Anne Morrow Lindbergh Papers, 1892-1993

In March 1932 Anne's first child, Charles, who was twenty months old, was kidnapped from the Lindberghs' Englewood home. The press dubbed the kidnapping the "Crime of the Century." In May 1932 after a three month search, Charles was found dead in a shallow grave only a few miles from the Lindbergh estate. In 1936 Bruno Richard Hauptmann, a German immigrant, convicted criminal, and World War I veteran, was executed by the state of New Jersey for the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby. In December 1936 the Lindbergh's fled America for England to escape harassment by the press and the general public. In April 1939, with war looming in Europe, the Lindberghs returned home to the United States.

In 1934 Anne published her first book, North to the Orient, based on her flights to China and Japan with Charles in 1931. In 1938, she published her second book, The Listen! The Wind, inspired by her visit to Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands, near the coast of Africa. In 1940 she published her most controversial work, Wave of the Future, which critics - in light of Charles' involvement with the America First movement and the Lindberghs' visits to Germany to meet with high ranking Nazi officials - considered pro-fascist. Despite such criticism, Anne kept writing, publishing the novel The Steep Ascent in 1944, a thinly-veiled fictitious account of a woman aviator flying with her husband over Europe. In 1955 Anne published her classic work and bestseller Gift from the Sea, which called for women and mothers to seek moments of peace, solitude, and introspection amid the busy realties of modern life.

In addition to her novels and other creative writing, Anne published a significant amount of poetry, including her collection The Unicorn (1956). In 1962 she published the novel Dearly Beloved, concerning the troubles involved in love, relationships, and married life. Later, she published a compendium of essays for Life magazine, issued as Earth Shine. In the 1970s Harcourt Brace publishers, with the help of Anne and Charles, issued volumes containing excerpts from Anne's correspondence and diaries: Bring Me a Unicorn (1971); Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead (1973); Locked Rooms and Open Doors (1974); The Flower and the Nettle (1976); and War Within and Without (1980). Anne lived in Maui with Charles until his death in August 1974 and later moved to Connecticut. Anne Morrow Lindbergh died in 2001.

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Scope and Contents of the Collection

The Anne Morrow Lindbergh Papers consist of 81 linear feet of material (162 boxes), with the majority of the papers concerning Anne's life and career from the late-1920s to the 1970s.

This collection is organized into six series:

I. BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS (1917-80, n.d.)

II. DIARIES (1916-58)

III. CORRESPONDENCE (1910-87)

IV. WRITINGS (1935-80)

V. CHARLES LINDBERGH (1912-71)

VI. ADDITIONAL MATERIALS

Abbreviations used in the collection: AML (Anne Morrow Lindbergh); CAL (Charles Augustus Lindbergh), ECM (Elizabeth Cutter Morrow); ELLL (Elizabeth Lodge Land Lindbergh); CCM (Constance Cutter Morgan); and EMM (Elisabeth Morrow Morgan)

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SERIES I. BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS (1917-80, n.d.)

This series contains three subseries: General, Newspapers, and Books. The material under the General heading contains papers concerning Anne's years as a high school and college student; her engagement to CAL in 1929; the death of her sister Elisabeth in 1934; the death of her mother and the settling of her mother's estate; and AML's will, financial items, awards and citations, and photographs (including Anne alone, with groups, with CAL, Anne with Morrow family members, and containing photographs from her trip to Asia in 1931). The Newspapers subseries is divided into two sections. The first section consists of thousands of miscellaneous articles and clippings, organized chronologically, focusing on Anne's relationship with CAL, the Morrow and Lindbergh families, and Anne's experiences as an aviator. The second section consists of clippings, 1932-1936, from dozens of state and national newspapers and magazines relating to the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh, III, and the trial and execution of Bruno Richard Hauptmann. These newspapers, chiefly based in New Jersey and New York, are organized alphabetically by title and then chronologically within each title. The third subseries, Books, contains volumes written about the Lindbergh kidnapping.

SERIES II. DIARIES (1916-58)

This series consists of original hand-written volumes and typed carbon copies of transcripts, 1916-1958, penned by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Some of the diaries, especially those written after 1944, have not been transcribed. Many excerpts from the diaries were included in the five-volume collection of Anne's letters and diaries, beginning with Bring Me a Unicorn and ending with War Within and Without. Some volumes of the diary include correspondence, newspaper clippings, and other items pertaining to AML's life at the time she was writing.

