Scope and arrangement
The Jean Stein papers (1916-2016) document Stein's career and life through research files, interview transcripts, drafts, correspondence, and photographs. The works most extensively documented here are Stein's oral history biography of the American actress and Andy Warhol muse, Edie Sedgwick, Edie: An American Biography, (1982) (reprinted in 1994 as Edie: American Girl); and the oral history West of Eden: An American Place, which focused on five families and individuals Stein considered essential to the history of Los Angeles: the Dohenys; the Warners; Jane Garland; Jennifer Jones; and her own family, the Steins. Personal files document Stein's childhood of wealth and privilege as the daughter of talent agent and MCA founder, Jules Stein; her adult life as a socialite and later a member of New York's intellectual elite; and her marriages to diplomat William vanden Heuvel and scientist Torsten Wiesel. This collection is arranged into five series: Series I: Writings (with three subseries for Edie, West of Eden, and Other Writings and Editorial Projects); Series II: Personal Files (including personal correspondence, files on friends and family, and Stein's correspondence with William Faulkner); Series III: Audio Recordings; Series IV: Video Recordings; and Series V: Films.
The Jean Stein papers are arranged in five series:
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1916-201698.33 linear feet (235 boxes, 3 volumes)
Files on writings are mostly made up of files on Stein's books Edie and West of Eden. They document Stein's process of creating a book composed entirely of oral history through research, conducting interviews, selecting and arranging excerpts, editing, revising, selecting photographs, promoting the book, and the response to the book. These files include research files, drafts, photographs, book components, reviews, articles, and letters. Research files consist of collected notes, articles, photocopies copies of primary documents, and interview transcripts. Stein conducted many interviews with prominent individuals that were not published in her book (and from those that were, only selections were published), so the majority of the interviews in this series are unpublished. This series also contains materials on book structure and planning, that provide insight into how Stein managed the massive task of researching and organizing her books with outlines, overviews, chronologies, lists of people to interview, interview questions, and notes.
Other writing and editorial projects consist of files on topics for proposed and completed articles, screenplays, plays, books, and the literary/visual arts magazine, Grand Street, which Stein co-edited from 1990 to 2004. Included with these projects is Stein's first book, American Journey: The Times of Robert Kennedy, which is not substantially represented in this collection. Other topics Stein researched extensively include nightlife in Cuba in the 1950s, political activist Angela Davis, Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti, writer and socialite Alice Roosevelt Longworth, national security and surveillance, novelist and screenwriter Terry Southern, and cartoonist and illustrator Saul Steinberg. Files on these and other subjects contain research, notes, interviews, correspondence, drafts, and completed writings.
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1930-201519.79 linear feet (50 boxes, 1 volume)
Stein's personal life is documented through letters, photographs, legal documents, scrapbooks, articles, and other documents. The largest section of Series II is the run of Friends and Family Files, in which letters, articles, and photographs are arranged by name. These files, arranged by Stein or her assistants, cover the years 1959 to 2015. Some files contain only one note, clipping, letter, or photograph, while others are more extensive. In many cases these include research materials. Many of the individuals who became the subjects of Stein's research and writing projects were also her personal friends, so there is a significant overlap between Series I and the Friends and Family Files and Correspondence sections of Series II.
Personal correspondence most extensively documents a period of Stein's life during the mid-1950s, when she lived as a wealthy ex-patriate in Europe and befriended many prominent artists, writers, and composers in Europe and America. Her correspondents from this period include Leonard Bernstein, Charles Brackett, Aaron Copland, Cheryl Crawford, Nicholas Nabokov, Harold Prince, Ned Rorem, Madeline Sherwood, Stephen Sondheim, and Terry Southern. Correspondence also includes many letters between Stein and her parents and other family members. Later correspondence is also included here, but many of Stein's letters from 1970 and later are filed with friends and family files or the alphabetical research files on Edie and West of Eden.
There are also 121 letters, notes, and telegrams Stein received from novelist William Faulkner, with whom she had a romantic relationship, between 1954 and 1962. Some of the Faulkner letters contain original drawings and photographs. Files on Faulkner include research materials, interview transcripts, notes, drafts and manuscripts for "The Art of Fiction," Stein's 1956 article on Faulkner for The Paris Review. There are also autographed copies of two Faulkner novels with personal inscriptions to Stein and other autographed gifts.
Photographs of Stein and her family and friends include loose photographs, photographs organized in scrapbooks, and baby books.
Legal and financial files document the position of Stein's family and the inheritance she received from her parents and MCA. Business correspondence, financial reports, wills, trusts, marriage and divorce papers, and other documents are included here.
Personal files also document Stein's role as a woman of high social station. There are address books and rolodexes; Christmas gift lists and lists of gift ideas; files on leisure activities such as boating, concerts, operas, and shopping; files on home renovations and interior decorating; extensive files on dinners and other social events; and the 1951 Debutante Register.
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1941-2008
The 1,380 sound recordings in this collection consist mainly of interviews Stein conducted as research for Edie and West of Eden. There are also audiotaped interviews pertaining to Stein's other writing and research projects and some audio recordings related to her to her personal life.
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1974-2012
Video recordings consist of one videotaped interview from Edie; seven recordings associated with West of Eden interview subjects; and ten recordings relating to Stein's friends and family, including videotape transfers of the Stein family's home movies from the 1940s.
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1941-1972
This collection contains 189 film reels and trims, some of which are identified as being from the 1972 film Ciao! Manhattan (the unidentified films and trims may also be from Ciao! Manhattan), in which Edie Sedgwick played a character based on herself. There is also one film of home movies taken by Jules Stein.