Collection Summary
Information for Researchers
Administrative Information
Biographical Information
Scope and Content
Collection Summary
Collection Title:
Theodora
Kroeber
papers
Date (inclusive): 1881-1983
Date (bulk): 1960-1979
Collection Number: BANC MSS 69/145 c
Creator:
Kroeber, Theodora
Extent:
Number of containers: 16 boxes, 1 oversize folder.
Linear feet: 6.45
Repository: The Bancroft Library.
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-6000
Phone: (510) 642-6481
Fax: (510) 642-7589
Email: bancref@library.berkeley.edu
URL: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/
Abstract: Contains correspondence, both personal and professional, and
materials related to the publication of her writings. Also includes biographical materials
and a small amount of Kracaw family papers.
Languages Represented: Collection materials are in English
Physical Location: Many of the Bancroft Library collections are stored offsite
and advance notice may be required for use. For current information on the location of these
materials, please consult the library's online catalog.
Information for Researchers
Access
Collection is NOT open for research. Anyone desiring to consult the papers must first
obtain written permission from Karl Kroeber, representing the Kroeber family. This
restriction, unless previously abrogated or modified, will terminate on December 31, 2010,
at which time the papers will be free of all restrictions of access.
Publication Rights
Materials in this collection may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17,
U.S.C.). In addition, the reproduction of some materials may be restricted by terms of
University of California gift or purchase agreements, donor restrictions, privacy and
publicity rights, licensing and trademarks. Transmission or reproduction of materials
protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of
the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited
without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively
with the user.
All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials
must be submitted in writing to the Head of Public Services, The Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley 94720-6000. See:
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/reference/permissions.html .
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item],
Theodora
Kroeber
Papers
, BANC MSS 69/145 c, The Bancroft
Library, University of California, Berkeley
Alternate Forms Available
Copy of Saxton Pope correspondence (Box 3, 1 folder); Research materials (Box 10, Folders
1-11, 14, 21-22); Correspondence: Fan Mail 1961-1964 (Box 11, folders 1-5) : also
available on microfilm with call number BANC FILM 2811
Related Collections
A. L. Kroeber Papers, BANC FILM 2049
Kroeber Family Papers, BANC MSS 82/132c
Kroeber Family Pictorial Works, BANC PIC 1970.051--PIC, BANC PIC 1978.128--PIC,
BANC PIC 1980.013-.015-PIC
Timeless Woman: Writer and Interpreter of the California Indian
World,
oral history transcript, BANC MSS 83/27 c.
Separated Material
Photographs have been transferred to Pictorial Collections of The Bancroft Library.
Indexing Terms
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
library's online public access catalog
Brower, David Ross,
1912-2000--Correspondence
Brown, Jerry, 1938-
--Correspondence
Cody, Fred,
1916-1983--Correspondence
Heizer, Robert Fleming, 1915-
--Correspondence
Ishi, d. 1916
Kracaw family--Archives
Kroeber, A. L. (Alfred Louis),
1876-1960
Kroeber, Theodora--Archives
Le Guin, Ursula K., 1929-
--Correspondence
Pope, Saxton T. (Saxton Temple),
1875-1926
Robbins, Ruth--Correspondence
Singer, Milton
B.--Correspondence
Valory, Dale--Correspondence
Waterman, T. T. (Thomas Talbot),
b. 1885
Anthropologists
Authors, American--California--20th century
Publishers and publishing--History--20th
century
Administrative Information
Acquisition Information
The
Theodora
Kroeber
Papers
were given to The Bancroft Library by Theodora Kroeber
beginning in June 1969. Additions were made in February and April 1972. The remainder of
her papers were donated after her death in 1979, by her third husband, John Quinn, and her
daughter, Ursula K. Le Guin, from 1979 to 1997.
Processing Information
Collection processed by Lori Hines.
Biographical Information
Theodora Kroeber was born Theodora Covel Kracaw in Denver, Colorado on March 24, 1897. She
attended the University of California, Berkeley, and received two degrees in psychology, a
B.A. in 1919, followed by an M.A. in 1920.
In July 1921, she married Clifton Spencer Brown in Berkeley. The birth of two children,
Theodore and Clifton B., soon followed. Clifton S. Brown died in October, 1923. At the
encouragement of her mother-in law, Theodora Kroeber went back to U.C. Berkeley to pursue
graduate work in anthropology. It was at this time she met and studied under Alfred Louis
Kroeber. In March, 1926, they were married, and she once again settled down to family life,
and gave birth to two more children, Karl and Ursula.
