- unitid
-
{"value"=>"24576", "type"=>"local_mss"}
{"value"=>"b21979828", "type"=>"local_b"}
{"value"=>"MssCol 24576", "type"=>"local_call"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"1916-2016", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1916/2016"}
- unittitle
-
{"value"=>"Jean Stein papers"}
- physdesc
-
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"282 boxes, 4 volumes", "unit"=>"containers"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"122.13 linear feet", "unit"=>"linear_feet"}]}
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"1,368 audio recordings", "unit"=>"audio_recordings"}]}
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"42 moving image recordings", "unit"=>"moving_image_recordings"}]}
- repository
-
{"value"=>"<span class=\"corpname\">Manuscripts and Archives</span>"}
- abstract
-
{"value"=>"Jean Stein (1934-2017) was an American author, oral historian, editor, and philanthropist. She worked as an editor at <span class=\"title\">The Paris Review</span>, under George Plimpton, and co-edited the literary and visual arts magazine <span class=\"title\">Grand Street</span> with Walter Hopps. She was married to William vanden Heuvel and Torsten Wiesel. The Jean Stein papers (1916-2016) document Stein's career and life. The works most extensively represented are Stein's oral history biography of the American actress and Andy Warhol muse, Edie Sedgwick, <span class=\"title\">Edie: An American Biography</span>, (1982); and the oral history <span class=\"title\">West of Eden: An American Place</span>, which focused on five families and individuals Stein considered essential to the history of Los Angeles. Personal files, which include letters Stein received from novelist William Faulkner, document Stein's childhood of wealth and privilege as a the daughter of talent agent and MCA founder, Jules Stein; and her adult life as a member of New York's intellectual elite."}
- langmaterial
-
{"value"=>"English"}
- origination
-
{"value"=>"Stein, Jean", "type"=>"persname"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p>Jean Stein (1934-2017) was an American author, oral historian, editor, and philanthropist. Jean Babette Stein was born on February 9th, 1934 in Chicago, Illinois to Jules C. Stein and Doris Jones Stein. Her father, Jules Stein, co-founded the music booking agency Music Corporation of America (MCA) with William R. Goodheart, Jr. in 1929. This company, which initially pioneered the system of musicians touring America, would branch out into radio and open offices in New York, before eventually landing in Hollywood in 1937, at the recommendation of Stein's partner Lew Wasserman. Now known simply as MCA, it became one of the leading talent agencies in the country, representing such stars as Bette Davis, Betty Grable, Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Eddie Cantor, Ingrid Bergman, Frank Sinatra, and Jack Benny.</p> <p>As the daughter of such a prominent film industry figure, Jean Stein grew up in an atmosphere of fame, wealth, and movie stars. Many of her father's famous clients were frequent guests at Misty Mountain, the family's Beverly Hills estate, and Stein played with the children of movie stars and moguls throughout her childhood.</p> <p>Stein studied at both Wellesley College and the Sorbonne, in Paris, France. Much of her early 20s were spent living abroad in Paris, Rome, Venice, and other European cities, as well as in New York, where she worked as assistant to director Elia Kazan on the original production of Tennessee Williams's <span class=\"title\">Cat on a Hot Tin Roof</span> (1955). In 1954, while visiting St. Moritz, nineteen year old Stein met the legendary American novelist William Faulkner and they began a love affair. Faulkner was then fifty-six and married, but the affair continued until Stein met the man who would become her first husband, William vanden Heuvel. During their relationship, Stein persuaded the usually reticent Faulkner to allow her to interview him. The interview was subsequently published in <span class=\"title\">The Paris Review</span> in 1956, and Stein became an editor there, working for George Plimpton.</p> <p>Stein moved back to New York City to work at <span class=\"title\">Esquire</span>, as an assistant to features editor Clay Felker. In 1958, Stein married lawyer and diplomat William vanden Heuvel, whose position as special assistant to Robert Kennedy, during the latter's tenure as United States Attorney General put Stein in Kennedy's circle and inspired her first book. Stein and vanden Heuvel were among the group that traveled with Kennedy's body from New York to Washington after his assassination in 1968. This trip was the subject of <span class=\"title\">American Journey: The Times of Robert Kennedy</span> (1970), which was edited by George Plimpton.</p> <p>Living in New York during the 1960s, Stein was part of the world of the artistic, intellectual, political, and literary intelligentsia. Among her friends was Andy Warhol muse Edie Sedgwick, and Stein considered her the perfect symbol for the 1960s. Sedgwick's tragic life, and her journey from socialite to superstar to death at age 28 by drug overdose would be the subject of Stein's next oral history, <span class=\"title\">Edie: An American Biography</span> (1982) (reprinted in 1994 as <span class=\"title\">Edie: American Girl</span>). The text was composed entirely of interviews Stein conducted with friends, colleagues and family of Sedgwick, and was also edited by George Plimpton. <span class=\"title\">Edie</span> was an international best-seller.