The Emmet Lavery Papers are arranged in six series: Scripts, Articles and Letters, Federal Theatre Project, The Screen Writer, Clippings, and Miscellaneous Materials.
The scripts, which are arranged alphabetically, are subdivided into plays, and television and film scripts. Some of the scripts are in manuscript form, others are mimeographed. Programs are included with the scripts where they occur. Also in this series is a recording of the 1965 telecast of The Magnificent Yankee starring Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne.
The second series is a mimeographed collection of articles and letters, written by Mr. Lavery between 1934 and 1962. Autobiographical material is found in this series, as well as valuable information about Hollywood, the Screen Writers Guild, and the case of Lavery vs. Rogers (1951).
The Federal Theatre Project series contains information about this government-sponsored program prepared both by the Federal Theatre Project and the Bureau of Theatre Research of Vassar College. Materials in this series include: articles about the Project; an inventory of Federal Theatre Project personnel, equipment, and available venues; a complete list of plays produced by the Project between 1936 and 1939, arranged alphabetically by state; news surveys (clippings) of the productions; production photographs; a manuscript copy of The Flexible Stage (1940), an unpublished book about the Federal Theatre by Mr. Lavery; and miscellaneous statistics about the Federal Theatre. The latter two were compiled by the Vassar College Bureau of Theatre Research.
The Screen Writer series contains eight issues (1946 to 1948) of this publication which Mr. Lavery edited. The issues contain articles by Mr. Lavery. Other issues of The Screen Writer, not containing articles by Mr. Lavery, are located in the University of Wisconsin Memorial Library.
The Clippings series contains clippings pertaining to the following plays by Mr. Lavery: Monsignor's Hour, The First Legion (play and film version), and The Magnificent Yankee (play and television version); and photostatic copies of clippings pertaining to the Billy Mitchell trial (1925), on which Mr. Lavery based his screen play The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell.
The Miscellaneous Materials series contains articles and pamphlets, some of which were written by Mr. Lavery, on varied topics; book-jackets from some of his published plays; photographs of Mr. Lavery and production stills from some of his plays and films; the complete transcript of his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee; oversize photographs; and sketches of Mr. Lavery's play, Fenelon.
