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Creator
Rodgers, Richard, 1902-1979
Call number
JPH 85-5
Physical description
60 v
Language
Materials in English
Preferred Citation

Richard Rodgers scrapbooks, Music Division, The New York Public Library

Repository
Music Division
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.
Portions of this collection have been digitized and are available online.

The Richard Rodgers scrapbooks contain materials collected by Richard Rodgers, generally pertaining to his shows and other professional activities.

Biographical/historical information

As Richard Rodgers's life is well-documented in many reference sources, only a basic outline is provided here.

Richard Rodgers, composer and producer, was born in New York on June 28, 1902. He composed his first song, My Auto Show Girl when he was fourteen years old. In 1918 Rodgers met his first professional partner, Lorenz Hart. Together they presented their first hit show, The Garrick Gaieties in 1925. In 1929 Rodgers and Hart appeared in a two-reel autobiographical short, Masters of Melody produced by Paramount-Famous-Lasky Corp. and written and directed by S. J. Kaufman. In 1948, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced a biographical film about the professional relationship and career of Rodgers and Hart.

Rodgers teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II in 1942 to produce Oklahoma!. After the death of Lorenz Hart in 1943, Hammerstein became Rodgers' permanent collaborator. They worked together until Hammerstein's death in 1960. Among the works created by Rodgers and Hammerstein are: Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, State Fair, Flower Drum Song, The King and I and Cinderella. Following Hammerstein's death Rodgers continued to produce musicals. In 1962 he wrote both the music and the lyrics for No Strings, and in 1965 he teamed up with Stephen Sondheim on Do I Hear a Waltz? His last musical was an adaptation of John Van Druten's play I Remember Mama which opened on Broadway on May 31, 1979.

Richard Rodgers married Dorothy Feiner in 1930. They had two daughters, Mary and Linda. Richard Rodgers died December 30, 1979.

Scope and arrangement

During the early years of his career Richard Rodgers occasionally kept clippings and other ephemera documenting his career. With the advent of his collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II, Rodgers (or more likely members of his staff) increased their clipping activity covering productions (for which he was a composer as well as those for which he was a producer such as Annie Get Your Gun) and his career in general. This explains why the first 10 scrapbooks cover his the beginnings of his career from 1916 to the death of Lorenz Hart in 1943, but that the remaining 50 scrapbooks (and most of the additional 5 boxes) cover his career after 1943.

It would appear that Rodgers probably had these clippings loose and only at a point later in his career did he (or perhaps his wife) mount them in scrapbooks and attempt to provide a table of contents for each volume. This would explain the scrapbooks' uniformity of appearance from the first through 58th scrapbook (bound in dark blue). Scrapbooks 59 and 60 (bound in a light maroon), containing additional clippings on No Strings, appears to have been a cache of material missed when the collection was initially put together.

It's hard to understand how the five boxes put at the end of the collection fit in, since they contain a variety of loose clippings most which date after 1943 but where not integrated into the scrapbooks.

Rodgers or his staff attempted to create a table of contents for each of the volumes. In some cases each article was inventoried, but in other cases the general contents of the volume are simply listed as the title of a show. These tables of contents are affixed to the inside front cover of each volume and were copied to make this finding aid.

Researchers should not assume that this collection contains all the contemporaneous articles ever written on a show (for example, the reviews for Do I Hear a Waltz are only those with a positive outlook). The tables of contents (from which this finding aid is created) should not be regarded a definitive or even wholly accurate index as occasionally Rodgers inserted articles for shows or other career activities that are not relevant to the stated contents.

Material pertinent to these productions may be found in scrapbooks other than those listed.

Personal and general material may be found throughout the books.

The Richard Rodgers scrapbooks are arranged in two series:

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Donated by Dorothy Rodgers, 1984

Processing information

Finding aid created February 2013

Richard Rodgers scrapbooks, JPH 85-5, Music Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Related Material

Richard Rodgers papers, *T-Mss 1987-006

Richard Rodgers collection of musicals and interviews, *L (89-19)

Richard Rodgers Songs, JPG 86-1

Using the collection

Location

Music 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

For permission to publish, contact the Chief, Music Division, The New York Library for the Performing Arts.