</p> <p>From 1990 to 2004, Stein was the co-editor (with Walter Hopps) of <span class=\"title\">Grand Street</span>, the literary/visual arts magazine.</p> <p>Stein's third book, <span class=\"title\">West of Eden: An American Place</span> (2016), told the stories (again though oral histories) of five families or individuals who shaped the history of Los Angeles. The book dedicated chapters to Los Angeles' first oil tycoon Edward Doheny and his family; Warner Bothers mogul Jack Warner and his family; Jane Garland, the mentally ill daughter of Hollywood real estate executive William Garland and would-be actress Grace Nicholls; the movie star Jennifer Jones, her three famous husbands (Robert Walker, David O'Selznick, and Norton Simon), and three children; and Stein's own family, and the founding of her father's company, MCA.</p> <p>In 2016 Jean Stein partnered with PEN America to found the $75,000 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the $10,000 PEN/Jean Stein Grant for Oral History.</p> <p>Jean Stein was married to William vanden Heuvel from 1958 to 1970. The marriage produced two daughters, editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel, and actress Wendy vanden Heuvel. Stein was married to Nobel Prize-winning Swedish neurobiologist Torsten Wiesel from 1995 to 2007. Jean Stein died in Manhattan on April 30, 2017.</p>"}
- custodhist
-
{"value"=>"<p>Bequest from the Estate of Jean Stein, 2018, 2019.</p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p>The Jean Stein papers (1916-2016) document Stein's career and life through research files, interview transcripts, drafts, correspondence, and photographs. The works most extensively documented here are Stein's oral history biography of the American actress and Andy Warhol muse, Edie Sedgwick, <span class=\"title\">Edie: An American Biography</span>, (1982) (reprinted in 1994 as <span class=\"title\">Edie: American Girl</span>); and the oral history <span class=\"title\">West of Eden: An American Place</span>, which focused on five families and individuals Stein considered essential to the history of Los Angeles: the Dohenys; the Warners; Jane Garland; Jennifer Jones; and her own family, the Steins. Personal files document Stein's childhood of wealth and privilege as the daughter of talent agent and MCA founder, Jules Stein; her adult life as a socialite and later a member of New York's intellectual elite; and her marriages to diplomat William vanden Heuvel and scientist Torsten Wiesel. This collection is arranged into five series: Series I: Writings (with three subseries for Edie, West of Eden, and Other Writings and Editorial Projects); Series II: Personal Files (including personal correspondence, files on friends and family, and Stein's correspondence with William Faulkner); Series III: Audio Recordings; Series IV: Video Recordings; and Series V: Films.</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p class='list-head'>The Jean Stein papers are arranged in five series:</p>\n<ul class='arrangement series-descriptions'>\n<li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/24576#c1559397'>Series I: Writings</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1916-2016</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>98.33 linear feet (235 boxes, 3 volumes)</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Files on writings are mostly made up of files on Stein's books <span class=\"title\">Edie</span> and <span class=\"title\">West of Eden</span>. They document Stein's process of creating a book composed entirely of oral history through research, conducting interviews, selecting and arranging excerpts, editing, revising, selecting photographs, promoting the book, and the response to the book. These files include research files, drafts, photographs, book components, reviews, articles, and letters. Research files consist of collected notes, articles, photocopies copies of primary documents, and interview transcripts. Stein conducted many interviews with prominent individuals that were not published in her book (and from those that were, only selections were published), so the majority of the interviews in this series are unpublished. This series also contains materials on book structure and planning, that provide insight into how Stein managed the massive task of researching and organizing her books with outlines, overviews, chronologies, lists of people to interview, interview questions, and notes.</p> <p>Other writing and editorial projects consist of files on topics for proposed and completed articles, screenplays, plays, books, and the literary/visual arts magazine, <span class=\"title\">Grand Street</span>, which Stein co-edited from 1990 to 2004. Included with these projects is Stein's first book, <span class=\"title\">American Journey: The Times of Robert Kennedy</span>, which is not substantially represented in this collection. Other topics Stein researched extensively include nightlife in Cuba in the 1950s, political activist Angela Davis, Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti, writer and socialite Alice Roosevelt Longworth, national security and surveillance, novelist and screenwriter Terry Southern, and cartoonist and illustrator Saul Steinberg. Files on these and other subjects contain research, notes, interviews, correspondence, drafts, and completed writings.