Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
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| Textual Feature | Appearance |
|---|---|
| passage deleted with a strikethrough mark | |
| passage deleted by overwritten added letters | |
| passage added above the line | passage with added text above |
| passage added on the line | passage with added text inline |
| passage added in the margin | passage with text added in margin |
| handwritten addition to a typewritten letter | typed passage with added handwritten text |
| missing or unreadable text | missing text noted with "[illegible]" |
| uncertain transcriptions | word[?] |
| notes written by someone other than Willa Cather | Note in another's hand |
| printed letterhead text | printed text |
| text printed on postcards, envelopes, etc. | printed text |
| text of date and place stamps | stamped text |
| passage written by Cather on separate enclosure. | written text |
Season's Greetings and
Best Wishes
for the New Year
from Willa Cather
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1346.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1346
- Contents
- Document is one leaf with image of four shepherds with sheep around them looking at two angels above them on recto. Handwritten message on verso of greeting card.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Margaret Livingston Lee Crofts1
- Date letter was written
- [December 1936]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The handwritten note at the top of the greeting card, likely by Carrie Miner Sherwood but possibly by an archivist, is the best extant evidence for the date of this letter.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Bernice Slote, English Papers, 1870-1978 (RG/12-10-16), University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
The Civilian Conservation Corps (1933-1942) was a popular New Deal program which provided work for young men developing and conserving public land.
Person Annotations
Crofts, Margaret Livingston Lee (1893-after 1952). Writer and hostess. Margaret Livingston Lee was born in North Carolina; she married textbook publisher Frederick S. Crofts in the early 1920s, about the time she became acquainted with Cather. They corresponded mainly about social events. In 1937, Margaret Crofts published a novel, Armed with Light. She and her husband had a country home in Stamfield, CT, to which they relocated when Frederick Crofts retired and sold his business to Appleton-Century.
Wood, Grant (1891-1942). American artist. Born in Anamosa, IA, Grant Wood attended the Minneapolis School of Design and Handicraft in 1910 and afterwards made jewelry and metalwork. In 1923 he studied painting at the Académie Julian in Paris and was influenced by a 1928 trip to Germany, developing the style that became emblematic of the Midwestern regionalist movement in the visual arts in the 1930s. Wood gained international acclaim when American Gothic (1930) was exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1932 he co-founded the Stone City Colony and Art School and in 1934 became a professor at the University of Iowa. Willa Cather respected Wood’s work but rejected a 1937 proposition from Houghton Mifflin that Wood be commissioned to illustrate My Ántonia (1918).
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (1882-1945). American president.
Roosevelt was elected the 32nd president of the United States in
1932. He began his presidency during the Great Depression and served for
four terms (longer than any other president before him or since) up until
his death near the end of World War II. As president, Roosevelt greatly
expanded the powers of the federal government through the New Deal. Cather
felt “satisfied” with his election, although she did not consider him to be
a “giant intellect” (#1504, #2104).
Farley, James Aloysius (1888-1976). American politician and businessman. Born in Grassy Point, NY, to James Farley and Ellen F. Goldrick Farley, James Farley graduated from the Packard Commercial School of New York in 1906. He first worked for the Universal Gympsum Company as a bookkeeper, salesman, and manager before founding the James A. Farley & Co., which later became the General Building Supply Corporation. As a politician, Farley served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee and as Postmaster General of the United States under Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He also managed Roosevelt’s 1932 and 1936 campaigns.
Place Annotations
