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Solnit (Rebecca) papers
M1839
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Table of contents
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Title: Rebecca Solnit papers
Creator:
Solnit, Rebecca
Identifier/Call Number: M1839
Identifier/Call Number: 16233
Physical Description:
43 Linear Feet
(79 manuscript boxes, 5 flat boxes, 9 cartons, 2 card boxes)
Physical Description:
0.091 gigabyte(s)
102 3.5" floppy disks; 1 5.25" floppy disk; 1 hard drive; 12 zip disks.
Date (inclusive): 1968-2019
Abstract: This collection documents the life and work of the American author, Rebecca Solnit, including correspondence, juvenilia and
family documents, manuscripts and research files, teaching files, and collected books, magazines, and clippings containing
both her work and reviews and interviews relating to her work.
Rebecca Solnit (born 1961) is a San Francisco-based American author, activist, art critic, and curator whose work covers such
topics as feminism, the environment, politics, place, and art.
She is the third of four children of Theresa Allen and Albert Solnit, and was raised in Novato, California. She credits her
brother David's influence for her involvement in the demonstrations at the Nevada nuclear test site, and later the Western
Shoshone Defense Project, the experience of which developed into a significant part of
Savage Dreams (1994).
After acquiring her GED, she attended the American University at Paris before eventually receiving an undergraduate degree
in English from San Francisco State University in 1981 and a graduate degree in Journalism from UC Berkeley in 1984. She then
worked as an editor and writer for
ArtWeek,
Pacific Sun, and other art publications. She has since authored many more articles for various publications such as
Harper's,
Orion,
Sierra, and
The Guardian. Her writing has also been included in artists' books, museum catalogs, and anthologies.
Her first book was
Secret Exhibition: Six California Artists of the Cold War Era, published in 1991 and nspired in part by an encounter with the work of the filmmaker and artist, Wallace Berman, while working
at the SFMOMA. Since, she has written over twenty-five more on various topics, including
River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West;
A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster;
Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas; and
Men Explain Things to Me. She credits writers such as Pablo Neruda, Virginia Woolf, and Henry David Thoreau as inspirations for her own work.
Rebecca Solnit was an Artist in Residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts in 1989 and has received two fellowships from
the National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
River of Shadows won a National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism and a Sally Hacker Prize, while
Call Them by Their Names won a Kirkus Prize. In 2019, she won the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize in Non-Fiction.
This collection primarily contains papers related to Rebecca Solnit's writing career - research files, notes, manuscripts,
correspondence, reviews of her work, posters and brochures for her talks and lectures, as well as published copies of her
articles and books. She also collected various art, activist, and punk magazines.
The personal file includes correspondence with family and friends, family histories, financial and medical records, and childhood
writing, drawings, and school files. Juvenilia, personal correspondence, journals, and some other personal records are restricted.
The collection also includes the contents of a hard drive and floppy disks, cassettes and VHS tapes, and some CDs and DVDs,
which cover a variety of subjects.
[identification of item], Rebecca Solnit papers (M1839). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford
Libraries, Stanford, California.
While Special Collections is the owner of the physical and digital items, permission to examine collection materials is not
an authorization to publish. These materials are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. Any transmission
or reproduction beyond that allowed by fair use requires permission from the owners of rights, heir(s) or assigns.
Collection is open for research except for juvenilia, personal correspondence, journals, and papers of financial, medical,
or otherwise sensitive nature, which are indicated in the finding aid. Materials must be requested at least 36 hours in advance
of intended use. Born-digital material is closed until processed.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Purchase, 2011. Accessions 2011-119, 2020-078.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
San Francisco Bay Area (Calif.)
Arts, Modern- -20th century
Authors, American.