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Collection Data
- Description
- The papers of poet and teacher Genevieve Taggard include correspondence, drafts of poetry and prose (most notably for her 1930 book The Life and Mind of Emily Dickinson), photographs, notebooks, teaching materials, memorabilia, and other personal and professional materials. The papers also have several audio recordings of Taggard reading her poems. In addition, the collection holds correspondence and writings of her first husband, Robert L. Wolf, her daughter, Marcia Durant Liles, and her parents and siblings. Materials compiled by her second husband, Kenneth Durant, in his attempt at creating a comprehensive bibliography of Taggard's published works, are also included.
- Names
- Taggard, Genevieve, 1894-1948 (Creator)
- Benét, William Rose, 1886-1950 (Correspondent)
- Bogan, Louise, 1897-1970 (Correspondent)
- LaFlamme, Gladys (Associated name)
- Dell, Floyd, 1887-1969 (Correspondent)
- Durant, Kenneth (Correspondent)
- Eastman, Max, 1883-1969 (Correspondent)
- Field, Sara Bard, 1882-1974 (Correspondent)
- Herbst, Josephine, 1892-1969 (Correspondent)
- Humphries, Rolfe (Correspondent)
- Lankes, Julius J., 1884-1960 (Correspondent)
- Lapsley, Mary, 1900- (Correspondent)
- Liles, Marcia Durant, 1921-2022 (Correspondent)
- Porter, Katherine Anne, 1890-1980 (Correspondent)
- Rukeyser, Muriel, 1913-1980 (Correspondent)
- Sterling, George, 1869-1926 (Correspondent)
- Taggard, Alta, 1868-1951 (Correspondent)
- Taggard, Ernestine Kealoha, 1900-1943 (Correspondent)
- Taggard, James Nelson, 1861-1939 (Correspondent)
- Taggard, James Norman, 1902-1986 (Correspondent)
- Untermeyer, Louis, 1885-1977 (Correspondent)
- Wilson, Edmund, 1895-1972 (Correspondent)
- Wolf, Robert Leopold, 1895-1970 (Correspondent)
- Taggard, Genevieve, 1894-1948 (Author)
- Liles, Marcia Durant, 1921-2022 (Author)
- Wolf, Robert Leopold, 1895-1970 (Author)
- Dates / Origin
- Date Created: 1881 - 2001
- Library locations
- Manuscripts and Archives Division
- Shelf locator: MssCol 2942
- Topics
- American literature -- 20th century
- American literature -- Study and teaching
- American poetry -- 20th century
- Authors, American
- Poets, American -- 19th century -- Biography
- Biographers
- College teachers
- Critics
- Editors
- Poets
- Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886
- Taggard, Genevieve, 1894-1948
- Genres
- Correspondence
- Manuscripts
- Books
- galley proofs
- passports
- phonograph records
- Albums (Books)
- Photographs
- Photograph albums
- Prints
- Photographic prints
- Audiotapes
- Poetry
- writings (documents)
- Notebooks
- Notes
- Biographical/historical: Genevieve Irene Taggard (1894-1948) was born on November 28, 1894 in Waitsburg, Washington. Her parents, Alta Gail Taggard and James Nelson Taggard, were both school teachers and missionaries of the Campbellite sect. At the age of two, she moved with her family to Hawaii, where she studied at the Punahou Preparatory School. She was the oldest of three siblings, with a sister, Ernestine, and brother, Norman. In 1910 the family returned to Waitsburg, where Genevieve attended high school and was an editor for the school paper. In 1912 the family briefly returned to Hawaii.
Taggard entered the University of California at Berkeley in 1914, and her mother operated a boarding house there to provide income for the family. She graduated in 1919 and served as editor at the student literary journal, The Occident, from 1918 to 1920. During that time she began moving in the Socialist literary circles of San Francisco. In June of 1920 Taggard moved to New York, where she worked for the publishing house of modernist B.W. Huebsch (founder of The Freeman) and helped found and edit the journal The Measure: A Journal of Verse with Maxwell Anderson and Padraic Colum. She was an editor at The Measure until 1926 and active in the Greenwich Village radical bohemian literary scene. Although primarily concerned with domestic issues at that time, Taggard considered herself a Socialist. Many of her poems protested social injustice, and she became affiliated with organizations on the political left. She remained closely associated with the Communist Party throughout her adult life.
On March 21, 1921, Taggard married fellow writer Robert L. Wolf, with whom she had a daughter, Mary Alta (Marcia) Wolf, born December 13, 1921. She returned to California for several years, living in and around San Francisco until 1923, when she returned east to New Preston, Connecticut. In 1926 she moved back to New York City. Taggard's first book of verse, For Eager Lovers, was published in 1922 and was praised by many critics, including Edmund Wilson, but she failed to gain widespread recognition until another collection of poems, Traveling Standing Still, was published in 1928.
Taggard published numerous books of poetry, including Hawaiian Hilltop (1923), Words for the Chisel (1926), Monologue for Mothers (1929), Remembering Vaughan in New England (1933), Not Mine to Finish (1934), Calling Western Union (1936), Collected Poems: 1918-1938 (1938), Long View (1942), Falcon (1942), A Part of Vermont (1945), Slow Music (1946) and Origin: Hawaii (1947). She also edited May Days: An Anthology of Verse from the Masses and the Liberator (1925) and Circumference: Varieties of Metaphysical Verse (1929). Her poems, essays, short stories, reviews, and criticism were published in numerous journals, including: Asia, The Bookman, New Republic, Voices, The Dial, Poetry, The Nation, The Masses, Literary Digest, Century Magazine, Harper's, The Lyric West, The Measure: A Journal of Poetry, Christian Science Monitor, The Saturday Review and The Liberator. The work for which she is best known, however, is a biography, The Life and Mind of Emily Dickinson, first published in 1930 and reprinted in 1934.
