Sarah Orne Jewett collection, 1801-1997 This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on October 24, 2018. Describing Archives: A Content Standard Maine Women Writers Collection Abplanalp Library University of New England 716 Stevens Avenue Portland, Maine 04103 [email protected] URL: http://www.une.edu/mwwc Sarah Orne Jewett collection, 1801-1997 Table of Contents Summary Information .................................................................................................................................... 3 Biographical/Historical Note ......................................................................................................................... 3 Collection Scope and Content ....................................................................................................................... 4 Arrangement ................................................................................................................................................... 4 Administrative Information ............................................................................................................................ 5 Related Materials ........................................................................................................................................... 6 Controlled Access Headings .......................................................................................................................... 6 Collection Inventory ....................................................................................................................................... 7 Jewett Manuscripts and Notes .................................................................................................................... 7 Jewett Correspondence ................................................................................................................................ 7 Jewett Publications .................................................................................................................................... 18 Jewett Articles, Reviews, Papers .............................................................................................................. 19 Jewett Photographs .................................................................................................................................... 20 Jewett Memorabilia ................................................................................................................................... 21 Jewett Family and Business Records ........................................................................................................ 23 - Page 2 - Sarah Orne Jewett collection, 1801-1997 Summary Information Repository: Maine Women Writers Collection Creator: Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909 Title: Sarah Orne Jewett collection ID: 0196 Date [inclusive]: 1801-1997 Date [bulk]: 1881-1906 Physical Description: 5 linear feet 6 boxes Language of the English Material: Preferred Citation Sarah Orne Jewett collection, Maine Women Writers Collection, University of New England, Portland, Maine ^ Return to Table of Contents Biographical/Historical Note Theodora Sarah Orne Jewett was born September 3, 1849, to physician Theodore Herman Jewett and Caroline Frances Perry in South Berwick, Maine. She published as Sarah Orne Jewett. Because often ill as a child, she attended Miss Rayne's School infrequently: instead she drove with her father on his rounds to visit his patients. Jewett graduated from Berwick Academy in 1865 and soon began to write. Her career took off with her submission of short stories to William Dean Howells, assistant editor of The Atlantic Monthly, who then put her in touch with James Fields of Boston's Ticknor and Fields. Placing her work with the Atlantic throughout her life, Jewett gathered stories into periodic book collections. Her first successful novel was Deephaven (1877), though she is best known for The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896). Fields's wife Annie and Jewett became close friends. After the deaths of Annie's husband and Sarah's father, the two women became companions in a "Boston marriage." They traveled together throughout the United States and Europe. They resided at Jewett's home in South Berwick as well as in Fields's homes in Boston and Manchester by the Sea. Jewett, considered regionalist or "local colorist," wrote about New England life and captured the native accent, diction, and syntax especially of Maine's people. Jewett's novel, A Country Doctor (1884), among other titles, suggests her feminist awareness of women's larger capabilities. Other works consider issues of domestic culture, class - Page 3- Sarah Orne Jewett collection, 1801-1997 structure, ecology, and the natural world. Influenced by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Jewett often invited her to Boston gatherings at the Fields' home. There Jewett met and influenced Willa Cather. Other women in the social circle of artists and writers included Harriet Prescott Spofford, Celia Thaxter, and Sarah Wyman Whitman. In 1901 Jewett became the first woman to receive an honorary Litt.D. degree from Bowdoin College, her father's alma mater. Just one year later, she suffered crippling injuries in a carriage accident, thereby limiting her physical mobility and hence her writing. After suffering a first stroke in March 1909 and a second June 23, 1909, Jewett died. Jewett's South Berwick home, maintained by Historic New England, welcomes visitors. ^ Return to Table of Contents Collection Scope and Content The collection includes manuscripts, correspondence, articles, reviews, research papers, memorabilia, photographs, printed material, artifacts, and family business records. The manuscripts include: a poem written by Jewett at age fourteen; notes found in her personal copy of the Norman Conquest; "Indians," her earliest known manuscript; and a complete manuscript copy of the "Night Before Thanksgiving." The correspondence with family, friends and business associates gives a view into Jewett's family and social life as well as her life as a writer. The letters to and from Annie Fields include a consoling note after the death of Fields' husband, James T. Fields, in 1881. Jewett and Fields long friendship is documented in their own letters and in mentions in letters to others including letters that Fields and Mary Rice Jewett wrote to others after Sarah's death dealing with her estate. Close family relationships are presented in the many letters to Mary Rice Jewett particularly in the care the aunts' took of nephew Theodore Eastman after his mother Carrie Eastman, Jewett's sister, died. The letters to Abbie S. Beede, who typed manuscripts for Sarah and Annie, shows the development of the relationship with Beede from distant to friendly with Jewett sometimes asking Beede for her opinion of a particular story. The third series is composed of published articles both original and in photocopy. The fourth series includes newspaper and journal articles, book reviews, and scholarly papers on Sarah Orne Jewett. The fifth is made up of photographs of Jewett, her family, and her home and other locations in South Berwick, Maine. The memorabilia series includes calling cards, a silk handkerchief, and a Sarah Wyman Whitman stained glass wreath. The family/business series has many family business receipts and a lecture on electricity written by Jewett's father. ^ Return to Table of Contents Arrangement This collection is organized into the following series: I. Manuscripts and notes: II. Correspondence: III. Publications: IV. Articles, reviews and papers: V. Photographs: VI. Memorabilia: VII. Family and business records - Page 4- Sarah Orne Jewett collection, 1801-1997 ^ Return to Table of Contents Administrative Information Publication Statement Maine Women Writers Collection Abplanalp Library University of New England 716 Stevens Avenue Portland, Maine 04103 [email protected] URL: http://www.une.edu/mwwc Access Collection is open for research. Publication Rights For permission to reproduce or publish, please contact the Curator of the Maine Women Writers Collection. Custodial History Provenance: The bulk of the correspondence and manuscript material was acquired from New Hampshire collector Kent Bicknell in 2004-2005. Some of this material was previously owned by Maine collector Joseph Frost. Some material in the Frost-Bicknell Collection and in the pre-existing MWWC Jewett Collection was owned by Burton Trafton. ^ Return to Table of Contents - Page 5- Sarah Orne Jewett collection, 1801-1997 Related Materials Related Materials MWWC holds over eighty books of Sarah Orne Jewett's work, many with inscriptions by Jewett to friends, family and admirers; more than ninety books from the libraries of Jewett and her family; and many periodicals containing Jewett stories. Sarah Orne Jewett papers, Milne Special Collections and Archives, University of New Hampshire Library, Durham, New Hampshire Sarah Orne Jewett papers, George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, Maine Abbie S. Beede collection, Maine Women Writers Collection, University of New England, Portland, Maine ^ Return to Table of Contents Controlled Access Headings • Country life • American poetry -- 19th century • South Berwick (Me.) • Manuscripts • Correspondence • Photographs • Research • Obituaries • Postcards • Memorabilia • Clippings • Ephemera • Negatives • Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909 • Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909 • Fields, Annie, 1834-1915 • Jewett family - Page