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Collection Data
- Description
- The Hallie Flanagan papers span the years 1923-1963 and reflect many aspects of her career: teaching and directing, writing and speech-giving, and her leadership of the Federal Theatre Project. Correspondence makes up a large part of the collection and has been arranged in three series: general correspondence, Federal Theatre prject, and Vassar/Smith correspondence. Other correspondence can be found in the files on the closing of the Federal Theatre Project. The strength of the collection lies in the materials on the Federal Theatre Project and her college theater materials. The files on the Federal Theatre touch on almost every aspect of the project from beginning to end through memos, reports, production files, correspondence, speeches, articles, scripts and scrapbooks. The Vassar and Smith materials consist of notes used for her classes, articles and speeches, production files, photographs, clippings and correspondence.
- Names
- Flanagan, Hallie, 1890-1969 (Creator)
- Atkinson, Brooks, 1894-1984 (Correspondent)
- Craig, Edward Gordon, 1872-1966 (Correspondent)
- Davis, Philip (Correspondent)
- Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888-1965 (Correspondent)
- Hopkins, Harry (Correspondent)
- Hughes, Gareth, 1894-1965 (Correspondent)
- Lavery, Emmet, 1902-1986 (Correspondent)
- Rice, Elmer, 1892-1967 (Correspondent)
- Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962 (Correspondent)
- Rukeyser, Muriel, 1913-1980 (Correspondent)
- Dates / Origin
- Date Created: 1923 - 1963
- Library locations
- Billy Rose Theatre Division
- Shelf locator: *T-Mss 1964-002
- Topics
- College theater -- United States
- Federal aid to the theater -- United States -- History
- Theater -- United States
- Federal Theatre Project (U.S.)
- Smith College
- Vassar College
- Genres
- scrapbooks
- Scripts
- speeches (documents)
- Notes
- Biographical/historical: Hallie Flanagan was born Hallie Ferguson August 27, 1889 in Redfield, South Dakota. She grew up in Grinnell, Iowa, attended Grinnell College, and studied with George Pierce Baker at Harvard's 47 Workshop. She returned to Grinnell where she initiated her idea for an experimental theater. The following year she accepted a job at Vassar College. In 1926 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to study theater in Europe, the first woman to receive this honor. She traveled extensively and met with John Galsworthy, Constantine Stanislavsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Karel Capek, Edward Gordon Craig, and Lady Gregory, among others. From 1927 to 1935 she taught and directed at Vassar where she established the Vassar Experimental Theatre.
In 1935 Flanagan was appointed national director of the Federal Theatre Project, an offshoot of the Works Progress Administration. Flanagan envisioned the project not only as a source of employment for American artists but as a way to bring theater to people across the country, many of whom had never seen a play. The project lasted for four turbulent yet creative years and was ultimately abolished by Congress. Flanagan returned to Vassar where, with the aid of a Rockefeller grant, she organized the Federal Theatre records [Theatre Research Project] and wrote Arena, the story of the Federal Theatre Project.
On leave of absence from Vassar in 1942, Flanagan accepted a position at Smith College as head of the theater department and Dean of the school. She remained at Smith until her retirement in 1952.
Besides Arena, Flanagan was the author of numerous articles and two other books: Shifting Scenes of the Modern European Theatre, based on her 1926-1927 travels, and Dynamo, a chronicle of her work at Vassar. She was also a playwright.
Flanagan married twice: to Murray Flanagan who died in 1918 and to Philip Davis who died in 1940. Flanagan lived with Parkinson's disease for many years and died on July 23, 1969. Her two sons predeceased her. She was survived by her three stepchildren and her grandchildren.
- Content: The Hallie Flanagan papers span the years 1923 -1963 and reflect many aspects of her career: teaching and directing, writing and speech-giving, and her leadership of the Federal Theatre Project. Correspondence makes up a large part of the collection. It has been arranged in three series, general, Federal Theatre Project, and Vassar/Smith. There is some overlap, however, and correspondence may be found in other parts of the collection as well. For example, the closing of the Federal Theatre Project and Theatre Research Project files are almost entirely made up of correspondence. The strength of the collection lies in two areas: the Federal Theatre Project and college theater.
The Federal Theatre materials touch on almost every aspect of the project from beginning to end through memos, reports, production files, correspondence, speeches, articles, scripts, and scrapbooks. [The personal papers series contains a folder of excerpts from letters written by Flanagan to her husband Philip Davis while she headed the project.] The Vassar and Smith materials consist of notes used for her classes, articles and speeches, production files of photographs and clippings, and, of course, correspondence.
- Content: This collection has been reprocessed and the arrangement found in the microfilmed copy of this collection is no longer the same as in the original papers
- Physical Description
- Extent: 17 linear feet (46 boxes)
- Type of Resource
- Text
- Identifiers
- Other local Identifier: *T-Mss 1964-002
- NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b12466226
- MSS Unit ID: 21354
- Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): a1bec690-b46b-013a-ef62-0242ac110004
