 |
Inventory of the Cloyd Head Papers, 1895-1968
Machine-readable finding aid encoded by Andy Steadham, 2006. ©2006. |
Descriptive Summary of the Collection |
|
| Creator | Head, Cloyd S. |
| Title | Cloyd Head Papers |
| Dates | 1895-1968 |
| Extent | 4 cubic ft. (11 boxes, 1 oversize box) |
| Abstract | Writings and correspondence, souvenirs and miscellany of Cloyd Head, Chicago playwright, theatrical director, business manager of the Goodman Theatre and husband of the poet Eunice Tietjens. |
| Language | Materials are in English. |
| Repository | Newberry Library, Roger and Julie Baskes Department of Special Collections |
| Collection Call Number | Midwest MS Head |
| Collection Stack Location | 3a 24 16 |
Administrative Information
Cite As
Cloyd Head Papers, Midwest Manuscript Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago.
Provenance
Gift of Goodman Theatre and Christopher Head (grandson), August 2006.
Processed by
Andy Steadham, 2006.
Access
The Cloyd Head Papers are open for research in the Special Collections Reading Room; 5 folders at a time maximum (Priority II).
Ownership and Literary Rights
The Cloyd Head 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.
Biography of Cloyd Head
Chicago playwright, theatrical director and business manager of the Goodman Theatre.
Cloyd Simmons Head was born in 1886, the son of a Chicago publisher of medical books. He grew up in Oak Park, attended Northwestern University and settled in Chicago.
His published work includes an unusual play in verse, The Grotesques: A Decoration in Black and White, which in 1915 was produced by Maurice Browne’s Chicago Little Theatre and became so widely praised for its poetry and theatrical innovation that Harriet Monroe took the unusual step of devoting an entire issue of Poetry magazine to publishing it. This and other works by Head are representative of the Little Theater movement, which attempted to create and stage new, often experimental plays inspired by issues of social and artistic concern, in contrast to the commercial theatre that dominated most American stages.
In 1920, Head married Eunice Tietjens: poet, novelist, journalist and Associate Editor of Poetry magazine. They had one son, Marshall Head. Cloyd wrote a few more plays and several essays on the theatre and then briefly served as business manager of the Goodman Theatre before resigning, along with artistic director Thomas Wood Stevens, in the wake of disagreements over the theatre’s direction.
For the rest of his life, Cloyd divided his time between Chicago and Coconut Grove, Florida, interspersed with long periods of travel through the South Seas, Europe, the Middle East, Central America and Africa. In the late 1930s he taught theatre at the University of Miami and founded a community theatre group called the Miami Players, with whom he directed several plays. During World War II and into the late 1940s he served as a radio commentator for WMAQ 670 AM in Chicago. In between his travels he often served as a speaker on foreign affairs.
After Eunice’s death in 1944 he married Shirley Haycraft of Florida. They had no children. He died in Chicago in 1969.
Scope and Content of the Collection
Diaries, correspondence, writings and subject files of Cloyd Head.
Includes correspondence and manuscripts documenting the writing, publication and theatrical production of several plays and essays by Cloyd Head, notably The Grotesques; correspondence with Chicago literary and theatrical figures, including Harriet Monroe, Maurice Browne, Thomas Wood Stevens and Cloyd Head’s wife, Eunice Tietjens; notes, correspondence and photographs relating to Goodman Theatre in Chicago and the founding of Cloyd Head’s Miami Players; correspondence and souvenirs from travels throughout Europe, the Middle East, Central America and Africa; correspondence with family and friends. There are also a few professional photographs of actors with the Goodman Theatre and the Miami Players and snapshots of stage productions in Chicago and Florida.
Narrative descriptions of the subject matter, types of material, and arrangement of each series are available through the Organization section of the finding aid.
Organization
Papers are organized in the following series:- Series 1: Diaries, 1903-1954. Box(es) 1-2
- Series 2: Correspondence, 1915-1957. Box(es) 2-4
- Series 3: Works, 1905-1953. Box(es) 4-6
- Series 4: Subject Files, 1895-1968. Box(es) 7-11
- Series 5: Photographs, 1915-1946. Box(es) 11
- Series 6: Oversize Material. Box(es) 12
Return to the Table of Contents
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
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Bodenheim, Maxwell, 1893-1954
- Browne, Maurice, 1881-1955
- Cheney, Sheldon, 1886-1980
- Chicago Little Theatre
- Goodman Theatre (Chicago, Ill.)
- Head, Cloyd S.
