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Inventory of the Paul Randall Wright Papers, 1899-1965
Machine-readable finding aid encoded by Lisa Janssen, 2004 ©2004. |
Descriptive Summary of the Collection |
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Creator |
Wright, Paul Randall, 1876-1965 |
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Title |
Paul Randall Wright Papers |
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Dates |
1899-1965 |
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Extent |
2.5 cubic ft. (5 boxes and 1 oversize box) |
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Abstract |
Writings and correspondence of Chicago journalist and foreign correspondent Paul Randall Wright, particularly newspaper stories reported from Siberia in 1918-1919, and Manchuria, China, Japan, and the Philippines from 1926-1930. The collection also includes diaries and a number of photographs relating to the periods in which Wright was stationed abroad. |
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Language |
Materials are in English. |
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Repository |
Newberry Library, Roger and Julie Baskes Department of Special Collections |
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Collection Call Number |
Midwest MS Wright |
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Collection Stack Location |
3a 23 2 |
Paul Randall Wright Papers, Midwest Manuscript Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago.
Gift of Priscilla Wright Hausmann and Joan Wright McIntosh, 1994.
Brian Silbernagel, 2003.
The Paul Randall Wright Papers are open for research in the Special Collections Reading Room; 1 box at a time (Priority III).
The Paul Randall Wright 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.
Paul Randall Wright was a Chicago journalist who served as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Daily News. From 1918-1919, Wright was attached as a staff correspondent to the American Expeditionary Force in Siberia and the Russian Far East. Later, Wright was stationed in Manchuria, Shanghai, Japan, the Philippines, and various other parts of Asia from 1926-1928 and again from 1929-1930. Wright married Heloise Gai Esterly in 1901, and the two had one son, Randall. Wright died in 1965 at the age of 88.
Wright was born in Monroe, Wisconsin, in 1876. He spent most of his childhood in Monroe and nearby Janesville, but his family later moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, where Wright began college at Butler University . After Wright's father was severely injured in a railway accident the family moved back to Wisconsin and Wright followed, leaving Butler University to attend the University of Wisconsin, from which he graduated in 1900.
After college, Wright began his journalism career with a position at the Chicago Times-Herald. Four years later, in 1904, he left the Times-Herald's successor, the Chicago Record-Herald, and moved to the Chicago Daily News, where he served as an assistant editor, foreign correspondent, and eventually page editor before retiring because of poor health in 1932. Wright's first overseas assignment began in the fall of 1918, when he left Chicago for Siberia via Japan. Wright traveled with the American Expeditionary Force in Siberia, which, along with British and French troops, occupied portions of Siberia in order to protect Allied interests during the Russian Civil War. While on this assignment Wright also filed a few reports from Manchuria and Japan before returning to Chicago in October, 1919.
Wright's next trip abroad took place in 1926. He and his wife traveled to Asia in the spring, and Wright was variously stationed in Manchuria, Japan, China, India, Korea, and the Philippines until he started back for Chicago in June, 1928. During this period he covered the Northern Expedition of Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Kuomintang party against the warlord-backed Beijing government, as well as the subsequent fighting between Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists and the Communists.
In 1929, Wright began his final foreign assignment by embarking with a group of other American newspaper reporters on a goodwill tour of Japan, Korea, and Manchuria sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. When the trip concluded that summer, he remained in Manchuria to cover fighting between Russian Communists and Chinese Nationalists in Manchuria. Wright then spent the winter in the Manchurian cities of Harbin, Mukden (now Shenyang) and Dairen (now Dalian), Manchuria, where he was joined by his wife in March, 1930. The two then traveled together eastward across Manchuria, Siberia, and Russia to Western Europe. After spending a few days in Berlin and London they returned to Chicago in August, 1930.
Unfortunately, however, Wright had contracted tuberculosis during his travels, and he decided to leave the Daily News in 1931. After spending some time in New Mexico and Arizona, Wright and his wife settled in La Jolla, California in March, 1932. Wright remained in the San Diego area until his death in 1965.
In addition to journalism and foreign travel, Wright's interests were diverse. He authored several poems and essays, and also wrote an unpublished monograph on Chicago geology. Wright was an Army Reserve Captain in Military Intelligence in the early 1920s, and in 1924 he wrote a booklet on developments under the National Defense Act of 1920. At some point, Wright developed an interest in microphotography and assisted the U.S. war effort during World War II by sharing his research with, and performing experiments for, the Office of Strategic Services.
