The Edna Ferber Papers are divided into five series: GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, BOOKS AND ARTICLES, THEATRE, MOTION PICTURES, and MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS.
The Edna Ferber Papers, presented to the University of Wisconsin by Miss Ferber, her estate, and her family, are divided into two parts, with her large library (approximately 1300 volumes) housed at Memorial Library and her papers held by the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research at the Wisconsin Historical Society. (Memorial Library's Special Collections Department holds one folder of correspondence and one typed script acquired from other sources.)
Ferber's library includes not only several shelves of her own works which are housed with the general collection, but also inscribed copies of books by many of her many literary friends and associates that are held in a restricted area.
The papers held by the Historical Society document over a half century of Ferber's life, but the coverage is uneven and for many periods, such as the 1920s when she achieved her greatest commercial and critical success, the collection is disappointingly thin. In 1958 when Miss Ferber was first contacted by a representative of the Historical Society she stated that many of her early papers had been given away, auctioned off, or otherwise disposed of. Unlike the draft material which documents well only one book written during the 1920s, the correspondence in the papers is best for the earlier period of Ferber's career, with the majority of the items concerning her personal life rather than her literary work. Later correspondence, however, chiefly consists of extensive and detailed exchanges with her literary agents and editors.
The GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, 1910-1969, contains letters from Ferber's friends and acquaintances, including many notables. The collection includes an extensive exchange with William Allen White that begins with their coverage of the 1912 political conventions. There is also documentation of her frequent exchanges with Louis Bromfield, Noel Coward, Jay N. Darling, Moss Hart and Kitty Carlisle Hart, Malcolm Johnson, Daniel Longwell, Kenneth D. McCormick, H.L. Mencken, William Lyon Phelps, Robert Sherwood, Louis Untermeyer, Alexander Woollcott, and Rebecca West. Also represented, but less extensively are Winthrop Ames, James M. Barrie, Russell Crouse, Lynn Fontanne, Zona Gale, Jeannette Gilder, Lillian Gish, Edgar Guest, Richard Halliday, Lillian Hellman, Katharine Hepburn, Leland Heyward, Harry Houdini, George S. Kaufman, Helen Keller, Jerome Kern, Sinclair Lewis, Westbrook Pegler, John Reed, Richard Rodgers, Theodore Roosevelt, Adele Rogers St. John, Upton Sinclair, and Howard Teichmann.
Original letters written to her sister and nieces (“the Foxes”) are interspersed among the general correspondence, and they provide the most comprehensive coverage of the day-to-day events of Ferber's life, although this correspondence seldom touches on literary matters. Also scattered through the general correspondence are letters from readers concerning their reactions to her work. Some of the letters from prominent correspondents noted above were apparently received for this reason.
A large part of the correspondence (including some items from the prominent correspondents noted above) consists of photocopied material. When the collection was reviewed in 1991 in order to incorporate new material the provenance of the photocopied material was not apparent. Although this material is not attributed, it is suspected that some of the original documents may be on deposit elsewhere. It is possible that they were collected by Ferber's great-niece for her 1978 biography, although this cannot be determined, as the book contains no footnotes or bibliography. It is known that the segregated file of William Allen White correspondence in the Ferber Papers consists of copies of her letters to him held by the Library of Congress.
Also filed separately with the correspondence series are letters that Ferber received in reaction to her account of the Bruno Hauptman trial, which appeared in the New York Times on January 28, 1935; as well as letters sparked by her 1953 attack on the grimy condition of New York City streets. The correspondence also documents in detail Ferber's efforts to help her Jewish relatives emigrate from Hitler's Germany to the United States.
BOOKS AND ARTICLES form the largest segment of the collection. Organized chronologically, the series begins in 1914 and ends with material concerning the novel on American Indians that she was researching at the time of her death. Included in the series are correspondence, research materials, manuscript drafts and corrected galley pages, notes, reviews, all filed by the title of the work to which they pertain. Researchers interested in the development of individual works will find Cimarron, Giant, and Ice Palace to be among the most extensively documented of her novels. Of her two-volume autobiography, the second, A King of Magic, is also well represented.
The THEATRE file consists primarily of scripts and reviews of productions, together with related correspondence. For some productions there are also financial and box office statements. It includes a typed script of her collaboration with George V. Hobart on Roast Beef Medium (Memorial Library Rare Book Room holds a typed version of Our Mrs. McChesney, also done with Hobart), and manuscripts of Bravo! and The Royal Family documenting her relationship with George S. Kaufman. Also included are variant drafts by Morton DaCosta for Saratoga. Notable in the WCFTR photo file are stills of a production of The Royal Family in which Ferber starred.
The MOTION PICTURE series contains material on the screen adaptation of many of Ferber's novels, with the best material relating to the production of
Giant. For this title, there are synopses, character profiles, and numerous variant drafts. Other titles are represented by reviews, correspondence, and financial material.
The file of MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS includes speeches, clippings, personal financial records, photographs and memorabilia. There are also correspondence and notes related to Ferber (1978), a biography by Ferber's great-niece, Julie Goldsmith Gilbert. For the book Gilbert interviewed a numer of Ferber's friends and associates and summaries of these interviews are included, as well as a taped interview with Frances Charnock.
Photographs received with the papers consist of formal portraits; candid shots of her personal life and travel; her family; her work as a correspondent during World War II; and her Connecticut home. These have been separated for storage in the WCFTR Name File.