- Jonson, Raymond, 1891-1982
- Monroe, Harriet, 1860-1936
- Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.)
- Poetry (Chicago, Ill.)
- Stevens, Thomas Wood, 1880-1942
- Tietjens, Eunice, 1884-1944
- University of Miami
- Year Book Medical Publishers
Subjects
- Actors -- Portraits
- Amateur theater -- Production and direction -- Florida
- Amateur theater -- Production and direction -- Illinois -- Chicago
- Chicago (Ill.) -- Intellectual life -- 20th century
- Chicago (Ill.) -- Social life and customs
- Correspondence -- Florida -- 1914-1965
- Correspondence -- Illinois -- Chicago -- 1914-1965
- Dramatists
- Little theater movement -- Illinois -- Chicago
- Manuscripts, American -- Illinois -- Chicago
- One-act plays, American -- Illinois -- Chicago
- Photographs
- Poets, American -- History -- 20th century -- Sources
- Theater -- Florida -- History -- 20th century -- Sources
- Theater -- Illinois -- Chicago -- History -- 20th Century -- Sources
- Theater -- Production and direction -- Florida
- Theater -- Production and direction -- Illinois -- Chicago
- Theatrical producers and directors -- Florida
- Theatrical producers and directors -- Illinois -- Chicago
Container List
Series 1: Diaries, 1903-1954 |
|||||||||||
| Cloyd Head’s diaries include a notebook detailing his earliest attempts at writing while finishing his last days at Oak Park High School, including a recounting of the Iroquois Theatre Disaster, and his first days at Northwestern University. Later diaries are mostly One Line A Day descriptions of Head’s daily activities, including his wife Eunice Tietjens’s illness, hospitalization and death. | |||||||||||
| Arranged chronologically. | |||||||||||
| Box | Folder | Contents | |||||||||
| 1 | 1 | 1903-1905 | |||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 1934-1954 | |||||||||
| 1 | 3 | 1939-1943 | |||||||||
| 1 | 4 | 1944 | |||||||||
| 1 | 5 | 1945-1949 | |||||||||
| 2 | 6 | January-June, 1950 | |||||||||
| 2 | 7 | July 1950-1954 | |||||||||
Series 2: Correspondence, 1915-1957 |
|||||||||||
| Incoming and outgoing correspondence, mostly pertaining to theatre, family business and Cloyd Head’s travels throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Central America. The correspondence includes letters to and from Cloyd Head’s wife, Eunice Tietjens; poet Maxwell Bodenheim; Poetry magazine editor Harriet Monroe; Theatre Arts Magazine editor Sheldon Cheney; Chicago Little Theater founder Maurice Browne; Goodman Theater artistic director Thomas Wood Stevens; Dramatic Publishing Company editor Roger L. Sergel; National Broadcasting Company’s Judith Waller; Cloyd Head’s employer, Year Book Publishers, Inc.; Cloyd Head’s son Marshall Head, sister Helen Head and daughters-in-law Billie Head and Janet Hart and other family members. Additional correspondence can be found in Subject Files under the related subject. | |||||||||||
| Arranged mostly alphabetically by correspondent, with two folders for Miscellaneous Business and Personal Correspondence. | |||||||||||
| Box | Folder | Contents | |||||||||
| 2 | 8 | Adair, Frank E., 1943 | |||||||||
| 2 | 9 | Ames, Winthrop, 1916-1921 | |||||||||
| 2 | 10 | Bloch, Albert, 192-?-1925 | |||||||||
| 2 | 11 | Bodenheim, Maxwell, 1915-19--? | |||||||||
| 2 | 12 | Braithwaite, William Stanley, 1921-1922 | |||||||||
| 2 | 13 | Browne, Maurice, 1915-1949 | |||||||||
| 2 | 14 | Cheney, Sheldon, 1917-1927 | |||||||||
| 2 | 15 | Dawson, Mitchell, 1919 | |||||||||
| 2 | 16 | Gavin, Mary, 191-?-1957 | |||||||||
| 2 | 17 | Hart, Chester, 1922-1957 | |||||||||