The collection primarily consists of the writings and correspondence of Chicago journalist Paul Randall Wright (1876-1965). The bulk of the writings are newspaper articles and diaries that Wright wrote while serving as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Daily News during the years 1918-1919, 1926-1928, and 1929-1930. In addition to these writings, the collection also includes significant amounts of correspondence and photographs relating to the periods in which Wright was stationed abroad. Finally, there are also some other writings by Wright, such as poetry and essays, and various other documents that he kept pertaining to his life and interests. A few items were separated due to size and are housed in the oversized box at the end of the collection. See box and folder list for details.
Narrative descriptions of the subject matter, types of material, and arrangement of each series is available through the Organization section of the finding aid.
Papers are organized in the following series:
This series consists of general materials pertaining to Wright's life that were created by persons other than Wright. These materials include: an interview with Wright conducted by the Singapore Straights Times in 1928; membership cards and other documents relating to various clubs and societies of which Wright and his wife were members; letters of introduction; and his obituary, passport, and various identification cards. In addition, this series also includes "When and Where," which is a twelve page chronological account written by Heloise Gai Wright of her and her husband's travels from 1926-1950.
Arranged alphabetically by subject.
This is the largest series of the collection and it consists of a wide variety of materials authored by Wright, the bulk of which are drafts or clippings of newspaper articles that he wrote while serving as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Daily News. In addition, this series also includes Wright's diaries during most of the time he was stationed abroad, as well as a trip he took to Europe while in college. It appears, however, that a number of pages were removed from these diaries, either by Wright himself or his family, before the collection was accessioned.
Besides the newspaper articles and diaries, Wright also wrote several poems and essays, a monograph about the geology of Chicago, and a booklet about developments under the National Defense Act of 1920. In addition, Wright put together another book entitled A Newsman Goes East by West, which is a collection of some of his newspaper articles, most of which he edited substantially for the compilation. Wright worked on A Newsman Goes East by West for a number of years and completed it shortly before his death. He had hoped to have this work published, but it never was.
The frequency of Wright's newspaper articles varies a great deal, but his busiest periods seem to be when he was in Manchuria in 1929 and in Shanghai in 1927, when he posted articles almost every day for months at a time. There are almost no clippings relating to the period when Wright was attached as a correspondent to the American Expeditionary Force in Siberia (1918-1919), but drafts of some of the stories he wrote during this time exist, as does a partial draft of "The Log of the See Chass.," which is a lengthy account by Wright of his travels across Siberia by train. ("The Log of the See Chass." was apparently written in at least seven installments, of which numbers 1, 2, and 5 are missing.)
The series is arranged alphabetically by title or type of material. Diaries and notebooks are then arranged chronologically. With the exception of the various pieces that he wrote in Chicago, which have been placed at the end of the category, Wright's newspaper articles are arranged alphabetically by the location from which he reported, and then chronologically within each folder. In a few instances, however, article clippings from multiple dates and/or locations were affixed by Wright to a single scrapbook page. These pages have been arranged in the folders based on the predominant subject of the articles contained on the page. Note also that the Daily News published a few of Wright's general interest articles with by-lines from Manchuria and Russia in 1931 even though Wright had already returned to Chicago the previous year.
This series consists primarily of correspondence between Wright and Charles Dennis and Hal O'Flaherty, his editors at the Daily News, and general letters that Wright and his wife received from friends and acquaintances that they met on their travels. In addition, there are several letters between Wright and the U.S. War Department and Office of Strategic Services regarding microphotography experiments conducted by Wright which he thought might be useful to the war effort; and a few letters relating to unidentified flying objects, a subject in which Wright was interested.
The series is arranged such that correspondence with a specific individual or entity, or about a specific subject, precedes general incoming and outgoing correspondence. Correspondence relating to a specific person or subject is then arranged chronologically within the appropriate folder. Wright's general incoming correspondence is arranged first alphabetically by author and then chronologically. Wright's general outgoing correspondence, of which there are only a few letters, is arranged chronologically.
Most of the items in this series are photographs taken by Wright while stationed in Asia, although there are also photographs of his trips to the Western United States and Europe, portraits of some of his colleagues at the Daily News, and a number of photographs of places Wright visited, or people Wright knew, but which Wright did not himself take. Many of the photographs have captions written by Wright on the back which identify their subject, but a number do not, and thus some of the categorizations of the items in this series may not be entirely accurate.
Other than Wright's photographs of Chiang Kai-shek and Carl Sandburg, and his collection of portraits of his Daily News co-workers, which are arranged separately by subject, photographs of single identified individuals whom Wright knew are grouped together under the category "Various Individuals," and photographs of multiple identified individuals are arranged together under the category "Various Group Photographs." The series is arranged alphabetically by subject.