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/24576#c1561031'>Series II: Personal Files</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1930-2015</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>19.79 linear feet (50 boxes, 1 volume)</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Stein's personal life is documented through letters, photographs, legal documents, scrapbooks, articles, and other documents. The largest section of Series II is the run of Friends and Family Files, in which letters, articles, and photographs are arranged by name. These files, arranged by Stein or her assistants, cover the years 1959 to 2015. Some files contain only one note, clipping, letter, or photograph, while others are more extensive. In many cases these include research materials. Many of the individuals who became the subjects of Stein's research and writing projects were also her personal friends, so there is a significant overlap between Series I and the Friends and Family Files and Correspondence sections of Series II.</p> <p>Personal correspondence most extensively documents a period of Stein's life during the mid-1950s, when she lived as a wealthy ex-patriate in Europe and befriended many prominent artists, writers, and composers in Europe and America. Her correspondents from this period include Leonard Bernstein, Charles Brackett, Aaron Copland, Cheryl Crawford, Nicholas Nabokov, Harold Prince, Ned Rorem, Madeline Sherwood, Stephen Sondheim, and Terry Southern. Correspondence also includes many letters between Stein and her parents and other family members. Later correspondence is also included here, but many of Stein's letters from 1970 and later are filed with friends and family files or the alphabetical research files on <span class=\"title\">Edie</span> and <span class=\"title\">West of Eden</span>.</p> <p>There are also 121 letters, notes, and telegrams Stein received from novelist William Faulkner, with whom she had a romantic relationship, between 1954 and 1962. Some of the Faulkner letters contain original drawings and photographs. Files on Faulkner include research materials, interview transcripts, notes, drafts and manuscripts for \"The Art of Fiction,\" Stein's 1956 article on Faulkner for <span class=\"title\">The Paris Review</span>. There are also autographed copies of two Faulkner novels with personal inscriptions to Stein and other autographed gifts.</p> <p>Photographs of Stein and her family and friends include loose photographs, photographs organized in scrapbooks, and baby books.</p> <p>Legal and financial files document the position of Stein's family and the inheritance she received from her parents and MCA. Business correspondence, financial reports, wills, trusts, marriage and divorce papers, and other documents are included here.</p> <p>Personal files also document Stein's role as a woman of high social station. There are address books and rolodexes; Christmas gift lists and lists of gift ideas; files on leisure activities such as boating, concerts, operas, and shopping; files on home renovations and interior decorating; extensive files on dinners and other social events; and the 1951 Debutante Register.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/24576#c1561549'>Series III: Sound Recordings</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1941-2008</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>1,380 audio recordings</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>The 1,380 audio recordings in this collection consist mainly of interviews Stein conducted as research for <span class=\"title\">Edie</span> and <span class=\"title\">West of Eden</span>. There are also audiotaped interviews pertaining to Stein's other writing and research projects and some audio recordings related to her to her personal life.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/24576#c1562939'>Series IV: Video Recordings</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1974-2012</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>18 video recordings</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Video recordings consist of one videotaped interview from <span class=\"title\">Edie</span>; seven recordings associated with <span class=\"title\">West of Eden</span> interview subjects; and ten recordings relating to Stein's friends and family, including videotape transfers of the Stein family's home movies from the 1940s.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/24576#c1562961'>Series V: Films</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1941-1972</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>24 video recordings</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This collection contains 189 film reels and trims, some of which are identified as being from the 1972 film <span class=\"title\">Ciao! Manhattan</span> (the unidentified films and trims may also be from <span class=\"title\">Ciao! Manhattan</span>), in which Edie Sedgwick played a character based on herself. There is also one film of home movies taken by Jules Stein.</p></div></li></ul>\n", "type"=>"arrangement"}
- processinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Processed by <span class=\"name\">Diana Bertolini</span> in <span class=\"date\">2019</span>.</p>"}
- accessrestrict
-
{"value"=>"<p>Contact the Manuscripts and Archives division (manuscripts@nypl.org) with questions regarding access to audio and moving image materials.</p>"}
- date_start
-
1916
- keydate
-
1916
- date_end
-
2016
- date_inclusive_start
-
1916
- date_inclusive_end
-
2016
- extent_statement
-
122.13 linear feet (282 boxes, 4 volumes). 1,368 audio recordings. 42 moving image recordings
- prefercite
-
{"value"=>"Jean Stein papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library"}