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Creator
Carrington, Elaine Sterne
Call number
*T-Mss 1969-003
Physical description
100 linear feet (235 boxes)
Preferred Citation

Elaine Sterne Carrington Papers, *T-Mss 1969-003, Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Repository
Billy Rose Theatre Division
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.Restrictions apply

Papers of writer Elaine Sterne Carrington. The collection includes a fairly inclusive collection of her writings of books, television, theater and radio scripts.

Biographical/historical information

Elaine Sterne Carrington was a highly successful writer of radio soap operas that reflected her personal philosophy, moral vision and the hopes of her time. Flourishing from the 1930s through the 1950s, and basing her stories on her own experiences, she saw the state of marriage as perfect happiness for a woman (any problems within it were her own fault) and viewed the family as the bedrock institution for American life.

A writer and storyteller since childhood, Carrington sold her first short story, The King of the Christmas Feast, to St. Nicholas Magazine at age thirteen. At age nineteen her movie scenario, Sins of the Mothers, won first prize in a contest sponsored by the Vitagraph Company and the New York Evening Sun. By her early twenties, her stories were appearing in numerous magazines including Harper's, Colliers, Good Housekeeping, Pictorial Review, Woman's Home Companion, McCall's, Red Book and The Saturday Evening Post. She co-wrote a Broadway play, Nightstick, which was made into the movie, Alibi, and she wrote a number of one-act plays for vaudeville including A Good Provider, The Red Hat, Five Minutes from the Station, and Fear.

Carrington's career really took off in 1932 when NBC bought her first daytime serial, Red Adams, which became Red Davis with Burgess Meredith in 1934 and was renamed Pepper Young's Family in 1936, each name change reflecting a change of corporate sponsorship. In 1939 she began When a Girl Marries, also for NBC. This was followed in 1944 by Rosemary for CBS. In 1946 she was the highest paid scriptwriter on radio earning $200,000 a year for three soap operas. Called the queen of the soaps, she had a combined daily audience estimated at nine million in 1948, later revised upward to eleven million. Each show ran five times a week for fifteen minutes. Carrington outlined her stories three weeks in advance and then dictated her scripts into a dictaphone with her secretary, Elsie Frank, transcribing them. Apparently, they required little revision.

Carrington also published a novel, The Road of Ambition (1917) and a collection of her short stories, All Things Considered (1939). Her full-length plays, produced in summer theaters, include Villa at Cannes (1933), Remember Me? (1953), Maggie, Pack Your Bags (1954), and The Empress, a comedy produced in Westport, Connecticut in 1955 with Geraldine Page. In 1946 she sponsored The Carrington Playhouse which produced original plays by new writers. She also wrote patriotic scripts for the Treasury Department during the war and comedies and dramas for television programs such as the Robert Montgomery Playhouse in the postwar period.

Carrington was born Elaine Sterne in New York City on June 14, 1891 and was educated at Columbia University. Her parents were Marie Louise Henriques and Theodore Sterne, a tobacco importer. She married George Dart Carrington, a lawyer and army major, on March 23, 1920. He died in 1945. They had two children, Patricia and Robert, and lived in Brooklyn Heights and Bridgehampton, Long Island. Elaine Sterne Carrington died on May 4, 1958 in New York City.

Scope and arrangement

The bulk of this collection consists of bound radio scripts (clean typescripts) for Carrington's popular daytime serials: Pepper Young's Family (1936-1959), When a Girl Marries (1939-1957), and Rosemary(1944-1955). There are also bound scripts for a few short radio serials as well as her Carrington Playhouse in which she produced original plays by new playwrights. Also included is an extensive collection of her unbound scripts and stories for radio, magazine, the theater and television, arranged alphabetically by title. These are typescript for the most part, in various drafts, some with handwritten annotations. The collection also contains publicity and fan mail for the novel, The Road of Ambition, which Carrington published early in her career and for her collection of short stories, All Things Considered. The other series in the collection: personal papers, clippings, correspondence and speeches and interviews, though small, round out the collection by providing biographical information on Carrington. They also touch on some of the controversies her work raised such as the issues of radio censorship and the effect of daytime radio soap operas on national morale during World War II.

The Elaine Sterne Carrington papers are arranged in nine series:

  • Series I: Personal Papers
    ca. 1903-1958
    8 folders

    This series contains biographical information on Carrington including press releases; publicity; citations; autobiographical writings; a photograph of her; a souvenir album presented to her from the cast of Pepper Young's Family; two notebooks she kept, one containing her first novel written at age twelve; and a draft transcription of her memorial service.

  • Series II: Speeches, interviews and essays
    ca. 1937-1955
    5 folders

    This series contains transcriptions of speeches by Carrington, radio interviews with her, and an essay she wrote against radio censorship.

  • Series III: Correspondence
    1915-1959
    25 folders

    This series contains incoming and outgoing letters on both personal and professional matters as well as some third party correspondence. Correspondents include Fanny Brice and Helen Hayes. Also includes correspondence about copyright with the registrations themselves and reports on the effect of daytime radio serials on national morale during World War II.

  • Series IV: Book and other projects
    1916-1946
    7 folders

    This series contains publicity and fan mail on Carrington's books, The Road of Ambition and All Things Considered and on her radio show, The Carrington Playhouse.

  • Series V: Clippings from scrapbooks
    1927-1954
    1 box

    This series contains clippings about Elaine Carrington's life and career that were mounted into scrapbooks and have now been photocopied onto acid-free paper.

  • Series VI: Unbound scripts, stories and other writings
    27 boxes

    Typescripts by Elaine Carrington arranged alphabetically by title, followed by untitled and then files she called proposed television series and finally, unfinished files.

  • Series VII: Writings by others
    1 box

    Scripts and stories by others including Carrington's husband, George and daughter, Patricia, that were interfiled with her own writings.

  • Series VIII: Bound scripts
    1932-1959
    202 boxes

    This series consists of bound scripts for the following radio serials: Pepper Young's Family (plus earlier versions: Red Adams and Red Davis), When a Girl Marries, Rosemary, Trouble House of Heinz Magazine of the Air, Marriage for Two, Forever Young, the Carrington Playhouse, and the television serial, Follow your Heart. Material relating to most of these titles can also be found in Series VII: Unbound scripts, stories and other writings.

  • Series IX: Oversized materials
    1931-1959
    2 boxes

    This series consists of magazine copies and publisher's proofs of Carrington's stories to be included in All Things Considered, two awards won by Pepper Young's Family, and an ink and wash cartoon by Helen E. Hokinson inscribed to Elaine Carrington.

Administrative information

Custodial history

The collection was donated to the Billy Rose Theatre Division of the New York Public Library by Elaine Carrington's daughter, Patricia Carrington.

Source of acquisition

Papers: gift, Patricia Carrington

Processing information

Processed by Elisabeth Elkind.

The collection was processed and cataloged in 2001. Some of the material was formerly cataloged as MWEZ 21696-699.

Using the collection

Location

Billy Rose Theatre 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 Curator, Billy Rose Theatre Division.

Access restrictions

Photocopying prohibited.