This was by no means the end to her intellectual life. She was still immersed in the
academic community of Berkeley, as she entertained A. L. Kroeber's colleagues and
students and Native Americans who came to their home. She accompanied Alfred on his field
trips to Peru (1928-1929 and 1942), and to the Yurok and Mohave country (1930-1958).
After her children had grown, she used the information she had gathered on her travels and
from her associations with A. L. Kroeber's colleagues to write
The Inland
Whale
. Published in 1959, it was an academic success. Although she had written a
few articles previously, this was the true beginning of her writing career--at the age of
62. She followed two years later with the publication of
Ishi in Two Worlds
in 1961. The sources she drew from were Ishi's "white men and women
friends," one of whom was her husband, A. L. Kroeber. Unfortunately, he was not
able to see this project completed. He died in 1960, a year before the book was published.
Soon after its publication,
Ishi in Two Worlds became a best seller. Theodora
Kroeber was brought to the public's attention and forced into the limelight. Even
though she had never met the man, she was now the authority on this new American hero.
Letters, fan mail and requests for appearances came pouring in from people who were touched
by the story of Ishi.
Her writing career flourished and she spent the next 20 years of her life writing and
publishing stories, poetry, novels and articles, including "Poem for the
Living," which was another popular success, and
Alfred Kroeber, A Personal
Configuration
, a biography of her late husband. She also oversaw the publication
of
Yurok Myths and
Karok Myths, two unpublished works by A. L.
Kroeber.
In December, 1970, she married once again, this time to a man 40 years her junior. John
Harrison had served as one of her editors for
Almost Ancestors.
In 1977, Governor Jerry Brown asked her to fill an unexpired term on the University of
California Board of Regents, and she accepted. Serving in this position was too exhausting
for her, so less than a year after being appointed, she resigned. She died of cancer in her
Berkeley home on July 4, 1979.
Scope and Content
The
Theodora
Kroeber
Papers
contain correspondence, both personal and professional, and
materials related to the publication of her writings. Also includes biographical materials
and a small amount of Kracaw family papers.
As a faculty wife, she was immersed in the academic community, well known and respected in
the civic community, and in contact with the leaders of each. Anthropologists, including
Robert Fleming Heizer, Milton B. Singer and Dale Valory, scientist Robert J. Oppenheimer (a
short note), politician Jerry Brown, environmentalist David Ross Brower, bookseller Fred
Cody, and illustrator Ruth (Robbins) Schein are among her correspondents. Even though there
is no correspondence among Theodora Kroeber, T. T. Waterman and Saxton T. Pope, these two
anthropologists are referred to in the correspondence and in other parts of the collection.
Another notable remembrance is in correspondence from James Rosenberg, who wrote of knowing
A. L. Kroeber when they were young.
Theodora Kroeber's charming character emerges in the notes and comments she
pencilled on letters. Her wit is ever present, even as she off-handedly apologizes for being
a poor typist. Many of her business letters are quite personal, because often her business
dealings were with friends or people she knew well. This is clear in her correspondence with
David Hales, one of her editors at the University of California Press. In a note, Theodora
Kroeber stated that, "During a period of ten years or so he followed closely
[Theodora Kroeber's] writing process and often came through with quaint suggestions
which she found helpful." She was very open and gracious in her comments, as shown
in her reaction to Patrick McCoy's letter about the student occupation of
University of California, Berkeley campus in 1967, in her comments about the Board on
Admissions and Relations with Schools (BOARS) Proposal as a U.C. Regent, and even in a
letter about unleashed dogs on campus.
Her correspondence also offers a glimpse into the publishing world. It shows her
frustrations with copyright and permissions when having her work translated into other
languages, and the hold that publishers have over the will of the writer. Most important is
the correspondence with her daughter, the novelist and poet Ursula K. Le Guin, when mother
and daughter comment back and forth about each other's work.
Theodora Kroeber is most famous for portraying the life of Ishi, the California Indian who
stumbled into "civilization" in 1911. Although she never met him, she knew
many of the people who knew him. Very few of her research materials are found here. But as a
result of the book's publication, people who had first-hand accounts contacted her
to tell their stories. These give additional clues regarding this man, who so many people
wanted to know more about.
In his foreward to
A Woman Writes: A Posthumous Autobiography of Theodora Kroeber
Quinn
, John Quinn wrote that, "Theodora destroyed by fire what she was
unwilling to share."
This sums up the collection. These papers focus on a short span of the last 20 years of her
life. There are many holes, and very little of her research materials and comparatively few
of her manuscripts are found here. What remains is correspondence, the finished writings and
the essence of Theodora Kroeber herself.