TABLE OF CONTENTS

Descriptive Summary of the Collection

Administrative Information

Biography of Marion Cummings

Scope and Content of the Collection

Organization

Selected Search Terms

Container List

Series 1: Marion Cummings Miscellaneous Correspondence, Poems, Photographs, Philosophical Writings, ca. 1900-ca. 1925

Series 2: Sara Teasdale Material, ca.1909-1914

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Inventory of the Marion Cummings Papers 1900-1956 The Newberry Library Roger and Julie Baskes Department of Special Collections 60 West Walton Street Chicago, Illinois 60610-7324 USA Phone: 312-255-3506 Fax: 312-255-3646 E-Mail: specialcolls@newberry.org URL: http://www.newberry.org Machine-readable finding aid encoded by Lisa Janssen, 2003. ©2000.

Administrative Information

Cite As

Marion Cummings Papers, Midwest Manuscript Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago.

Provenance

Gift of Dr. Henry Slonimsky, second husband of Marion Cummings, 1956.

Processed by

Amy Nyholm, 1957; Virginia H. Smith, 2000.

Acknowledgements

This inventory was created with the generous support of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this inventory do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Access

The Marion Cummings Papers are open for research in the Special Collections Reading Room; 1 box at a time (Priority III).

Ownership and Literary Rights

The Marion Cummings Papers are the physical property of the Newberry Library. Copyright may belong to the authors or their legal heirs or assigns. For permission to publish or reproduce any materials from this collection, contact the Roger and Julie Baskes Department of Special Collections.

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Biography of Marion Cummings

American college professor and scholar; writer of philosophical works and poetry.

Alice Marion Cummings was born in California in 1876 where she lived until she obtained a teaching post at the University of Arizona. She taught philosophy, psychology and the history of education until 1914, and most of her poetic work was done during this period. In 1913 Cummings divorced her first husband, Bruce Stanley, and after settling in the East, in 1916 she married Dr. Henry Slonimsky. She had a serious and idealistic mind and while continuing to write lyric poetry, she worked hard on developing the philosophical ideas which reflected her humanitarian concerns about the state and future of mankind. She compiled two anthologies of poetry, wrote a book on evolution entitled A Book of Life, a study on the Book of Job and some fragments on her interests in the Far East, but none of this work was ever published. However, a number of her poems appeared in such periodicals as The Smart Set, Harper's, Commonwealth, Lippincott's, and The Forum, and thirty years after her death in 1925, Dr. Slonimsky privately produced a slim memorial edition of her poems.

An important aspect of Marion Cummings's life was her short but extremely intense friendship with the poet Sara Teasdale, which began in Arizona in 1908. Teasdale visited Cummings in Tucson for some months and later referred to her as her "best friend." The two had much in common in their intellectual interests and writing, frail health and gentle personalities. Cummings, being the elder, served as a model and an inspiration for Teasdale, who dedicated several poems to her. When eventually distanced from one another, they continued their friendship through frequent letters.

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Scope and Content of the Collection

Copies of poems, unpublished anthologies and prose works of Marion Cummings; 14 poems and 31 letters and 3 postcards from Sara Teasdale to Marion Cummings, dating from February 13, 1909 to May 4, 1914; a few miscellaneous documents relating to Cummings's work; and a small collection of photographs, including some of Teasdale.

Narrative descriptions of the subject matter, types of material, and arrangement of each series are available through the organization section of the finding aid.

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Organization

Papers are organized in the following series:

• Series 1: Marion Cummings Miscellaneous Correspondence, Poems, Photographs, Philosophical Writings, ca. 1900-ca. 1925. Box(es) 1-2
• Series 2: Sara Teasdale Material, ca.1909-1914. Box(es) 3

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Selected Search Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Newberry Library's public catalog. Researchers desiring additional materials on a particular topic should search the catalog using these headings.

Names

• Carpenter, Margaret Haley
• Cummings, Marion, 1876-1926
• Kennerley, Mitchell, 1878-1950
• Teasdale, Sara, 1884-1933
• University of Arizona--Faculty--History--20th century--Sources

Subjects

• Correspondence, 1909-1914
• Female friendship--United States--History--20th century--Sources
• Manuscripts, American
• Philosophy teachers--Arizona--History--20th century--Sources
• Photographs, 1900-1925
• Poems, 1900-1925
• Women college teachers--Arizona--History--20th century--Sources
• Women poets, American--History--20th century--Sources

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Container List