Title: Margaret Gray Blanton Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1845-1972

Creator:

• Blanton, Margaret Gray, 1887-1973

Call Number: Mss 93; Tape 543A

Quantity: 5.0 c.f. (13 archives boxes and 1 flat package) and 1 tape recording

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Papers of Margaret Gray Blanton, an author and wife of psychiatrist Smiley Blanton. Included are correspondence, 1911-1972, diaries, 1918-1972, manuscripts of her and her husband's writings, materials concerning their relationship with Sigmund Freud, and vast genealogical files on their ancestors in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia, including copies of the accounts of two Baptist churches in Fayette County, Kentucky. Also included is a taped radio interview with Smiley Blanton for the Martha Dean Program about his book, The Healing Power of Poetry, 1961.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00093

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Margaret Leslie Gray was born in Sedalia, Missouri, February 28, 1887. In 1890, her family moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where her mother died in March, 1896. Margaret returned to Missouri to live with her grandmother and Aunt Sallie Gray until her father remarried in 1898 and she returned to Nashville. There on October 18, 1910, she married Smiley Jordan Blanton, a Nashville native who was then an instructor and medical student at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

Blanton received his M.D. in 1914 and his later studies and positions made them residents of New York City; Madison, Wisconsin; Baltimore, Maryland; Platteville, New York; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Poughkeepsie, New York; Nashville, Tennessee; and London, England, and Vienna, Austria, where he studied with Sigmund Freud in 1929-1930 and the summers of 1935, 1937, and 1938. For most of the years from 1931 to his death in 1966, Dr. Blanton engaged in private psychiatric practice in New York City. There in 1951, he and Dr. Norman Vincent Peale established the American Foundation of Religion and Psychiatry, a clinic where “psychiatry performs the diagnosis and Christianity supplies the cure.” Blanton published many articles and several books, including the popular volumes Love or Perish, 1956, Now or Never, 1959, and The Healing Power of Poetry, 1960.

Margaret Blanton had far less formal education than her husband but was sufficiently self-educated to teach occasional college summer school courses and to publish. She studied speech and child psychology and with her husband co-authored Speech Training for Children, 1919, Child Guidance, 1927, Emotional Life of Children, 1934, and For Stutterers, 1936. On her own, she published a best-selling biography, Bernadette of Lourdes, 1939; a novel, The White Unicorn, 1961; and several magazine articles.

Her greatest hobby was researching her own and her husband's genealogies and studying the land migration from Virginia to Kentucky, 1776-1800, in which their families were involved. Her research included the following family names: Bate, Blanton, Bocock, Bond, Brown, Caldwell, Chapman, Durrett, Ellis, Embree, Garth, Gerard, Gosney, Gray, Hawkins, Patton, Shackleford, Skinner, Smiley, Sweeney, Thompson, Toomey, Vance, West, Williams, Wilson, and Young.

Margaret Gray Blanton died in Nashville, Tennessee on January 4, 1973.

The Papers of Margaret Gray Blanton consist of correspondence, biographical material, writings, a small quantity of “preserved items,” most of which originally belonged to her parents and other relatives, a large quantity of genealogical notes and documents, and a tape recording.

CORRESPONDENCE consists mainly of letters between Margaret and Smiley Blanton and between Margaret and other relatives. The letters between Margaret and Smiley date mainly from World War I when he was serving in the Army in Europe. The correspondence with other family members contains news of activities, reminiscences, and occasional reports of genealogical research. (Much similar correspondence can be found filed in the fourth category, genealogical materials.) These letters are filed alphabetically with a miscellaneous folder at the end. Included in the miscellaneous folder is an undated autograph note from John Lindsay, mayor of New York, saying thank you for a campaign contribution. Also in this category is one folder of correspondence concerning heirlooms and other belongings and their disposition which includes an exchange concerning a gift to the White House, with a signed thank you letter from Jacqueline Kennedy.

BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS consists of diaries, 1918-1929, 1933-1934, and 1938-1972, kept by Margaret Blanton, and diary-like accounts by Smiley Blanton of his relationship with Sigmund Freud; and two folders of miscellaneous biographical materials including reminiscences, clippings, and a variety of other isolated items.

WRITINGS includes two folders of manuscripts by Margaret Gray Blanton and one folder of Dr. Smiley Blanton's works. Also included is one folder of letters and notes from the joint writing project of Dr. and Mrs. Blanton on Diary of My Analysis with Sigmund Freud. This book was Dr. Blanton's diary which was edited and published by his wife after his death.

PRESERVED ITEMS totals only one folder containing papers originally belonging to the Blanton's ancestors or preserved because of general historical interest. The largest portion of this is correspondence between Margaret's parents. Also included is a copy of accounts of the Bryan Station and the David's Fork Baptist churches, Fayette County, Kentucky.

GENEALOGICAL MATERIALS, the largest category, comprises charts, notes, correspondence, and photographs of documents, buildings, and tombstones. Mrs. Blanton did extensive research in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia courthouses and exchanged information with a great number of people. All these materials have been retained as Mrs. Blanton had them filed, divided into three sections. First come the neatest, most clearly labeled materials, which Mrs. Blanton kept in loose-leaf notebooks. These are arranged alphabetically by family name, though information concerning two or more families is often combined and the researcher is advised to read through the entire list. Second come rough notes labeled by family name and third, rough notes completely unsorted and unlabeled. The distinction between these rough notes and the materials which arrived in the notebooks is not clear-cut. It appears however that the notebooks are closer to a finished product and that the information in the rough notes was destined to be integrated into the notebooks.

