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Register of the Sargent (Shirley) Papers, 1950-1971
Mss150  
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Descriptive Summary
  • Administrative Information
  • Biography
  • Scope and Content

  • Descriptive Summary

    Title: Sargent (Shirley) Papers,
    Date (inclusive): 1950-1971
    Collection number: Mss150
    Creator: Shirley Sargent
    Extent: 1.25 linear ft.
    Repository: University of the Pacific. Library. Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections
    Stockton, CA 95211
    Shelf location: For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the library's online catalog.
    Language: English.

    Administrative Information

    Access

    Collection is open for research.

    Preferred Citation

    [Identification of item], Sargent (Shirley) Papers, Mss150, Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library

    Biography

    Shirley Sargent (b. 1927) is a publisher and author who writes both fiction and non-fiction for adults and children. Many of her works focus on the history of Yosemite National Park or use Yosemite as a setting. When she was nine years old, her father, jobless because of the Depression, brought his family there while he worked as an engineer during construction of the modern Big Oak Flat and Tioga roads. Although confined to a wheel chair since age fourteen by a rare crippling disease, Sargent received an A.A. from Pasadena City College (1947) and worked for eleven years as head teacher at a Nursery School (1948-1959) in Pasadena, Calif. Since 1961 she has lived just outside Yosemite National Park on her Flying Spur Ranch. Sargent founded the Flying Spur Press with author Hank Johnston to gain more effective financial control of her publications. She is the recipient of a number of awards including: Honorable Mentions in the Dodd, Mead Prize Competition (1955) for Pipeline Down the Valley and the James D. Phelan Award (1964) for Galen Clark, Yosemite Guardian; and Awards of Merit from the Conference of California Historical Societies (1971) and the California Historical Society.
    Her works include: Pipeline Down the Valley(1955); The Heart-Holding Mountains(1961); Wawona's Yesterdays(1961); Galen Clark, Yosemite Guardian,(1964);Pioneers in Petticoats (1966); John Muir In Yosemite (1972); Yosemite and its Innkeepers (1976); The Ahwahnee: Yosemite's Classic Hotel(1977); Yosemite's Historic Wawaona(1979);and, Yosemite, the First 100 Years, 1890-1990(1988). Sargent also writes a weekly column for the Mariposa Gazette.

    Scope and Content

    This collection contains some fifty of Shirley Sargent's published and unpublished book drafts as well as correspondence, primarily to and from her editors.