In the 1930s Taggard became a contributing editor of the Marxist journal The New Masses, in which she published poems, reviews, and articles. Her poetry during this time explored political subject matter, including race and class prejudice, labor strikes, and the elitism of poetry as a practice. Her political views are expressed in poems in Calling Western Union, which concern marble workers in Vermont, and Falcon, which celebrate the heroism of the Soviet people.
From 1931 to 1932 Taggard held a Guggenheim Fellowship which enabled her to live and write in Capri and Mallorca, accompanied by her daughter and sister. She was divorced from Robert L. Wolf in 1934 and married Kenneth Durant the next year, on March 10, 1935. They remained married until her death. In addition to writing, Taggard was also a teacher. She taught courses in poetry and writing at Mount Holyoke College (1929-1931), Bennington College (1932-1935) and at Sarah Lawrence College (1935-1946). In 1946, she retired from teaching and moved permanently to Gilfeather, her home in Vermont. From 1946 to 1948 she served on the editorial board of the Young People's Record Club.
Taggard was interested in both radio and musical performances as forums for poetry, and on many occasions read her poems over the air and wrote for music. On April 13, 1943, her poem "Lark," set to music by Aaron Copland, was performed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Taggard's poems have been translated into many foreign languages and set to music not only by Copland but also by William Schuman, Roy Harris, and Henry Leland Clarke.
Genevieve Taggard died in New York City of complications from high blood pressure on November 8, 1848, just before her fifty-fourth birthday.
- Content: The Genevieve Taggard papers contain personal correspondence, correspondence with publishers, drafts of poetry and prose, photographs and drawings, teaching materials, subject files, journals and notebooks, and notes for various public talks and radio broadcasts. Included are several audio recordings of Taggard reading her poetry. The collection also holds papers of Taggard's first husband, the writer Robert L. Wolf; her daughter, Marcia Durant Liles; her second husband, Kenneth Durant; and her parents and siblings, Alta, James, Ernestine, and Norman Taggard. The scope and content of materials in the collection are described more extensively at the series level in this finding aid.
Of particular note in Taggard's papers are research materials, drafts, and galley proofs of her 1930 book The Life and Mind of Emily Dickinson, as well as her personal correspondence, which includes letters to and from many important figures in 20th century American literature, personal friends, family, and academic colleagues. Among Taggard's most frequent correspondents were Maeve Butler Beck, William Rose Benét, Mary Lapsley Caughey, Max Eastman, Sara Bard Field and Charles Erskine Scott Wood, Josephine Herbst, Rolfe Humphries, J. J. Lankes, James (Jim) Neugass, George Sterling, and Louis Untermeyer. Also of note are letters from Van Wyck Brooks, Alexander Calder, Ernest Hemingway, and Paul Strand, as well as correspondence with publishers and letters from readers.
In addition, the collection contains teaching notes Taggard used while a professor at Mount Holyoke, Bennington, and Sarah Lawrence Colleges.
- Content: Terms of use: Judith Benét Richardson holds copyright for the Estate of Genevieve Taggard
- Content: Related material: Elinor Langer Collection of Josephine Herbst. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Genevieve Taggard papers, 1930-1948. Dartmouth College, Rauner Special Collections Library. H.L. Mencken papers, 1905-1956. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. Joel E. Spingarn papers, 1890-1939. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. Kathleen Millay collection of papers, 1904-1956. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. Letters of Genevieve Taggard, 1925-1943. Special Collections, University of Virginia. Louis Untermeyer papers, 1902-1972. University of Delaware Library, Special Collections Department. Max Eastman manuscripts, 1892-1968. Lilly Library, Indiana University. New Yorker records, ca.1924-1984. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. Poetry : A Magazine of Verse records, 1912-1961. Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago. Ralph Thompson papers, 1929-1960. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. V.F. Calverton papers, 1923-1941. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. Yaddo records, 1870-1980. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.
- Content: Custodial history: Kenneth Durant began donating Taggard's papers to the New York Public Library in 1952 and appears to have done so sporadically for the next two decades, until his death in 1972. Many of her papers are annotated in his hand. When he died, his widow donated additional materials related to his compilation of the Taggard bibliography. In 2010, Judith Benét Richardson donated a significant amount of additional material, most notably the papers of Robert L. Wolf and other members of the Taggard family.
- Acquisition: Donated by Kenneth Durant, 1952, Helen Durant, 1973, and Judith Benét Richardson, 2010
- Content: Processing information: Compiled by Laura Morris. Due to the sporadic nature in which additions were made to the collection between 1952 and 1972, as well as the presence of a significant number of photostat and xerox copies of archival materials held by other repositories, the integration of materials donated in 2010 required physical and intellectual rearrangement of the collection as a whole and the discard of non-original materials. Series were created for each individual represented in the collection, and materials were arranged alphabetically by genre within those series. When possible, existing folder titles were maintained, and dates were added to assist researchers in using the collection.
- Physical Description
- Extent: 28.03 linear feet (60 boxes; 5 sound recordings)
- Type of Resource
- Text
- Three dimensional object
- Still image
- Sound recording
- Identifiers
- NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b19319961
- MSS Unit ID: 2942
- Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): b1d7b400-3469-013b-ab0f-0242ac110003