The collection also contains a TAPE RECORDING of a radio interview with Dr. Smiley Blanton on the New York City-based Martha Dean Program from 1961, concerning his book The Healing Power of Poetry.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Margaret Gray Blanton, New York City, 1939, 1963, 1967, and 1970; by the Estate of Mrs. Blanton in February 1973; and by Mrs. Edmund Ford, Columbia, Missouri, in July 1973. Accession Number: M63-142, M67-37, M70-89, M73-32, M73-232

Processing Information

Processed by Karen Baumann and B. Noble, May 6, 1970 and April 15, 1975.

Mss 93	Series: Correspondence
Box   1 Folder   1	Bate, John T., 1958-1965
Box   1 Folder   2	Chapell, Corinne, 1954-1958, 1963
Box   1 Folder   3	Collins, Ross F., 1952-1963
Box   1 Folder   4	Ford, Edmund and Bernadine, 1952-1966
Box   1 Folder   5	Gray, Betty, 1922-1923
	Gray, Sallie and Sidney Garth Gray
Box   1 Folder   6	1903, 1940-1942, 1949-1953
Box   1 Folder   7	1954-1955
Box   1 Folder   8	1956
Box   1 Folder   9	Gray, Sallie, Estate, 1956-1957
Box   1 Folder   10	Gray, Mrs. Sidney Garth, 1956-1958
Box   1 Folder   11	Hurley, Ermine and Bill, 1953-1957
Box   1 Folder   12	Kraft, Alvin and Margie, 1953-1959, 1962, 1966
Box   2 Folder   1	Miscellaneous, 1911, 1950-1972, undated
Box   2 Folder   2	Re heirlooms and other belongings and their disposition, 1954, 1957, 1961-1967
	Between Smiley and Margaret Blanton
Box   3 Folder   1	1917-early 1918
Box   3 Folder   2	1918, circa June
Box   3 Folder   3	1918, Sept.-Oct.
Box   3 Folder   4	1918, Nov.-Dec.
Box   3 Folder   5	1919, Jan.-Feb.
Box   3 Folder   6	1919, March
Box   3 Folder   7	1919, April
Box   3 Folder   8	1919, May-June
Box   3 Folder   9	1928, 1936, 1937, 1954, undated
	Series: Biographical Materials	⇧
Box   4 Volume   1-17	Diaries kept by Margaret Blanton, 1918-1929, 1933-1934, 1938-1972
	Diary of associations with Sigmund Freud
Box   4 Folder   1	1929
Box   4 Folder   2	1930
Box   4 Folder   3	1935
Box   4 Folder   4	1937
Box   4 Folder   5	1938
Box   4 Folder   6	Notebook on which diaries are based, 1935 and 1938
Box   13 Folder   1	Margaret Blanton's Comments on Diaries
Box   13 Folder   2	Letters to, from, and concerning Freud, 1929-1939, 1957
Box   13 Folder   3	Notes for Speeches and Interviews re Freud, 1952, undated
Box   13 Folder   4	Reader's Digest Article on Freud, 1962-1963
Box   13 Folder   5	Clippings on Freud
Box   5 Folder   1-2	Miscellaneous biographical materials
	Series: Writings	⇧
Box   5 Folder   3-4	Writings by Margaret Gray Blanton
Box   5 Folder   5	Writings by Dr. Smiley Blanton
Box   5 Folder   6	Re Diary of My Analysis with Sigmund Freud
Box   5 Folder   7	Series: Preserved Items	⇧
	Series: Genealogical Materials	⇧
	From Notebooks
Box   6 Folder   1	Inclusive charts
Box   6 Folder   2	Bate - Bond - Gerard
Box   6 Folder   3	Bate - Bond - Young
Box   6 Folder   4	Blanton
Box   6 Folder   5	Blantons in Virginia - Brown
Box   6 Folder   6	Brunson - Vance - Smiley - West
Box   6 Folder   7	Caldwell
Box   7 Folder   1	Caldwell - Toomey - Patton - Skinner
Box   7 Folder   2	Chapman - Durrett
Box   7 Folder   3	Garth
Box   7 Folder   4	Garth, 1850 trip to California
Box   7 Folder   5	Garths in Virginia - Bocock
Box   7 Folder   6	Garth - Griffith
Box   7 Folder   7	Gosney - Ellis - Hawkins
Box   8 Folder   1	Gray
Box   8 Folder   2-3	Gray - Thompson - Barnett - Wilson - Williams
Box   8 Folder   4	Shackleford
Box   8 Folder   5	Shackleford - Embree
Box   8 Folder   6	Sweeney - Embree - Shackleford
Box   8 Folder   7	West
	Rough Notes
Box   9 Folder   1-2	Bate
Box   9 Folder   3	Blanton - Brown
Box   9 Folder   4	Blanton - Telford - Brown
Box   9 Folder   5-6	Brunson - Bond
Box   9 Folder   7-8	Caldwell
Box   9 Folder   9	Embree - Hawkins - Gosney
Box   10 Folder   1-2	Gray - Thompson
Box   10 Folder   3	Shackleford
Box   10 Folder   4	Skinner
Box   10 Folder   5	Smiley
Box   10 Folder   6	Sweeney
Box   10 Folder   7	Toomey
Box   11-12	Unsorted
Package   1	Unsorted oversize items
Tape 543A	Series: Tape-recorded radio interview of Dr. Blanton on The Healing Power of Poetry, 1961	⇧