Helen Hunt Jackson collection of manuscripts and letters, 1852-1887, bulk 1871-1885

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Summary

Abstract:
A collection of material related to Helen Hunt Jackson, American author and activist.
Extent:
2.4 Linear Feet (2 boxes)
Language:
Materials are in English.
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item]. Helen Hunt Jackson collection of manuscripts and letters, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Background

Scope and content:

A collection of manuscripts and letters related to Helen Hunt Jackson. The autograph manuscripts include 21 poems and three prose works entitled: "Bits of Travel at Home," "One Woman and Sunshine," a draft of an article on Jeanne C. Smith Carr and the founding of Carmelita, her home in Pasadena, California, and "The Story of Clotilde Danarosch." The largest part of the correspondence is made up of Helen Hunt Jackson's letters to William Hayes Ward, the editor of the New York Independent. Also included are seventeen letters to Ray Palmer and his wife Ann Maria Waud Palmer; thirteen letters to Mary Elizabeth Fowler, the first government schoolteacher at Soboba in the San Jacinto Valley; four letters to Henry Chandler Bowen, the editor and proprietor of the Independent; four letters to Mrs. D. J. Whipple who ran a boarding house in San Diego and later Los Angeles; two letters to Richard Egan, a Los Angeles County supervisor; and two letters by William Sharpless Jackson and Charles C. Painter.

Biographical / historical:

Helen Maria Fiske Hunt Jackson (1830-1885) was an American poet, author and activist for the rights of Native Americans; she wrote A Century of Dishonor (1881), which condemned state and federal Native American policies, and the novel Ramona (1884).

Acquisition information:
Purchased from Patrick Kevin Foley, November 1923; letters to Mary E. Sheriff Fowler: gift of Mrs. Nellie Fowler Thacker and Mr. Frank H. Fowler, December 1934; letters to Richard Egan: purchased from Heritage Bookshop, September 1980; letters to Mrs. D. J. Whipple: purchased from Dawson's Book Shop, November 1986.
Processing information:

Processed by Huntington Library Staff at different times between 1925 and 1990; in October 2023, Gayle M. Richardson created the finding aid. The Helen Hunt Jackson manuscripts and letters were assembled at the Library from the collection acquired from Patrick Kevin Foley, a noted bookseller and collector in 1923, supplemented by various gifts and purchases in 1934, 1980, and 1986.

Arrangement:

Arranged chronologically.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open for use by qualified researchers and by appointment. Please contact Reader Services at the Huntington Library for more information.

Terms of access:

The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item]. Helen Hunt Jackson collection of manuscripts and letters, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Location of this collection:
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108, US
Contact:
(626) 405-2191
reference@huntington.org
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