Loading...
Creator
Morgan, Marion
Call number
(S) *MGZMD 374
Physical description
.52 linear feet (1 box, 1 oversized folder)
Preferred Citation

Marion Morgan papers, (S) *MGZMD 374. Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library.

Repository
Jerome Robbins Dance Division
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.

Marion Morgan was a choreographer, dancer, and writer. The Marion Morgan papers (1909-1930s) contain Morgan's writings, including articles about dance and film, and scenarios and scripts for dances, films, and plays. The collection also contains a small amount of promotional material and personal records such as photographs.

Biographical/historical information

Marion Morgan was a choreographer, dancer, and writer. She was director of the Marion Morgan Dancers, who performed pantomime dance dramas on the vaudeville circuit from the mid-1910s until the mid-1920s, when Morgan began to focus on film production. In addition to creating choreography for dance sequences in movies, she staged and directed her own dance films and other short films, and wrote scenarios for film.

Morgan lived with film director Dorothy Arzner from 1930 until Morgan's death in 1971.

Scope and arrangement

The Marion Morgan papers contain Morgan's writings and other material related to Morgan's career, as well as a small amount of personal records. The papers date from 1909 to the 1930s.

Morgan's writings mostly date to the 1920s, and consist of scenarios and scripts for dances, films, and plays, and her articles and notes. Subjects of her articles include the health and spiritual benefits of dance, contemporary developments in classical dance, the transition to sound film, and dance in the movies. The collection also contains two full scripts for theatrical plays, titled Wagner and Over a Garden Wall. A 1928 letter from Morgan to William Le Baron discusses her desire to work in film, her qualifications, and her ideas for musical films.

The collection also contains pamphlets for a 1919 course Morgan taught in dance and pantomime, and a promotional card from a vaudeville theater.

Personal materials in the collection include a small number of photographs of Morgan, her mother (Emily Cahill), Dorothy Arzner, and others; Cahill's will; and legal documents and maps related to Cahill's property in Ronkonkoma and Babylon, Long Island.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Donated by Ursula Scott-Larsen, 1986.

Processing information

Compiled by Kit Fluker, 2014

Using the collection

Location

Jerome Robbins Dance Division
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-7498
Third Floor

Conditions Governing Use

The author/creator retains copyright of materials. For information on obtaining permission to publish, contact the Dance Division at dance@nypl.org.