This series consists of an assortment of materials collected by Wright relating to various topics. Among the items that make up this series are Wright's autograph collection (many of which are taken from letters written to the editor of the Daily News), a collection of mainly unidentified documents in Russian, an English translation of a Russian account of the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family in 1918, and several clippings of newspaper and magazine articles relating to various subjects in which Wright was interested.
Arranged alphabetically by subject or type of materials.
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.
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1894-1965 |
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| This series consists of general materials pertaining to Wright's life that were created by persons other than Wright. These materials include: an interview with Wright conducted by the Singapore Straights Times in 1928; membership cards and other documents relating to various clubs and societies of which Wright and his wife were members; letters of introduction; and his obituary, passport, and various identification cards. In addition, this series also includes "When and Where," which is a twelve page chronological account written by Heloise Gai Wright of her and her husband's travels from 1926-1950. | |||||||||||
| Arranged alphabetically by subject. | |||||||||||
| Box | Folder | Contents | |||||||||
| 1 | 1 | Articles, 1928-1929 | |||||||||
| 1 | 2 | Clubs and Societies, 1918-1935 | |||||||||
| 1 | 3 | Letters of Introduction, 1894-1930 | |||||||||
| 1 | 4 | Obituary and Funeral Service Cards, 1965 | |||||||||
| 1 | 5 | Passport, 1930 | |||||||||
| 1 | 6 | Press Card, Business Cards, Cable/Telegraph Cards, Railway Pass, 1920s | |||||||||
| 1 | 7 | University of Wisconsin Invitation to Commencement Exercises, 1900 | |||||||||
| 1 | 8 | "When and Where," ca. 1950 | |||||||||
| 1 | 9 | Who's Who in California Entry, 1942 | |||||||||
Series 2: Writings, 1899-1964, bulk 1918-1930 |
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| This is the largest series of the collection and it consists of a wide variety of materials authored by Wright, the bulk of which are drafts or clippings of newspaper articles that he wrote while serving as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Daily News. In addition, this series also includes Wright's diaries during most of the time he was stationed abroad, as well as a trip he took to Europe while in college. It appears, however, that a number of pages were removed from these diaries, either by Wright himself or his family, before the collection was accessioned. | |||||||||||
| Besides the newspaper articles and diaries, Wright also wrote several poems and essays, a monograph about the geology of Chicago, and a booklet about developments under the National Defense Act of 1920. In addition, Wright put together another book entitled A Newsman Goes East by West, which is a collection of some of his newspaper articles, most of which he edited substantially for the compilation. Wright worked on A Newsman Goes East by West for a number of years and completed it shortly before his death. He had hoped to have this work published, but it never was. | |||||||||||
| The frequency of Wright's newspaper articles varies a great deal, but his busiest periods seem to be when he was in Manchuria in 1929 and in Shanghai in 1927, when he posted articles almost every day for months at a time. There are almost no clippings relating to the period when Wright was attached as a correspondent to the American Expeditionary Force in Siberia (1918-1919), but drafts of some of the stories he wrote during this time exist, as does a partial draft of "The Log of the See Chass.," which is a lengthy account by Wright of his travels across Siberia by train. ("The Log of the See Chass." was apparently written in at least seven installments, of which numbers 1, 2, and 5 are missing.) | |||||||||||
| The series is arranged alphabetically by title or type of material. Diaries and notebooks are then arranged chronologically. With the exception of the various pieces that he wrote in Chicago, which have been placed at the end of the category, Wright's newspaper articles are arranged alphabetically by the location from which he reported, and then chronologically within each folder. In a few instances, however, article clippings from multiple dates and/or locations were affixed by Wright to a single scrapbook page. These pages have been arranged in the folders based on the predominant subject of the articles contained on the page. Note also that the Daily News published a few of Wright's general interest articles with by-lines from Manchuria and Russia in 1931 even though Wright had already returned to Chicago the previous year. | |||||||||||
