THE MARY HEATON VORSE COLLECTION 156 Boxes 1 Oversize Box 12 microfilm reels Processed: 1968 Accession Number 190 By: BF The papers of Mary Heaton Vorse were deposited with the Archives of Labor History and Urban Affairs in December, 1966 by her children Heaton Vorse, Mary Ellen Boyden, and Joel O'Brien. The collection covers the period from 1841 to 1966. THE MARY HEATON VORSE COLLECTION Contents BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH INDEX TO SUBJECTS SERIES DESCRIPTIONS and INVENTORIES I. Manuscripts 45 Boxes (1-45) pp 1-36 - Books - Articles and Stories - Other Writings - Notes - Miscellaneous - Stories Written and Sold - Other Authors II. Correspondence 31 Boxes (46-76) pp 37-43 - Index to Correspondents - Correspondence, 1841-1966 III. Daily Notes 17 Boxes (77-93) pp 44-45 - Daily Summaries 1918-1965 - Yearly Summaries ca. 1903-1965 - Daily Notes 1917-1965 IV. General Information Files 39 Boxes (94-132) pp 46-61 V. Clippings ca. 1892-1963 12 Boxes (133-144) pp 62-65 - Alphabetical - Chronological - Miscellaneous VI. Personal Papers 10 Boxes (145-154) pp 66-68 - Address and Appointment Books - Legal Papers - Financial Papers - Miscellaneous Notes - Memorabilia - Family Papers - Biographical Material - Sketches and Drawings - Miscellaneous VII. Oversize p. 69 VIII. Material received from the State Historical 2 Boxes (155-156 p. 70 Society of Wisconsin concerning strikes in Gastonia and Marion, N.C. and Elizabethon, Tennessee, 1928-1930. Copies: Some collection content in series 2, 3, 4, and 6 (boxes 63-82, 84-107, 114, 116, 117, 128, 130, 145, 146, 150, 151, 153, and 154) (1918-1966, undated) is available on 12 reels of microfilm: correspondence, journal notes, general information files, and personal papers. Arrangement corresponds with the physical arrangement of the papers. MARY HEATON VORSE 1874-1966 Mary Heaton Vorse (nee Mary Marvin Heaton), author, labor journalist, and social critic, was born in New York City on October II, |874 and grew up in Amherst, Mass. Her parents traveled extensively in Europe and Mary received a major part of her education abroad, where she learned to speak fluent French, Italian, and German. Her early desire was to be an artist and as a young woman she spent several winters studying art in Paris. Albert White Vorse, whom she married in 1898, died in 1910. She married Joseph O'Brien in 1912, and was widowed for the second time in 1915. She had three children: Heaton White Vorse, Mary Ellen (Vorse) Boyden, and Joel O'Brien. From 1907 until her death in 1966 Mrs. Vorse made her home in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Mrs. Vorse's professional writing career began when she served as a substitute book-reviewer on the Criterion, a magazine which was then being edited by her husband, Albert White Vorse. Although known in later years primarily as a labor writer and journalist, she achieved her initial success as a writer of light fiction, both short stories and novels. Her published writings include sixteen books and more than 400 articles and stories which have appeared in over 70 periodicals, including Woman's Home Companion, McCall's, Harper's, Masses, New Republic, New Yorker, McClure's, Survey, Delineator, Atlantic, and Ladies' Home Journal. In addition, she has written countless news articles and series for International News Service (INS), U.P., North American Newspaper Alliance (NANA), Labor Press Associates, Federated Press, New York Post, New York World, Washington Post, Washington News, Paris Post, and many others. Among Mrs. Vorse's many friends in the literary world were such prominent and promising American writers as Eugene O'Neill, Susan Glaspell, Neith Boyce, George Cram Cook, Hutchins Hapgood, John DosPassos, and Sinclair Lewis (who credits her with having advised him that "the art of writing is the art of applying the seat of your pants to the seat of the chair."). It was on the Vorse fish wharf in Provîncetown that the newly-formed Provincetown Players gave some of their first plays in 1915. Al though she had previously had some awareness of the problems of labor and of social and economic conditions in this country, it was the textile strike in Lawrence (Mass.) in 1912 which transformed Mrs. Vorse's interest in the labor movement from an abstract interest into a personal involvement. Similarly, her experiences as a foreign correspondent in Europe in 1915 affected her toward war as the Lawrence Strike had toward the problems of labor. As she stated in Footnote To Folly, it was "the difference between knowing academically that war exists and the emotional realization of it." In reporting wars and the events and conditions preceding and following them, she concentrated her writing on civilians; on the people who were most affected by them. Mrs. Vorse's activities from 1912 until her death in 1966 took her into every part of the country and many parts of the world--observing, reporting, and often participating in strikes, labor disturbances, civil disturbances, wars, revolutions, and political upheavals. Unable and unwilling to be a disinterested observer, she reported what she felt, as well as what she heard