Scope and arrangement
The Carmen Mathews papers date from 1921 to 1995 and consist primarily of scripts and scores. There is also a small amount of correspondence and printed material.
Scripts are largely unannotated and document Mathews' stage career from 1952 to 1995, with the majority dating after 1980. The script for The Road to Mecca is accompanied by articles and congratulatory letters. Scores are for songs from musicals Mathews performed in, such as The Seventh Trumpet, The Yearling, In Someone Else's Sandals, Candide, Sunday in the Park with George, and Copperfield. Scores for The Seventh Trumpet are manuscripts; all other scores are either printed or published versions. One of the scores for Sunday in the Park with George is autographed to Mathews from Steven Sondheim.
Incoming letters are from friends and colleagues. There are several letters from American dramatist Charles Rann Kennedy that date from 1932 to 1944 and discuss his writing and other personal matters. The collection also contains a letter book written by Kennedy in 1946, and a collection of sonnets entitled Sonnets for Armageddon.
Photographs consist of portraits of Charles Rann Kennedy and Edith Wynn Matthison, as well as photographs of Matthison for some of her productions in the 1920s. Portraits of Carmen Mathews are also present.
Arrangement
The collection is arranged by format.