{"value"=>"<p>The office files consist of correspondence and subject files, publicity materials, management files, touring files, repertoire lists, awards and honors, an oral history, speech texts, and film/television scripts, among other items. The correspondence is with a wide array of friends, colleagues and people with whom Peters and her husband/manager Bert Fields were doing business. Among the friends and colleagues with significant correspondence are Jan Peerce, Max Rudolf (whose letters contain musical performance suggestions), and Charles Nelson Reilly. The subject files document performances or other events held in particular locations or associated with particular people or organizations. These include Peters's activities with Jewish and other charities, and her role in the National Council on the Arts and advocacy for the National Endowment for the Arts. The White House files document Peters's invitations to and/or performances in the White House for Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton. Publicity materials are mainly filed under biographies. One biographical essay, A Debut At The Met, is filed under its author, Louis Biancolli.</p> <p>The bulk of the documents are concerned with the Metropolitan Opera; Peters's agents and managers, Sol Hurok and ICM Artists, Ltd.; and her concert tours. The Met files list all her appearances from 1950 to 1972, highlighting special occasions such as the anniversaries of her debut with the company and her activities with the Metropolitan Opera Association, the Metropolitan Opera Club and the Metropolitan Opera Guild. Documents include information on her tours with the company in the late 1950s. The Hurok and ICM Artists files contain correspondence between the managers and local presenters and between management and Peters regarding her career and performances. Executed contracts for her appearances, repertoire lists and other managerial correspondence are held here. (Contracts not negotiated by either Hurok or ICM are in box 12, folder 2.) Other managerial and business figures with files in this series include managers Thea Dispeker, Jim Murtha (filed under Gurtman and Murtha), Phil Schapiro and the William Morris Agency; Lester Lewis and Norman Reich, who represented her for commercial endorsements; publicists Lillian Libman and Maurice Feldman; and Harold Stern, the attorney for Peters and her husband.</p> <p>The touring files document Peters's United States tours of the late 1950s, her European tours of the 1960s and 1970s, and her trips to China and Japan in the 1980s. These files include presenter and travel correspondence and tour diaries.</p> <p>The oral history transcript in this series was produced by the William E. Weiner Oral History Library of The American Jewish Committee. That transcript, along with the collection of speech texts (which includes an index of speeches), provides many biographical details and reflections on Peters's career, performances and music industry matters.</p> <p>Portions of this collection were originally donated to Ithaca College. Those files document Peters's involvement with that institution, including a scholarship that she funded, as well as a partial history and description of this collection.</p>"}