| Box | Folder | Contents | |||||||||
| 1 | 10 | Diaries/Notebooks, 1899 | |||||||||
| 1 | 11 | Diaries/Notebooks, 1918 | |||||||||
| 1 | 12 | Diaries/Notebooks, 1919 | |||||||||
| 1 | 13 | Diaries/Notebooks, 1919-1920 | |||||||||
| 1 | 14 | Diaries/Notebooks, 1926 | |||||||||
| 1 | 15 | Diaries/Notebooks, 1929 | |||||||||
| 1 | 16 | Diaries/Notebooks, 1930 | |||||||||
| 2 | 17 | "End of the Roving Assignment" (poem), n.d. | |||||||||
| 2 | 18 | "HGW's Shipwreck" (short story), n.d. | |||||||||
| 2 | 19 | "Into the Sunset" (short account of Wright's travels), ca. 1932 | |||||||||
| 2 | 20 | "Jets and Other Jets" (essay), ca. 1950s | |||||||||
| 2 | 21 | Log of the See Chas., 1919 | |||||||||
| 2 | 22 | "The Medieval Student as Seen in Carmina Clericorum" (thesis), 1900 | |||||||||
| 2 | 23 | Microphotography Notes, 1944 - 1945 | |||||||||
| 2 | 24 | Miscellaneous Notes, ca. 1920 - 1960 | |||||||||
| 2 | 25 | "Mosquitoes and the Eocene" (essay), 1954 | |||||||||
| 2 | 26 | A Newsman Goes East by West, 1964 | |||||||||
| 2 | 27 | Drafts and Notes Relating to A Newsman Goes East by West, n.d. | |||||||||
| 2 | 28 | Drafts and Notes Relating to A Newsman Goes East by West, n.d. | |||||||||
| 2 | 29 | Newspaper Article Clippings (China), 1926 | |||||||||
| 2 | 30 | Newspaper Article Clippings (China/Hong Kong), 1928 | |||||||||
| 2 | 31 | Newspaper Article Clippings (India), 1928 | |||||||||
| 2 | 32 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Japan), 1919 | |||||||||
| 2 | 33 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Japan), 1928 | |||||||||
| 2 | 34 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Japan), 1929 | |||||||||
| 2 | 35 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Korea), 1927 | |||||||||
| 3 | 36 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Manchuria), 1919 | |||||||||
| 3 | 37 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Manchuria), 1926 | |||||||||
| 3 | 38 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Manchuria), 1927 | |||||||||
| 3 | 39 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Manchuria), 1929 | |||||||||
| 3 | 40 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Manchuria), 1930 | |||||||||
| 3 | 41 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Manchuria), 1931 | |||||||||
| 3 | 42 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Nanking), 1927 | |||||||||
| 3 | 43 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Philippines), 1926 | |||||||||
| 3 | 44 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Philippines), 1928 | |||||||||
| 3 | 45 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Russia), 1930 | |||||||||
| 3 | 46 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Russia), 1931 | |||||||||
| 3 | 47 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Shanghai), Jan. - Feb. 1927 | |||||||||
| 3 | 48 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Shanghai), Mar. 1927 | |||||||||
| 3 | 49 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Shanghai), Apr. - Oct. 1927 | |||||||||
| 3 | 50 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Siberia), 1919 | |||||||||
| 3 | 51 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Singapore), 1928 | |||||||||
| 3 | 52 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Various Editorial Paragraphs), 1906-1928 | |||||||||
| 3 | 53 | Newspaper Article Clippings (Various Subjects), 1906-1910, 1952 | |||||||||
| 3 | 54 | Newspaper Article Drafts (General), 1928-1929, 1952 | |||||||||
| 3 | 55 | Newspaper Article Drafts (Siberia), 1918-1919 | |||||||||
| 3 | 56 | Notes Regarding Henry Griffin's Stories of the Philippines, 1947 | |||||||||
| 3 | 57 | "The Pearl Hunter" (poem), 1924 | |||||||||
| 3 | 58 | Poetry, 1906-1953 | |||||||||
| 3 | 59 | Rosehill Bar: A Story of Chicago Geology, ca. 1915 | |||||||||
| 3 | 60 | Songs, 1962 | |||||||||
| 3 | 61 | Training the Organized Reserves, 1924 | |||||||||
Series 3: Correspondence, 1899-1960, bulk 1918-1933 |
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| This series consists primarily of correspondence between Wright and Charles Dennis and Hal O'Flaherty, his editors at the Daily News, and general letters that Wright and his wife received from friends and acquaintances that they met on their travels. In addition, there are several letters between Wright and the U.S. War Department and Office of Strategic Services regarding microphotography experiments conducted by Wright which he thought might be useful to the war effort; and a few letters relating to unidentified flying objects, a subject in which Wright was interested. | |||||||||||