| 2 | 18 | Hart, Janet Tietjens, 1920?-1957 | |||||||||
| 2 | 19 | Hart, Jinky, 1948-1957 | |||||||||
| 2 | 20 | Head, Billie, 1943-1954 | |||||||||
| 2 | 21 | Head, Carrie, 1925-1927 | |||||||||
| 2 | 22 | Head, Cloyd J., 1916-1936 | |||||||||
| 2 | 23 | Head, Elizabeth, 1923-1950 | |||||||||
| 3 | 24 | Head, Helen, 1923?-1957 | |||||||||
| 3 | 25-27 | Head, Marshall 1927-1957 | |||||||||
| 3 | 28 | Head, Michael, 1954 | |||||||||
| 3 | 29 | Head, Shirley Haycraft, 1946-1950 | |||||||||
| 3 | 30 | Jonson, Raymond, 1921 | |||||||||
| 3 | 31 | Macgowan, Kenneth, 1921-1944 | |||||||||
| 3 | 32 | Masters, Edgar Lee, 1922 | |||||||||
| 3 | 33 | McLendon, Cuba Haycraft, 1946-1951 | |||||||||
| 3 | 34 | Miscellaneous Personal Correspondence, 1915-1950 | |||||||||
| 3 | 35 | Miscellaneous Business Correspondence, 1915-1957 | |||||||||
| 4 | 36 | Monroe, Harriet, 1916-1925 | |||||||||
| 4 | 37 | Northern Trust Company, 1941-1950 | |||||||||
| 4 | 38 | Rich, Daniel Cotton, 1949-1951 | |||||||||
| 4 | 39 | Sayler, Oliver M., 1917-1943 | |||||||||
| 4 | 40 | Sergel, Roger L., 1933-1942 | |||||||||
| 4 | 41 | Simmons, Francis N., 1925 | |||||||||
| 4 | 42 | Simmons, Haven Y. (Hi), 1920-1927 | |||||||||
| 4 | 43 | Simmons, Sylvia, 1947-1957 | |||||||||
| 4 | 44 | Stanislavsky, Constantin, 1923 | |||||||||
| 4 | 45 | Stevens, Thomas Wood, 1926-1930 | |||||||||
| 4 | 46-47 | Tietjens, Eunice, 1919-1944 | |||||||||
| 4 | 48 | Waller, Judith, 1950-1951 | |||||||||
| 4 | 49 | Welles, Orson, 1941-1942 | |||||||||
| 4 | 50 | Year Book Publishers, Inc., 1947-1957 | |||||||||
Series 3: Works, 1905-1953 |
|||||||||||
| Handwritten manuscripts, typescripts, annotated typescripts, printed works, notes, memorabilia, programs, artwork and additional source material related to plays, essays and short stories, primarily written by Cloyd Head. Additional material related to some works can be found in Correspondence under the related correspondents and in Photographs. | |||||||||||
| Arranged alphabetically by title or genre. | |||||||||||
| Box | Folder | Contents | |||||||||
| 4 | 51 | "About Fiddling While Rome Burns", Chicago Herald, 1917 | |||||||||
| 4 | 52 | The Castle, typescript, n.d. | |||||||||
| 4 | 53 | "Chicago Little Theatre", Theatre Arts Magazine, 1917 | |||||||||
| 4 | 54 | The Curtains with Mary Gavin, Poetry Magazine, 1920 | |||||||||
| 4 | 55 | The Dispassionate Pilgrim, typescript, 1912 | |||||||||
| 4 | 56 | The Dream Princess - correspondence, notes and memorabilia, n.d. | |||||||||
| 4 | 57 | The Dream Princess - annotated typescript with enclosures, n.d. | |||||||||
| 4 | 58 | The Dream Princess - typescript, n.d. | |||||||||
| 5 | 59 | The Dream Princess - annotated typescript, 1907 | |||||||||
| 5 | 60 | The Dream Princess - 3 self-published copies, annotated, 1910 | |||||||||
| 5 | 61 | The Dream Princess - clean self-published copy, 1910 | |||||||||
| 5 | 62 | "Ending the Horse Thief Menace" by Edwin Rothschild, Chicago Bar Record, 1953 | |||||||||
| 5 | 63-64 | Essays on theatre, typescripts, 1920?-1938 | |||||||||
| 5 | 65 | Essays on foreign affairs, 1952? | |||||||||
| 5 | 66 | "The Gates of Paradise", typescript, 1953 | |||||||||
| 5 | 67 | Good King Wenceslaus, Dramatic Publishing Company, 1937 | |||||||||
| 5 | 68 | The Grotesques - Handwritten notes, draft fragments, n.d. | |||||||||
| 5 | 69 | The Grotesques - 3 annotated typescripts, n.d. | |||||||||
| 5 | 70 | The Grotesques - typescript, 1914 | |||||||||
| 5 | 71 | The Grotesques - typescript draft fragments, 1915 | |||||||||
