- physdesc
-
{"format"=>"simple", "value"=>"100 linear feet (235 boxes)"}
- unitid
-
{"value"=>"*T-Mss 1969-003", "type"=>"local_call"}
{"value"=>"21570", "type"=>"local_mss"}
- unittitle
-
{"value"=>"Elaine Sterne Carrington papers"}
- repository
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{"value"=>"Billy Rose Theatre Division. The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts."}
- abstract
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{"value"=>"Papers of writer Elaine Sterne Carrington. The collection includes a fairly inclusive collection of her writings of books, television, theater and radio scripts."}
- prefercite
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{"value"=>"<p>Elaine Sterne Carrington Papers, *T-Mss 1969-003, Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts</p>"}
- origination
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{"value"=>"Carrington, Elaine Sterne", "type"=>"persname"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p>Elaine Sterne Carrington was a highly successful writer of radio soap operas that reflected her personal philosophy, moral vision and the hopes of her time. Flourishing from the 1930s through the 1950s, and basing her stories on her own experiences, she saw the state of marriage as perfect happiness for a woman (any problems within it were her own fault) and viewed the family as the bedrock institution for American life.</p> <p>A writer and storyteller since childhood, Carrington sold her first short story, <span class=\"title\">The King of the Christmas Feast</span>, to <span class=\"title\">St. Nicholas Magazine</span> at age thirteen. At age nineteen her movie scenario, <span class=\"title\">Sins of the Mothers</span>, won first prize in a contest sponsored by the Vitagraph Company and the <span class=\"title\">New York Evening Sun</span>. By her early twenties, her stories were appearing in numerous magazines including <span class=\"title\">Harper's</span>, <span class=\"title\">Colliers</span>, <span class=\"title\">Good Housekeeping</span>, <span class=\"title\">Pictorial Review</span>, <span class=\"title\">Woman's Home Companion</span>, <span class=\"title\">McCall's</span>, <span class=\"title\">Red Book</span> and <span class=\"title\">The Saturday Evening Post</span>. She co-wrote a Broadway play, <span class=\"title\">Nightstick</span>, which was made into the movie, <span class=\"title\">Alibi</span>, and she wrote a number of one-act plays for vaudeville including <span class=\"title\">A Good Provider</span>, <span class=\"title\">The Red Hat</span>, <span class=\"title\">Five Minutes from the Station</span>, and <span class=\"title\">Fear</span>.</p> <p>Carrington's career really took off in 1932 when NBC bought her first daytime serial, <span class=\"title\">Red Adams</span>, which became Red Davis with Burgess Meredith in 1934 and was renamed <span class=\"title\">Pepper Young's Family</span> in 1936, each name change reflecting a change of corporate sponsorship. In 1939 she began <span class=\"title\">When a Girl Marries</span>, also for NBC. This was followed in 1944 by <span class=\"title\">Rosemary</span> for CBS. In 1946 she was the highest paid scriptwriter on radio earning $200,000 a year for three soap operas. Called the queen of the soaps, she had a combined daily audience estimated at nine million in 1948, later revised upward to eleven million. Each show ran five times a week for fifteen minutes. Carrington outlined her stories three weeks in advance and then dictated her scripts into a dictaphone with her secretary, Elsie Frank, transcribing them. Apparently, they required little revision.</p> <p>Carrington also published a novel, <span class=\"title\">The Road of Ambition</span> (1917) and a collection of her short stories, <span class=\"title\">All Things Considered</span> (1939). Her full-length plays, produced in summer theaters, include <span class=\"title\">Villa at Cannes</span> (1933), <span class=\"title\">Remember Me?</span> (1953), <span class=\"title\">Maggie, Pack Your Bags</span> (1954), and <span class=\"title\">The Empress</span>, a comedy produced in Westport, Connecticut in 1955 with Geraldine Page. In 1946 she sponsored <span class=\"title\">The Carrington Playhouse</span> which produced original plays by new writers. She also wrote patriotic scripts for the Treasury Department during the war and comedies and dramas for television programs such as the <span class=\"title\">Robert Montgomery Playhouse</span> in the postwar period.</p> <p>Carrington was born Elaine Sterne in New York City on June 14, 1891 and was educated at Columbia University. Her parents were Marie Louise Henriques and Theodore Sterne, a tobacco importer. She married George Dart Carrington, a lawyer and army major, on March 23, 1920. He died in 1945. They had two children, Patricia and Robert, and lived in Brooklyn Heights and Bridgehampton, Long Island. Elaine Sterne Carrington died on May 4, 1958 in New York City.</p>"}
- custodhist
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{"value"=>"<p>The collection was donated to the Billy Rose Theatre Division of the New York Public Library by Elaine Carrington's daughter, Patricia Carrington.</p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p>The bulk of this collection consists of bound radio scripts (clean typescripts) for Carrington's popular daytime serials: <span class=\"title\">Pepper Young's Family</span> (1936-1959), <span class=\"title\">When a Girl Marries</span> (1939-1957), and <span class=\"title\">Rosemary</span>(1944-1955). There are also bound scripts for a few short radio serials as well as her <span class=\"title\">Carrington Playhouse</span> in which she produced original plays by new playwrights. Also included is an extensive collection of her unbound scripts and stories for radio, magazine, the theater and television, arranged alphabetically by title. These are typescript for the most part, in various drafts, some with handwritten annotations. The collection also contains publicity and fan mail for the novel, <span class=\"title\">The Road of Ambition</span>, which Carrington published early in her career and for her collection of short stories, <span class=\"title\">All Things Considered</span>. The other series in the collection: personal papers, clippings, correspondence and speeches and interviews, though small, round out the collection by providing biographical information on Carrington. They also touch on some of the controversies her work raised such as the issues of radio censorship and the effect of daytime radio soap operas on national morale during World War II.