 year assignment abroad. In 1950, she spent a brief time apart from the YWCA, after it ended programs for employed women, but she was re-hired in 1951 for another ten years for the YWCA and United Community Defense Services, until she retired in 1961.
She spent her later life in both New York City and at “Rosemont” and “Ripshin” in Virginia. As the collection suggests, she maintained an active role in scholarship surrounded Sherwood Anderson. She died on September 12, 1985, in Marion, Virginia.
A lengthier biographical note can be found in finding aid for the Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson Papers in the Sophia Smith Collection. The UNC Chapel Hill "Documenting the American South" Collection also includes an oral history interview with Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson from November 5, 1974.
Biographical Note: J. J. Lankes (1884-1960)
Julius John (J. J.) Lankes was born in 1884 in Buffalo, NY. He began working as a draftsman in 1902, but spent the majority of his professional life known for his woodcuts. His career as an artist spanned decades, during which he created woodcuts and illustrations for authors, among others. In addition to Sherwood Anderson, he worked with Robert Frost and Beatrix Potter. Lankes wrote and illustrated A Woodcut Manual, published by Henry Holt in 1932. In 2006, The University of Tampa published a new edition of this book with selected letters and other writings, edited by Welford Dunaway Taylor. (A copy of the 2006 edition is housed in Special Collections. A copy of the 1932 edition is available at the University Libraries’ Art & Architecture Library.) In addition to his illustrations and work as an artist, Lankes taught at Wells College from 1933 to about 1940. From 1943 to 1950, Lankes worked for the reproduction section of the National Advisory Council for Aeronautics (NACA, later NASA). He retired in 1951 and died in April 1960.
The Rauner Special Collections Library of Dartmouth University contains a collection of J. J. Lankes papers. A finding aid for the collection is available online.
Biographical Note: Welford D. Taylor
Welford D. Taylor is a retired English professor and scholar. Over the course of his career, he published edited volumes of Sherwood Anderson’s work and his own research on Anderson, as well as on J. J. Lankes and other authors and topics. Highlights of his books include:
- Julius J. Lankes: Survey of an American Artist, 2013
- Sherwood Anderson Remembered, 2009
- The Woodcut Art of J. J. Lankes, 1999
- Southern Odyssey: Selected Writings by Sherwood Anderson, with Charles E. Modlin, 1997
- The Newsprint Mask: The Tradition of the Fictional Journalist in America, 1991
- Sherwood Anderson, J.J. Lankes and the illustration of _Perhaps Women_, 1981
- Sherwood Anderson, 1977
This collection represents his research and accumulated materials pirmarily relating to Sherwood Anderson, J. J. Lankes, and Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson.
Full Extent
2.2 Cubic Feet (3 boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
This collection contains several series of materials: correspondence to and from Sherwood Anderson, correspondence and research files about Sherwood Anderson, and a small group of photographs, audio, video, and graphic art materials. Materials generated by Anderson date from 1918-1940. Other materials date from about 1929-2006.
Other Finding Aids
The bulk of Sherwood Anderson's papers are housed at the Newberry Library in Chicago, Illinois. A finding aid for this collection is available online.
Acquisition Information
Portions of the Welford D. Taylor Collection on Sherwood Anderson were purchased by Special Collections in 2015 and 2016. Additional portions of the collection were donated to Special Collections in 2015 and in Novem 2016.
Digital Collections
Please note: some issues of the
Separated Materials
The following books were purchased along with the manuscript materials and are cataloged for Special Collections Rare Book Collection:
- The Complete Works of Sherwood Anderson, ed. Kichinosuke Ohashi (21 vols)
- Agricultural Advertising, vol. IX, nos. 1-12. (This includes Anderson's earliest published work, as well as four other pieces by him)
- Short Stories of Sherwood Anderson (Armed Services Edition)
- Labor Age: The Voice of Progressive Labor, XX, no. 2, 1931
- Sherwood Anderson: A Writer in America, Vols. 1-2 (2 vols) by Walter B. Rideout
- Sherwood Anderson: Dimensions of His Literary Art/A Collection of Essays, ed. David D. Anderson
- The Phenomenon of Sherwood Anderson by N. Bryllion Fagin
- Wave Essays Number 1 (Spring 1980), "Sherwood Anderson, J. J. Lankes and the Illustration of Perhaps Women" by Welford Dunaway Taylor
Processing Information
The processing, arrangement, and description of the Welford D. Taylor Collection on Sherwood Anderson began in October 2016 and was completed in November 2016.
Subject
- Anderson, Eleanor Copenhaver, 1896-1985 (Person)
- Anderson, Sherwood, 1876-1941 (Person)
- Lankes, Julius J., 1884-1960 (Person)
- Taylor, Welford Dunaway (Person)
- Title
- Welford D. Taylor Collection on Sherwood Anderson, 1918-2006, n.d.
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Kira A. Dietz, Archivist
- Date
- © 2016 Virginia Tech. All rights reserved.
- Language of description
- Undetermined
- Script of description
- Code for undetermined script
- Language of description note
- English
Repository Details
Part of the Special Collections, Virginia Tech Repository
Special Collections, University Libraries (0434)
560 Drillfield Drive
Newman Library, Virginia Tech
Blacksburg Virginia 24061 US
540-231-6308
specref@vt.edu