Found 10 collections related to Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis), 1880-1956

The Lillian Gish papers (75 lf.) span the years 1909-1992 and consist of correspondence including letters from friends, family, fans and business associates, personal papers, business, legal and financial documents, scripts, writings, photographs including early D.W. Griffith silent film photographs both candid shots taken during shooting and film stills, portraits by famous photographers, personal and family photographs, publicity and production photographs and snapshots, scrapbooks on the careers of both Dorothy and Lillian Gish, programs for early silent films and theatrical productions, clippings and ephemera that document the life and career of Lillian and Dorothy Gish from the early 1900's until Lillian's death in 1993. less

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), journalist, author and critic, worked as a reporter and drama critic for the Baltimore Morning Herald from 1899 to 1906. From 1906 to the end of his working career he was at the Baltimore Evening Sun where he wrote the column "Free Lance" in which he expressed his views on literature, politics and society. He was book review editor for the magazine Smart Set from 1908 to 1924 when he started a new magazine, American Mercury, a journal of sociology and politics. He retired from American Mercury in 1933 and concentrated on writing for the Baltimore Sun and encouraging young literary talent. He also wrote books and articles including his classic, The American Language, which he first published in 1918 and continued revising until 1948. The bulk of the collection is Mencken's correspondence with a wide range of prominent people in the literary, artistic and political world of his time. Remaining papers are literary manuscripts by Mencken and others. Correspondence consists of about 30,000 letters, notes, postcards, and memoranda to and from Mencken. His correspondents include authors, journalists, editors, publishers, politicians, critics, and educators, as well as contributors to The American Language, Smart Set and American Mercury. He also exchanged letters with acquaintances, readers and members of his family. Manuscripts consist of poems and stories written by contemporary authors and two of Mencken's autobiographical works: My Life As Author and Editor, and Thirty-Five Years of Newspaper Work. less

Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) was a writer, promoter of African-American artists during the Harlem Renaissance, patron of the arts, and photographer. After he graduated from the University of Chicago in 1930, he entered upon a career as a reporter for newspapers that included The American in Chicago and within a few years The New York Times. At the latter he served as an overseas correspondent in Paris and subsequently as an assistant to the music critic Richard Aldrich in New York City. Van Vechten moved to New York City in 1906 with his first wife Anna Elizabeth Snyder, a teacher. After his divorce in 1912, Van Vechten met and married the stage actress Fania Marinoff. Marinoff made her stage debut at the age of eight in a stock company, and eventually developed a successful stage career. Van Vechten's novels include The Blind-Bow Boy, Interpreters and Interpretations, Nigger Heaven, Peter Whiffle, Tiger By the Tail, and The Tattooed Countess. Van Vechten promoted the careers of many authors' works by writing introductions to their monographs. In his second successful career as a photographer, he had the opportunity to photograph, and to have himself photographed, with many literary figures, stage and screen stars and others. Papers reflect Van Vechten's social life and professional career as a writer, photographer and patron of the arts; they also document Van Vechten's literary and artistic circle of friends and colleagues. An avid collector, Van Vechten retained the letters of prominent individuals who corresponded with him including Ralph Barton, James Branch Cabell, Arthur Davidson Ficke, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Donald Gallup, Langston Hughes, Edward Jablonski, Klaus Jonas, James Weldon Johnson, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Bruce Kellner, Saul Mauriber, H. L. Mencken, Georgia O'Keeffe, Alfred Stieglitz, Florine Stettheimer, and Henrietta Stettheimer. Papers are also rich in Van Vechten's photographs of prominent individuals, and in 19th century photographs of his family in Iowa. Multiple editions of Van Vechten's monographs and the monographs of others add to the diversity of the papers. Many of the monographs have been autographed by the author. less