</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p class='list-head'>The Elaine Sterne Carrington papers are arranged in nine series:</p>\n<ul class='arrangement series-descriptions'>\n<li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21570#c310970'>Series I: Personal Papers</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>ca. 1903-1958</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>8 folders</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series contains biographical information on Carrington including press releases; publicity; citations; autobiographical writings; a photograph of her; a souvenir album presented to her from the cast of <span class=\"title\">Pepper Young's Family</span>; two notebooks she kept, one containing her first novel written at age twelve; and a draft transcription of her memorial service.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21570#c310980'>Series II: Speeches, interviews and essays</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>ca. 1937-1955</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>5 folders</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series contains transcriptions of speeches by Carrington, radio interviews with her, and an essay she wrote against radio censorship.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21570#c310986'>Series III: Correspondence</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1915-1959</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>25 folders</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series contains incoming and outgoing letters on both personal and professional matters as well as some third party correspondence. Correspondents include Fanny Brice and Helen Hayes. Also includes correspondence about copyright with the registrations themselves and reports on the effect of daytime radio serials on national morale during World War II.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21570#c311012'>Series IV: Book and other projects</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1916-1946</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>7 folders</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series contains publicity and fan mail on Carrington's books, <span class=\"title\">The Road of Ambition</span> and <span class=\"title\">All Things Considered</span> and on her radio show, <span class=\"title\">The Carrington Playhouse</span>.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21570#c311022'>Series V: Clippings from scrapbooks</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1927-1954</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>1 box</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series contains clippings about Elaine Carrington's life and career that were mounted into scrapbooks and have now been photocopied onto acid-free paper.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21570#c311024'>Series VI: Unbound scripts, stories and other writings</a></div>\n<div class='series-extent'>27 boxes</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Typescripts by Elaine Carrington arranged alphabetically by title, followed by untitled and then files she called proposed television series and finally, unfinished files.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21570#c311446'>Series VII: Writings by others</a></div>\n<div class='series-extent'>1 box</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Scripts and stories by others including Carrington's husband, George and daughter, Patricia, that were interfiled with her own writings.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21570#c311472'>Series VIII: Bound scripts</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1932-1959</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>202 boxes</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series consists of bound scripts for the following radio serials: <span class=\"title\">Pepper Young's Family</span> (plus earlier versions: <span class=\"title\">Red Adams</span> and <span class=\"title\">Red Davis</span>), <span class=\"title\">When a Girl Marries</span>, <span class=\"title\">Rosemary</span>, <span class=\"title\">Trouble House</span> of <span class=\"title\">Heinz Magazine of the Air</span>, <span class=\"title\">Marriage for Two</span>, <span class=\"title\">Forever Young</span>, the <span class=\"title\">Carrington Playhouse</span>, and the television serial, <span class=\"title\">Follow your Heart</span>. Material relating to most of these titles can also be found in Series VII: Unbound scripts, stories and other writings.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21570#c311684'>Series IX: Oversized materials</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1931-1959</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>2 boxes</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series consists of magazine copies and publisher's proofs of Carrington's stories to be included in <span class=\"title\">All Things Considered</span>, two awards won by <span class=\"title\">Pepper Young's Family</span>, and an ink and wash cartoon by Helen E. Hokinson inscribed to Elaine Carrington.</p></div></li></ul>\n", "type"=>"arrangement"}
- arrangement
-
{"value"=>"<p>The collection is organized into 9 series. They are: <ul> <li>Series I - Personal papers</li> <li>Series II - Speeches, interviews and essays</li> <li>Series III - Correspondence</li> <li>Series IV - Book and other projects</li> <li>Series V - Clippings from scrapbooks</li> <li>Series VI - Unbound scripts, stories and other writings</li> <li>Series VII - Writings by others</li> <li>Series VIII - Bound scripts</li> <li>Series IX - Oversized materials</li></ul></p>", "supress_display"=>true}
- processinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Processed by Elisabeth Elkind.</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p>The collection was processed and cataloged in 2001. Some of the material was formerly cataloged as MWEZ 21696-699.</p>"}
- accessrestrict
-
{"value"=>"<p>Photocopying prohibited.</p>"}
- userestrict
-
{"value"=>"<p>For permission to publish, contact the Curator, Billy Rose Theatre Division.</p>"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"1903-1959", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1903/1959"}
- date_inclusive_start
-
1903
- date_inclusive_end
-
1959
- acqinfo
-
{"materials"=>"Papers", "source"=>"Patricia Carrington", "method"=>"gift", "extent"=>"235 o", "value"=>"Papers: gift, Patricia Carrington"}
- keydate
-
1903
- date_start
-
1903
- date_end
-
1959