Collections : [Rare Book & Manuscript Library]

The collection consists of the editorial and production archives of Vanguard Press: correspondence, manuscripts, contracts, memoranda, galley proofs, photographs, clippings, and printed materials. The correspondence and editorial files contain a wealth of detailed information about individual authors and the growth and development of the Press. Among the cataloged correspondents are: Nelson Algren, Saul Bellow, Stephen Vincent Benét, William Rose Benét; Phyllis Bottome; Pierre Boulle; Jocelyn Brooke; Cyril Connolly; A.J. Cronin; Nigel Dennis; John Dewey; Max Eastman; James T. Farrell; Vardis Fisher; Richard Garnett; Theodor Seuss Geisel; Louis Golding; Paul Goodman; Horace Gregory; Geoffrey Grigson; Lillian Hellman; William Heyen; Harold L. Ickes; Christopher Isherwood; Alfred Kazin; Philip Lamantia; Sinclair Lewis; Emanuel Litvinoff; Dwight Macdonald; Archibald MacLeish; Marshall McLuhan; Thomas Mann; Edgar Lee Masters; H. L. Mencken; William Meredith; Joyce Carol Oates; Katherine Anne Porter; Barbara Pym; William Sansom; William Saroyan; Ramon J. Sender; Upton Sinclair; Rex Stout; Edith Sitwell; Paul Theroux; Lionel Trilling; Harry S. Trumam; Louis Untermeyer; Eudora Welty; Richard Wilbur; and Thornton Wilder. There are some manuscripts by Bellow; Bottome; Boulle; Farrell; Grigson; Litvinoff; MacDonald; Oates; John Cowper Powys; Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.; Patrick Tanner; William Targ; Theroux; and Sitwell.

The Corporation awards grants to nonprofit organizations and institutions for projects that are broadly educational in nature and that show promise of having national or international impact. Certain appropriations are made for activities, such as Corporation-led initiatives that are administered by the foundation's officers. The trustees set the overall policies of the foundation and have final authority to approve all grants above $50,000 recommended by the program staff. Grants of $25,000 or less, called discretionary grants, are made upon the approval of the president and are reported to the board; larger discretionary grants, those between $25,000 and $50,000, are also reviewed by a Corporation-wide group, which makes recommendations to the president. (from Program Guidelines 2003-2004 (http://www.carnegie.org/sub/program/areas.html))

Congressional papers consisting of correspondence memoranda, speeches, reports, photographs and printed materials relating to her terms in Congress. The collection contains general correspondence and administrative files, as well as extensive subject files on a wide variety of topics with which Abzug was involved while in Congress. Also included are Legislative files, being the chronological files of background material for legislation considered on the House floor, and printed versions of legislation by Abzug and others. The Casework Files, relating to Abzug's advocacy on behalf of constituents involved in civil rights, housing, military, employment and related cases, are closed. Among the major correspondents are Carl Albert, Abraham D. Beame, Hugh L. Carey, Gerald R. Ford, Edward I. Koch, John V. Lindsay, Nelson A. Rockefeller, and Gloria Steinem. Materials added in 1981 include: draft transcripts of an oral history, appointment books, speeches and subject files (particularly on privacy and freedom of information) all interfiled in the collection and campaign materials press releases and newspaper clippings.

Mitchell's corrected manuscripts and correspondence and notes pertaining to them. Personal correspondence, including some with her husband, Wesley Clair Mitchell, forms only a small part of the collection. Also, notes and letters related to various projects in which she was involved and two boxes of photographs and drawings.

Professional correspondence, diaries, unpublished articles, lecture notes, abstracts, and other manuscripts by Mitchell. Subjects include economic theory and its history, business cycles, money, national planing, anthropology and psychology, and published material by Mitchell and others.