Scope and arrangement
The Walter Terry papers, Additions date from 1909 to 1981 (bulk 1936-1978) and contain manuscripts, correspondence, ephemera, photographs, accolades, and research materials related to Terry's work as a dance writer and critic and to his activities with various dance organizations.
The collection is arranged in the following three groupings: Correspondence, Ephemera, and Research Material; Manuscripts; and Degrees, Accolades, and Photographs.
Correspondence consists mainly of letters to Terry and advance book proofs, though some copies of outgoing letters are also present. Subjects of the correspondence include Terry's reviews, requests for promotional comments and quotes, and news about dancers and their work. Terry's correspondents are dancers, educators, book editors, and other colleagues, including Little, Brown and Company Publishers; Lincoln Kirstein; Doris Humphrey; Reginald and Gladys Laubin; and Miriam Winslow. Of note is an annotated photocopy of the advance proof of Bronislava Nijinska: Early Memoirs translated and edited by Irina Nijinska and Jean Rawlinson with inserted editorial pages. The proof includes a note and brief description of the book project from Donald Hutter, executive editor of Holt, Rinehart, and Winston Publishers.
Ephemera and research materials include programs, promotional material, drawings, clippings, reports, and notes. Subjects of these materials include the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, New York City Ballet, Netherlands Dance Theater, Martha Graham Dance Company, Ballet Rambert, the Royal Ballet, Antonio and the Ballets de Madrid, Ballet Folklórico de México, Bayanihan Philippine Dance Company, Spoleto Festival U.S.A., American Dance Festival, American Ballet Theatre (known as Ballet Theatre until 1957), Isadora Duncan, and dance education. Terry retained copies of line drawings of artists and athletes by Daerick Gross, caricatures of dancers by Alex Gard, copies of the periodicals Focus on Dance and Dance Perspectives, informational ephemera from an Arts in the Church Conference at Duke University, an artists-in-schools dance program narrative report, and a photocopy of The Choreographic Works of Jose Limón (1957) by Juliette Waung. Of note is a program, the Golden Book of Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, commemorating fifty years of Denishawn signed by St. Denis and Shawn to Terry.
Promotional material for Terry's work is also present. The earliest materials in the collection consist of a small amount of publicity material for Adeline Genée, dating from 1909 to the 1910s.
The collection contains responses to surveys conducted by Terry regarding dance education in American schools. Terry conducted surveys of colleges and universities in 1940 and 1947, and a survey of public elementary and secondary schools in 1951. The collection also includes some correspondence and other documents regarding Terry's work as dance editor for the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Manuscripts consist of typescripts and a dummy book of Terry's articles and books. Articles from the New York Herald Tribune, the Boston Herald, and other periodicals are present, as are some unpublished articles. Book manuscripts are The Ballet Companion; Be Jubilant, My Feet! (written in the 1940s); Great Male Dancers of the Ballet; Invitation to Dance; Isadora Duncan: Her Life, Her Art, Her Legacy; and Star Performance: The Story of the World's Great Ballerinas. The collection features an annotated 1980 dummy book of Alicia and Her Ballet Nacional de Cuba. Some of the manuscripts are incomplete. A partial manuscript of Kirsten Ralov's The Bournonville School, for which Terry did some editing and wrote an introduction, is also present.
The collection also encompasses Terry's earned and honorary degrees and accolades from universities, mayors, and the Queen of Denmark commending Terry's work teaching the history of dance and dance advocacy. There is a collage from one of Terry's World War II lecture demonstrations and photographs of dancers and Terry's house.