Charlotte Seitlin Papers, 1938-1979

The Sophia Smith Collection owns copyright to Charlotte Seitlin's unpublished works. Permission must be obtained to publish reproductions or quotations beyond "fair use." Copyright to materials authored by others may be owned by those individuals or their heirs or assigns. It is the responsibility of the researcher to identify and satisfy the holders of all copyrights. Permission to publish reproductions or quotations beyond "fair use" must also be obtained from the Sophia Smith Collection as owners of the physical property.

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Biographical Note

Born August 16, 1906 in Trenton, New Jersey, to Myron and Flora (Smith) Seitlin, Charlotte Seitlin graduated from Trenton High School in 1924 and from the New Jersey College for Women (later Douglass College, now part of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey) in 1928. Upon graduation, Seitlin went to work at Simon and Schuster in New York City, a publishing firm founded in 1924. By the time the firm forced her into retirement in 1971, Seitlin had risen to senior executive editor, specializing in entertainment memoirs and travel. Some of the figures she worked with over the years on their memoirs and other books include Erté, Sam Levenson, Rocky Graziano, June Havoc and June's better-known sister, Gypsy Rose Lee. Known as "Chatzie" to her family and friends, who included such literary greats as May Sarton, Janet Flanner, and Kay Boyle, Seitlin never married. After her retirement from Simon and Schuster, she worked as a freelance editor in New York and Connecticut, with occasional trips to Barbados, until her health declined severely in the spring of 1979. She died of a brain tumor in June of that year.

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Scope and Contents of the Collection

The Charlotte Seitlin Papers consist of 1 linear ft. and include some biographical materials and correspondence with friends, clients, and colleagues. Themes include lesbian and gay lifestyles, circa 1940s-1970s.

Seitlin's papers primarily pertain to her professional life as a freelance editor in the 1970s after her 1971 retirement from Simon and Schuster, after which the firm discarded decades of her professional files. Notable correspondents include Kay Boyle, Uta Hagen, June Havoc, Janet Flanner, Mercedes de Acosta, and May Sarton. Her professional correspondence frequently blurs with the personal, as her relationships with a number of her clients and colleagues developed into friendships.

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Organization of the Collection

This collection is organized into three series:

• I. BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS
• II. PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
• III. CORRESPONDENCE

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SERIES I. BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS (1942-1979)

SERIES II. PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES (1942-1979)

This series includes professional documents introducing Seitlin to overseas contacts, newspaper clippings from the 1970s about writing and the publishing industry, as well as materials from professional associations to which she belonged, notably the Woman Pays Club.

SERIES III. CORRESPONDENCE (1938-79)

Divided into two subseries, this series contains both personal and professional correspondence. In addition to correspondence with poet and lesbian May Sarton, a folder of correspondence between Seitlin and lesbian writers Mercedes de Acosta, Natalia Danesi Murray, and Murray's longtime partner Janet Flanner reveals their interpersonal conflicts amid World War II, and the diplomatic, mediating role these women expected Seitlin to fulfill. Seitlin also maintained a personal correspondence with writer Nolan Miller from 1952-1979, whose proposal of marriage she rejected in 1953. Professionally, with the exception of a 1938 letter Seitlin sent to the New York World-Telegram, the papers begin in 1971 with Simon and Schuster forcing her into retirement and Seitlin's entry into freelance editing. She kept numerous contacts in the publishing world while aspiring writers of all stripes, from celebrities looking to write memoirs to amateurs writing novels, utilized her editing services. Correspondence with celebrities is arranged alphabetically, as well as other figures with whom her correspondence is extensive. All other letters are arranged chronologically.

SERIES I. BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS

SERIES II. PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

SERIES III. CORRESPONDENCE