| 5 | 72 | The Grotesques - typescript, 1915 | |||||||||
| 5 | 73 | The Grotesques - annotated typescript, 1915 | |||||||||
| 5 | 74 | The Grotesques - production at Chicago Little Theatre, 1915 | |||||||||
| 6 | 75 | Editorial comment on The Grotesques by Harriet Monroe, Poetry magazine, 1916 | |||||||||
| 6 | 76 | The Grotesques - in Poetry magazine, 1916 | |||||||||
| 6 | 77 | "Cloyd Head's Grotesques" by Sheldon Cheney, Theatre Arts Magazine, 1916 | |||||||||
| 6 | 78 | The Grotesques - production at Provincetown Theatre, 1921 | |||||||||
| 6 | 79 | The Grotesques - Dramatic Publishing Company, 1933 | |||||||||
| 6 | 80 | The Land of Learning: A Comic Opera, typescript, 1905 | |||||||||
| 6 | 81 | "The New Stagescraft" by Sam Hume, The Cornhill Booklet, 1914 | |||||||||
| 6 | 82 | "Prague", Theatre Arts Monthly, 1924 | |||||||||
| 6 | 83 | "The Reversion of Poxipalis", Northwestern Magazine, 1905 | |||||||||
| 6 | 84 | The Shadow, typescript, n.d. | |||||||||
| 6 | 85 | Short plays, handwritten and typescripts, 1914?-1921 | |||||||||
| 6 | 86 | The Splendid Princess, typescript, 1914? | |||||||||
| 6 | 87 | Stentarello Gets Nobody by Eunice Tietjens, typescript, 1938? | |||||||||
| 6 | 88 | Talks on theatre at the Chicago Little Theatre, annotated typescripts, 1915-1916 | |||||||||
| 6 | 89 | "The Theatre", Drama: A Quarterly Review, 1917 | |||||||||
| 6 | 90 | "The Unity of Production" with Mary Gavin, Theatre Arts Magazine, 1921 | |||||||||
| 6 | 91 | The Witch of Wokey, Northwestern Magazine, 1906 | |||||||||
| 6 | 92 | Xavier and the Incomparable Adventure, typescript, 1922? | |||||||||
| 6 | 93 | "Ye Ballad of Ye Ocean", Northwestern Magazine, 1907 | |||||||||
Series 4: Subject Files, 1895-1968 |
|||||||||||
| Family items, including birth announcements, diplomas and army papers; notes and correspondence related to the founding of Cloyd Head’s Miami Players; programs, clippings, correspondence and souvenirs from productions by the Miami Players and others; programs and souvenirs from theater productions, museum exhibitions and other cultural events; souvenirs, maps and correspondence from trips to Europe, the Middle East, Central America and Africa; other miscellaneous material collected by Cloyd Head pertaining to theater, ballet, art, foreign affairs and travel. | |||||||||||
| Arranged alphabetically by subject and type of material. | |||||||||||
| Box | Folder | Contents | |||||||||
| 7 | 94 | Army papers, 1917-1918 | |||||||||
| 7 | 95 | Art Institute of Chicago productions of The Drama of the Nativity, | |||||||||
| 1919-1920 | |||||||||||
| 7 | 96 | Ballet Theatre, 1944-1947 | |||||||||
| 7 | 97 | Banners Elk School of English, 1935? | |||||||||
| 7 | 98 | Blueprint for darkroom of Gordon C. Abbot, 1934 | |||||||||
| 7 | 99 | Chicago Little Theatre touring production of The Trojan Women, | |||||||||
| 1915 | |||||||||||
| 7 | 100 | Coconut Grove Guest Book, 1937 | |||||||||
| 7 | 101 | Diplomas, 1895-1900 | |||||||||
| 7 | 102 | An Exhibit of Portraits of Distinguished Citizens of Negro Heritage, 1946 | |||||||||
| 7 | 103 | Family notes, 1912-1953 | |||||||||
| 7 | 104 | Frank Lloyd Wright/Taliesin, 1946-1948 | |||||||||
| 7 | 105 | Goodman Theatre production of The Little Clay Cart, 1928 | |||||||||
| 7 | 106 | Memorandum for CH (re: marital relations), 1949 | |||||||||
| 7 | 107-108 | Miami Players, correspondence and notes, 1937-1940 | |||||||||
| 7 | 109 | Miami Players, production notes and programs, 1937-1940 | |||||||||
