Scope and arrangement
The Anna Sosenko papers (1868-2000) document Sosenko's career as an artist manager, event producer, and collector of art and theater memorabilia through photographs, letters, subject files, scores, and posters.
Photographs comprise the bulk of the collection. They are divided into sections on Hildegarde and Sosenko. The loose photographs of Hildegarde mainly depict the singer, guest artists, and friends on her radio program Hildegarde's Raleigh Room (1945-1947). Guests shown include Tallulah Bankhead, Burgess Meredith, Roddy McDowall, Elaine Stritch, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine, Clifton Webb, Ben Hecht, Gene Krupa, Hank Greenberg, Ned Sparks, Arthur Schwartz, Bert Lahr, and Elliott and Faye Roosevelt. There are also 1950 photographs of Hildegarde in Paris with Dorothy Kilgallen, Elizabeth Taylor, and Jacques Dumesnil; and an album of performance photographs in Chicago in the 1950s.
Sosenko's photographs contain images of events she produced, as well as of family and private events. Events with dedicated photo albums include tributes to Joshua Logan (1975); Mary Martin and Ethel Merman (1978); and Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe (1980). Also present are images of Sosenko's Shubert exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York (1976); unidentified events at the Museum; and the Songwriters Hall of Fame ceremony of 1977, which has a program signed by Howard Dietz, Jule Styne, Hoagy Carmichael, Oscar Brand, Harold Rome, Meredith Willson, and Louis Alter. The single scrapbook contains notes and clippings regarding the Shubert exhibit.
Sosenko's private photographs include her 1979 birthday party, as well as family events. Guests included Diana Rigg, Kitty Carlisle, Sylvia Fine, George Balanchine, Maureen O'Sullivan, Mary Martin, Martha Graham, Zero Mostel, Cyril Ritchard, Barbara Walters, Beverly Sills, Virgil Thomson, Placido Domingo, Agnes de Mille, Helen Hayes, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Laurence Olivier, Ethel Merman, and Myrna Loy.
Letters to Sosenko are from Bobby Short, Alan Jay Lerner, Edward Choate, Mary Martin, Ervin Drake, Frances Spingold, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Greer Garson, Fannie Hurst, Joshua Logan, Morton Gould, and Polly Bergen.
The papers also hold a small portion of Sosenko's collected letters and theater memorabilia. These include letters to the theatrical attorney L. Arnold Weissburger from Roald Dahl, Patricia Neal, Sammy Cahn, Hugh Wheeler, and Barbara Walters. Other collected letters are from Cornelia Otis Skinner, Mary Anderson, Rubin Goldmark, William Faversham, Ada Rehan, Joseph Jefferson, and P.G. Wodehouse. Sosenko's collection also holds photographs of the actors Julie Harris, Boris Karloff, Alfred Hunt, Jose Ferrer, Mary Frances Scott-Siddons, Billy Dee Williams, and Maude Brauscombe. Some photographs date from the mid-19th century, as do collected theater programs. Sosenko's art collection (as well as Hildegarde's) is represented by photographs of works on public display, as well as in Sosenko's apartment.
The subject files include a folder of biographical information about Sosenko; Hildegarde souvenir books and letters written to the singer regarding Sosenko's death; published song scores and a manuscript by Sosenko; correspondence with the writer Irving Stone about possible adaptations of his work; Sosenko's proposals and plot synopses for television or stage production; and memorabilia regarding events she produced from the 1970s to the early 1990s. These include programs, clippings, letters, and posters (one of which is signed by Ethel Merman).
Arrangement
The papers are in four sections: Collections of Art and Theater Memorabilia; Letters; Photographs and Scrapbook; and other files.