and saw. She wrote about living and working conditions in all types of jobs in all parts of the country. She wrote about the 1919 steel strike, the sit-down strikes of 1937, infant mortality, the textile strikes of the 1920's, child labor, and the problems of housing war workers during World Wars I and ||. But primarily she wrote about people---migrant agricultural workers in California and textile workers in New England; lumbermen in the Pacific Northwest and cannery workers in Florida; auto workers and steel workers; the I.W.W.; and the Consumers League. In 1962 Mrs. Vorse, along with Eleanor Roosevelt and Upton Sinclair, received the Social Justice Award from the United Automobile Workers. On June 14, 1966 Mary Heaton Vorse died at her home in Provincetown. A chronicle of her major activities and travels would include: 19O9-1O - Morocco 191O - Campaign to reduce the infant mortality rate in New York City. 1912 - Lawrence Strike. (Harper's Weekly) 1913 - Morocco. - Rome. Studied the Montessori Method of education. - Budapest. International Woman Suffrage Convention. (Delegate and reporter) - Paterson (N.J.) Silk Strike. 1915 - Amsterdam. International Congress of Woman. - Holland, France, Germany, Switzerland, England. War correspondent, covering the effects of war on civil populations. - Provincetown. Organization of the Provincetown Players. 1916 - Mining strike on the Mesabi Range. Minnesota, Michigan. 1917-18 - Articles on labor under wartime conditions. Special study of working conditions, labor unrest, living conditions, etc. in Bridgeport, Conn. - Series of pamphlets on the rights of small nations (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia) for the Committee on Public Information. 1918-19 - Europe. England, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia. Publicity for the Red Cross, the Balkan Commission, and the American Relief Administration. Articles and news stories; studies of postwar conditions in industrial areas. 1919 - Switzerland. Second International Socialist Conference. - Steel Strike. Pittsburgh, Homestead, Braddock, etc. Wrote weekly newspaper stories and publicity releases for the Steel Workers Organizing Committee. Later wrote Men and Steel. 1920 - Sacco and Vanzetti case. 1920-21 - Amalgamated Clothing Workers. Organizational drive; lock-out. Wrote series of stories. 1921 - Palmer Raids. 1921-22 - Russia. Reported on living conditions, political conditions, and the effects of the famine. 1922-23 - Criminal Syndicalist cases in Michigan. 1926 - Passaic (N.J.) textile strike. Wrote articles, publicity releases, news stories, and Passaic. 1929 - Southern textile strikes. Later wrote Strike--A Novel of Gastonìa. 1932 - Farmers Holiday Association. 1933 - Scottsboro retrial. - Austria, England, Germany. The London Economic Conference. The rise of Hitler. 1935-36 - Office of Indian Affairs. Editor of Indians At Work. 1936-37 - C.I.O. organizational drives in various industries: automobile, steel, textiles, etc. 1937 - Auto strikes; sit-downs. Flint, Anderson - Steel strike. Youngstown 1939 - France, Germany, Yugoslavia, the invasion of Poland. 1943 - Extensive travels throughout the U.S. writing about labor and the civilian population during wartime. 1945-47 - Europe. Publicity for U.N.R.R.A.; free-lance reporting. France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Yugoslavia 1949 - Mexico. The Sinarquîstas. 1950 - Chrysler Strike. - White House Conference on Children and Youth. 1950-54 - New York-New Jersey waterfront. Crime and corruption on the waterfront; problems of dock workers. 1959 - Henderson (N.C.) Strike. THE MARY HEATON VORSE COLLECTION Subjects in Correspondence and General Information Series Correspondence General Information AFL Conventions 1936, 1952 Î Jane Addams 1915 Î Î Agricultural workers 1937 Î All-Russian Conference of Soviet Writers 1933 Î Amalgamated Clothing Workers 1920-22 Î American Labor Party 1937 Î American Relief Administration 1919 Î Î Anarchists 1914 Î Sherwood Anderson 1938 Î Anderson (Ind.) sit-down strike 1937 Î Î anti-Commun ism 1950's Î anti-war movement 1914 Î Associated Countrywomen of the World 1936 Î Atlanta auto workers strike 1937 Î Auto Workers Union 1934 Î Balkan Commission 1918-19 Î Berber Wars in Morocco 1913 Î Ella Reeve Bloor Î British Socialist Party 1913 Î British trade unionism 1919 Î CIO 1938, 1948, Convention 1941 Î CIO Convention 1937 Î CIO Southern organizational drive 1949 Î Canning industry 1934 Î Censorship 1943 Î Whittaker Chambers 1950's Î Chicago Memorial Day Massacre 1937 Î Child Labor Î Chrysler Strike 1937; 1950 Î Î Count Ciano/von Ribbentrop Conference 1939 Î Citrus Workers Union 1934 Î Civil Works Administration 1934 Î Colorado mining strike 1914 Î Î Committee on Public Information 1917-18 Î Consumer's League 1952, 1954 Î Î Judith Coplon trial 1949-51 Î Fr. Corridan, "waterfront priest" Î Crime on the waterfront 1950's Î Criminal syndicalist laws Î Czechoslovakia Î Eugene Debs 1948 Î De Gaulle 1958 Î Detroit 1937, 1938, 1949-50 Î Î Detroit race riots 1943 Î Dollfuss 1933 Î THE MARY HEATON VORSE COLLECTION Subjects in Correspondence and General Information Series cont.