The Vera Caspary Papers are organized in three main parts. Part 1 is the Original Collection, comprising materials received in the Archives in 1963. The Original Collection covers the period 1929-1963 and is housed in Boxes 1-12, plus a package. Part 2 is designated the 1968 Additions and consists of materials received in the Archives in 1965 and 1968. These materials date 1944-1968 and fill Boxes 13-27. Part 3, the 1984 Additions, includes materials received between 1975 and 1983. The materials in Part 3 date 1929-1981 and can be found in Boxes 28-31 and on the reel of microfilm. Each part is described in more detail in the paragraphs that follow.
Part 1: Original Collection, 1929-1963
The Original Collection consists of correspondence; business papers; writings organized by genre: musicals, novels, plays, screenplays, screen stories, stories, and treatments; and finally a box of awards, ephemera, printed magazine stories and articles, and typescripts of three radio and television interviews and photographs.
Correspondence is arranged chronologically by month and includes letters from movie producers, including Sol Seigel, as well as from Caspary's literary agents. These letters provide insight into the work of producing a novel or play for public consumption. The small assortment of business papers is also arranged chronologically by month.
The writings that form the bulk of the Original Collection consist of manuscripts and mimeographed copies of a large number of Caspary's works, both published and unpublished. These are arranged alphabetically within each genre, as many do not bear dates. However, the earlier and later versions of a work have been filed together regardless of title; thus, the plays Beautiful Evening and Blind Mice are filed together, as are the plays The Husband and The Quick Easy Way. Similarly, her novel, A Chosen Sparrow, is immediately followed by the untitled suspense story from which the novel grew. The exception to this ordering scheme is Play to Win, a play with the same characters as the screenplay Illicit, but with a completely different story. Also, in the case of original works that Caspary later prepared for stage and screen, each version is filed under the appropriate genre. Regarding the genres “treatment” and “screen story” the former term designates specifically commissioned story preparations; whereas the latter represents uncommissioned story preparations that were subsequently sold to movie studios.
Awards include a silver medal from the Screen Writers Guild for Les Girls. The small assortment of printed magazine stories and articles represent only those works not received in any other form. Thus the following stories were discarded:
- “Bedelia,” Woman's Journal, May 1945
- “Gardenia,” Today's Woman, February - March 1952
- “Laura” (“Ring Twice for Laura”), Colliers, October.17 - November 28, 1942
- “Out of the Blue,” Today's Woman, September 1947
- ”Stranger Than Truth,” Colliers, September 14 - October 5, 1946
- “Thelma,” Philadelphia Sunday Bulletin Magazine, January 3, 1954
Part 2: 1968 Additions, 1944-1968
The 1968 Additions to the Vera Caspary Papers include Correspondence, Contracts, writings arranged by genre (Novels, Plays, Screenplays, and Television Pilots); and a General category comprising a few newspaper clippings, magazine articles, and speeches. Since most of the writings are undated, they have been categorized according to the progressive stages of writing, i.e. outlines, holograph notes, typewritten notes, rough drafts, etc. Correspondence pertaining to a specific work is filed with that work. The bulk of the material forming the 1968 additions pertains to Caspary's novels; of particular interest here is the vast number of revisions, which permit the evolution of each work to be easily traced.
Part 3: 1984 Additions, 1929-1981
The 1984 Additions include Correspondence and Other Papers, Early Writings and Reviews, and writings organized by genre (Novels, Plays, Screenplays, and Television). Some of the Correspondence is of a general nature, while some consists of letters exchanged with agents, publishers, and readers; also included are a few items pertaining to charges of un-American activities leveled against Caspary during the 1950s. Among the Other Papers are a few contracts and related correspondence, reviews of books, and royalty statements.
The Early Writings and Reviews consist of microfilmed scrapbooks, arranged by subject, that include samples of form letters and advertising copy that Caspary wrote for cosmetic sales and various other enterprises. Among her clients were the Sergei Marinoff School of Classical Dance, Chicago, which purported to teach ballet by mail; the Perfect Voice Institute, Chicago; and the University of Applied Science, Chicago, which offered a fingerprint identification course for which Caspary also wrote the lessons. The scrapbooks also contain reviews of, or material otherwise related to, Caspary's written works, and of items of personal interest. The original scrapbooks were not retained.
The (later) writings organized by genre constitute the majority of the 1984 Additions. Present are manuscripts, drafts, revisions, outlines, and notes of such published and unpublished novels as A Chosen Sparrow, The Dreamers, The Final Portrait, “The Girls,” Laura, The Mystery of Elizabeth X, “New York House of Detention for Women,” The Rosecrest Cell, Ruth, her autobiography The Secrets of Grown-ups, Thelma, “Woman in White,” and “Women in Crime.” There are also files for Caspary's plays Gift of the Gods, “Texas Guinan Story,” and Wedding in Paris; for screenplays “Haunted Summer” and “The Husband”; for a proposed television series; and for short stories and articles.