| The series is arranged such that correspondence with a specific individual or entity, or about a specific subject, precedes general incoming and outgoing correspondence. Correspondence relating to a specific person or subject is then arranged chronologically within the appropriate folder. Wright's general incoming correspondence is arranged first alphabetically by author and then chronologically. Wright's general outgoing correspondence, of which there are only a few letters, is arranged chronologically. | |||||||||||
| Box | Folder | Contents | |||||||||
| 4 | 62 | Chicago Daily News Cable Messages, 1918-1919 | |||||||||
| 4 | 63 | Dennis, Charles, 1917-1929 | |||||||||
| 4 | 64 | Mayhew, Abby Shaw, Christmas Card (in oversize box), 1931 | |||||||||
| 4 | 65 | Microphotography, 1939-1945 | |||||||||
| 4 | 66 | O'Flaherty, Hal, 1926-1927 | |||||||||
| 4 | 67 | Unidentified Flying Objects, 1924, 1952, 1957 | |||||||||
| 4 | 68 | General Incoming (A-L), 1921-1933 | |||||||||
| 4 | 69 | General Incoming (M-Z), 1923-1959, bulk 1926-1929 | |||||||||
| 4 | 70 | General Outgoing, 1899-1960 | |||||||||
Series 4: Photographs/Prints, 1919-1932 |
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| Most of the items in this series are photographs taken by Wright while stationed in Asia, although there are also photographs of his trips to the Western United States and Europe, portraits of some of his colleagues at the Daily News, and a number of photographs of places Wright visited, or people Wright knew, but which Wright did not himself take. Many of the photographs have captions written by Wright on the back which identify their subject, but a number do not, and thus some of the categorizations of the items in this series may not be entirely accurate. | |||||||||||
| Other than Wright's photographs of Chiang Kai-shek and Carl Sandburg, and his collection of portraits of his Daily News co-workers, which are arranged separately by subject, photographs of single identified individuals whom Wright knew are grouped together under the category "Various Individuals," and photographs of multiple identified individuals are arranged together under the category "Various Group Photographs." The series is arranged alphabetically by subject. | |||||||||||
| Box | Folder | Contents | |||||||||
| 4 | 71 | Aerial Photographs, n.d. | |||||||||
| 4 | 72 | Album (mainly India, China, Japan, and Arizona), ca. 1920s | |||||||||
| 4 | 73 | Album (mainly Russia, Berlin, China, and New Mexico), ca. 1927-1932 | |||||||||
| 5 | 74 | Carnegie Foundation Journalists Tour Group (in oversize box), 1929, | |||||||||
| 5 | 75 | Chiang Kai-shek, 1929 | |||||||||
| 5 | 76 | Cherry Blossoms, n.d. | |||||||||
| 5 | 77 | Chicago Daily News Colleagues, ca. 1920s | |||||||||
| 5 | 78 | China (including Hong Kong and Manchuria), 1920s | |||||||||
| 5 | 79 | Himalayas (in oversize box), 1928 | |||||||||
| 5 | 80 | India, 1928 | |||||||||
| 5 | 81 | Japan, 1926-1929 | |||||||||
| 5 | 82 | Microphotography, 1946 | |||||||||
| 5 | 83 | Philippines, 1926 | |||||||||
| 5 | 84 | Russia, 1919, 1929-1930 | |||||||||
| 5 | 85 | Sandburg, Carl, n.d. | |||||||||
| 5 | 86 | Shanghai, 1920s | |||||||||
| 5 | 87 | Various Group Photographs, ca. 1920s | |||||||||
| 5 | 88 | Various Individuals, 1919-1930 | |||||||||
| 5 | 89 | Wright, Paul Randall, 1919-1932 | |||||||||
Series 5: Miscellaneous, 1910-1957 |
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| This series consists of an assortment of materials collected by Wright relating to various topics. Among the items that make up this series are Wright's autograph collection (many of which are taken from letters written to the editor of the Daily News), a collection of mainly unidentified documents in Russian, an English translation of a Russian account of the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family in 1918, and several clippings of newspaper and magazine articles relating to various subjects in which Wright was interested. | |||||||||||
| Arranged alphabetically by subject or type of materials. | |||||||||||
| Box | Folder | Contents | |||||||||
| 5 | 90 | Air Warden Cards, ca. 1941-1945 | |||||||||
| 5 | 91 | Articles Relating to Miscellaneous Topics, 1920-1957 | |||||||||
| 5 | 92 | Articles Relating to the Office of Strategic Services, 1945 | |||||||||
| 5 | 93 | Autographs, 1910-1911, 1919 | |||||||||
| 5 | 94 | Chiang Kai-shek Essay, 1927 | |||||||||
| 5 | 95 | Dinner and Reception Invitations and Menus, 1928-1930 | |||||||||
| 5 | 96 | Map of Chinese Eastern Railway, n.d. | |||||||||
| 5 | 97 | Tsar Nicholas II Murder Accounts, 1920, n.d. | |||||||||
| 5 | 98 | Philippine Trip Documents, 1926 | |||||||||
| 5 | 99 | Recipes for Poison Ivy and Rheumatism Cures, n.d. | |||||||||
| 5 | 100 | Russian Documents, n.d. | |||||||||