| 8 | 110 | Notes on the "Noh" theatre for Eunice Tietjens, 1922 | |||||||||
| 8 | 111 | Noyes School of Rhythm, 1915? | |||||||||
| 8 | 112 | Oriental Institute, 1937-1951 | |||||||||
| 8 | 113 | Orson on Marsh (notes by Eunice Tietjens), n.d. | |||||||||
| 8 | 114 | Pendant, 1934 | |||||||||
| 8 | 115 | Productions of Good King Wenceslaus, 1936-1940 | |||||||||
| 8 | 116 | Programs, 1915-1939 (some in oversize box) | |||||||||
| 8 | 117-119 | Programs, 1954-1965 | |||||||||
| 9 | 120 | Programs, 1965-1968 | |||||||||
| 9 | 121 | Sadler's Wells Ballet, 1949 | |||||||||
| 9 | 122 | Theatre Arts: 1916-1936, A Line A Year Or So, 1936 | |||||||||
| 9 | 123 | The Theatre Guild production of The Winter's Tale, 1945 | |||||||||
| 9 | 124 | Time Finder, 1942 | |||||||||
| 9 | 125 | Travel - African Trip - correspondence, bills, clippings, 1957 | |||||||||
| 9 | 126 | Travel - African Trip - maps, souvenirs, clippings, 1957 | |||||||||
| 9 | 127 | Travel - African Trip - maps, souvenirs, 1957 | |||||||||
| 10 | 128-129 | Travel - African Trip - maps, souvenirs, 1957 | |||||||||
| 10 | 130 | Travel - European/Middle Eastern Trip - accounting, 1950-1951 | |||||||||
| 10 | 131 | Travel - European/Middle Eastern Trip - cards by country, n.d. | |||||||||
| 10 | 132 | Travel - European/Middle Eastern Trip - souvenirs, clippings, | |||||||||
| 1950-1951 | |||||||||||
| 10 | 133 | Travel - Letters of Introduction, 1950-1956 | |||||||||
| 10 | 134 | Travel - Tahitian postcards, n.d. | |||||||||
| 10 | 135 | TV reading program, typescripts and notes, n.d. | |||||||||
| 11 | 136 | University of Miami course on theatre, 1934?-1935 | |||||||||
| 11 | 137 | University of Miami production of The Gates of Paradise, 1935 | |||||||||
| 11 | 138 | WWII clippings, 1942-1943 (see oversize box) | |||||||||
Series 5: Photographs, 1915-1946 |
|||||||||||
| Snapshots of Cloyd Head’s second wife, Shirley Haycraft; snapshots and professional photographs of stage settings and productions (including the Raymond Jonson designed set for the Chicago Little Theatre production of The Grotesques); professional photographs of actors and other people at the Goodman Theater and with the Miami Players. | |||||||||||
| Arranged alphabetically by subject. | |||||||||||
| Box | Folder | Contents | |||||||||
| 11 | 139 | Broadway, Arabesque, 1925 (see oversize box) | |||||||||
| 11 | 140 | Chicago Little Theatre, The Grotesques, 1915 | |||||||||
| 11 | 141 | Clark, Marguerite, n.d. | |||||||||
| 11 | 142 | Goodman Theatre, 1926?-1930? | |||||||||
| 11 | 143 | Goodman Theatre, The Little Clay Cart, 1928 | |||||||||
| 11 | 144 | Head, Shirley Haycraft, 1946? | |||||||||
| 11 | 145 | Miami area productions, 1935-1937 | |||||||||
| 11 | 146 | Miami Players, 1938-1940 | |||||||||
| 11 | 147-148 | Miami Players productions, 1938-1940 | |||||||||
| 11 | 149 | Provincetown Theatre, The Grotesques, 1921 | |||||||||
| 11 | 150 | Unidentified, n.d. | |||||||||
| 11 | 151 | Unidentified production (see oversize box), n.d. | |||||||||
| 11 | 152 | University of Miami Theatre, The Gates of Paradise, 1935 | |||||||||
Series 6: Oversize Material |
|||||||||||
| Items removed from Subject Files and Photographs. Includes photographs of the 1925 Norman Bel Geddes Broadway production of Arabesque and several large newspaper pages. | |||||||||||
| Box | Folder | Contents | |||||||||
| 12 | Programs, 1915-1939 | ||||||||||
| 12 | Broadway, Arabesque photographs, 1925 | ||||||||||
| 12 | Unidentified production photograph, n.d. | ||||||||||
| 12 | World War II clippings, 1942-1943 | ||||||||||