SERIES III. CORRESPONDENCE (1910-87)

Correspondence is divided into three subseries: Family, Notable individuals, and Miscellaneous. Family correspondence is organized chronologically according to generation, beginning with Anne's grandfather (Generation 1) and ending with her children (Generation 4). Correspondence includes original and transcribed letters, including significant correspondence between Anne and her mother Elizabeth Cutter Morrow, sister Elisabeth Morrow Morgan, sister Constance Morrow Morgan, mother-in-law Evangeline Lodge Land Lindbergh, and husband Charles A. Lindbergh. The second subseries, Notable individuals, contain AML's letters to Margaret "Monte" Millar, Ruth Oliff Thomas, Sue Beck Vaillant, and Lucia Valentine.

AML's correspondence also includes several boxes of Miscellaneous letters to friends and associates, which chiefly consist of typescript copies. In instances where only the first name or nickname (i.e., William or Billy, etc.) of a correspondence is given, it is alphabetized as if it were a last name (William under "W," Billy under "B," etc.). Because AML's papers have been used by editors and secretaries over the years for publication, and in some cases letters reside in multiple archives, most of the correspondence in the collection has been transcribed. In the Sophia Smith Collection, there are often either original AML letters with no transcription, or a transcription with no original letter.

SERIES IV. WRITINGS (1935-80)

Writings consist of notes, drafts, correspondence, and other materials collected by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Charles Lindbergh, family members, and editors during the composition of AML's works of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Papers in this series are organized chronologically according to the date Anne published a particular work, with the finished, published volume located (when included) at the end of a section concerning a particular work. In each section, the archivist has attempted to organize materials to reflect the creative process from draft to published work-including handwritten notes, typescripts and corrections, galley proofs, and reviews in the order they were created-even when dates for such materials are unknown.

Materials related to the creation of Anne's works North to the Orient, Gift from the Sea, Dearly Beloved, Earth Shine, and the five volume collection of her letters and diaries are well represented in the collection. Materials Anne compiled for an anthology titled "O to Whom," which she abandoned to write Wave of the Future, are also included.

Most of the papers concerning publication of North to the Orient were transferred from the Mortimer Rare Book Room at Smith College.

Material concerning Gift from the Sea includes hundreds of letters from individuals known and unknown to Anne, mostly women and including African Americans, expressing their gratitude for Anne writing the book. These letters include writings by people from around the country, from housewives to authors to Secretary of State George Kennan, who wrote Anne a letter on the inside of the dust jacket of her book, May 1955. Gift from the Sea correspondence also contains letters, often from religious groups, that were critical of the ideas expressed in her book. In some instances, Anne or her secretary made notations (including "*") on incoming correspondence that suggested the letter was "nice," "interesting," "special," or from a "crank." Gift from the Sea letters provide an interesting look at Americans', especially women's, attitudes toward life and work in the 1950s. Letters also include many offers for Anne to speak at colleges, universities, and clubs.

Correspondence related to The Unicorn includes discussion of the harsh review of Anne's book by poet and critic John Ciardi.

SERIES V. CHARLES LINDBERGH (1912-71)

This series is divided into six subseries: Diaries, Correspondence and other papers, Writings, Scrapbooks, Books, and Miscellaneous. Diaries chiefly consist of typed carbon copies of CAL's diaries, though several original volumes are included with an accompanying transcript. Correspondence mostly contains typed carbon copies of letters between CAL and his mother, Evangeline Lodge Land Lindbergh; letters between CAL and Morrow family members; and letters to family secretary and C.F.O. for Morrow properties Arthur Springer. There are also miscellaneous financial items, including matters concerning the Lindberghs' move from America to Europe in 1936. CAL's Writings contain published and unpublished works by Lindbergh and about him. Scrapbooks include hundreds of pages of material collected by Lindbergh enthusiast Willard Morse, in a volume purchased by the Morrow family. Copies of hundreds of items from the New York Times concerning Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic are also included in the scrapbooks.

SERIES I. BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS

SERIES II. DIARIES

SERIES III. CORRESPONDENCE

SERIES IV. WRITINGS

SERIES V. CHARLES A. LINDBERGH

SERIES VI. ADDITIONAL MATERIALS

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