Guide to the Lew Sarett (1888-1954) Papers
| Collection Title: | Lew Sarett (1888-1954) Papers |
| Dates: | 1902-1978 |
| Identification: | 20/9 |
| Creator: | Sarett, Lew, 1888-1954 |
| Extent: | 15 Boxes |
| Language of Materials: | English |
| Abstract: | Lew R. Sarett was a professor of English and public speaking at the University of Illinois and Northwestern University. The Lew Sarett Papers illuminate Sarett's personality and methods as a successful and popular teacher and poet. The Papers also shed light on a time period in American history when themes of respect for nature and for Native Americans found a receptive audience among poetry lovers and lecture audiences. The Papers are arranged in six general categories: Biographical Materials (including Clippings); Correspondence, Teaching Files (including Lecture Notes), Speeches, Publications (including Manuscript Drafts and Notes), and Photograph Albums and Scrapbooks. |
| Acquisition Information: | The Lew Sarett Papers comprised of two main accessions. The first was donated to the Northwestern University Library by Mrs. Alma Johnson Sarett in 1956, and transferred to the Northwestern University Archives from the Special Collections Department in 1975. The second accession was donated to the University Archives by Helen Sarett Stockdale on May 8, 1985, as Accession No. 85-86. In addition, three folders of notes on Sarett's lectures taken by one of his students were separated from the Agnes Jones Cashman Papers, Series 25/5, on November 23, 1993, and incorporated into this series. |
| Processing Information: | Mary Moss, 1975; Bonnie-Jeanne Noble and Erik W. Goldstrom, 1985; Rae S. Bielakowski and Janet C. Olson, 2001. |
| Separated Materials: | Three inches of duplicate and extraneous materials were separated from this series. Two silver trophies, awarded to Lew Sarett in 1910 and 1922 at the Wisconsin State Oratorical Contests, were transferred to the University Archives Artifacts Collection. All of Sarett's Indian artifacts were returned to Helen Sarett Stockdale in 2000. As listed below, audio-tapes, a vinyl recording, and one compact disk were transferred to the Archives' Audio-visual collection. Loose photographs were removed and transferred to the Archives' Photograph Collection. Copies of Sarett's volumes of poetry were added to the Archives' Faculty Authors Collection.Audio Tapes: “January 14, 1956, Lew Sarett Library Evening” (3 tapes)Recording: 33rpm LP, “Lew Sarett - Reading from his Collected Poems”CD: “Lew Sarett - Reading from his Collected Poems”–CD-rom version of the above recording, donated by Helen Sarett Stockdale. |
| Conditions Governing Access: | None. |
| Electronic Format: | The entire contents of the Lew Sarett Papers have been microfilmed as Film # 17913; the 13 reels of microfilm are accessible in the Northwestern University Library's Periodicals/Newspaper Reading Room (paged collection) or through Interlibrary Loan. |
| Repository: | Northwestern University Archives Deering Library, Room 110 1970 Campus Dr. Evanston, IL, 60208-2300 URL: http://www.library.northwestern.edu/archives Email: archives@northwestern.edu Phone: 847-491-3354 |
Biographical/Historical Information
Lew R. Sarett, poet, teacher, philosopher, woodsman and lecturer, was born Lewis Saretsky on May 16, 1888 in Chicago, the only child of Rudolph and Jeanette Block Saretsky. His parents had immigrated to the United States around 1880, his father from Poland and his mother from Lithuania.
The family moved in 1895 to Marquette, Michigan, where Sarett first began to acquire his knowledge and love of the outdoors and of wild animals. Sarett and his mother returned to Chicago's slums for two years while his father continued to look for work. Around 1902 the family was reunited and moved to Benton Harbor, Michigan, where Sarett graduated from Benton Harbor High School in 1907 as a champion orator, debater, athlete and scholar.
Sarett worked his way through the University of Michigan (1907-1908), Beloit College (B.A. 1911), Harvard Law School (1911-1912) and the University of Illinois Law School (LL.B. 1916). In his undergraduate days, nicknamed 'swat,' Sarett participated in athletics and won honors in oratory. He won the Wisconsin State Oratorical Championship in two successive years; his prize-wining orations were “The Slavonic Offering to the American” in 1910 and “Poland's Offering to the American” in 1911. Around 1911, he formally changed his surname to Sarett.
From 1912 to 1920, Sarett taught English and Public Speaking at the University of Illinois. It was during this period that he began to write poetry, publishing his first volume, Many Many Moons, in 1920. He became an advisory editor of Poetry magazine in 1921, won the Levinson Poetry Prize in 1921 and the Poetry Society of America's annual prize in 1925. He also began a lifelong career of public speaking, spending many summers on the lyceum and chautauqua circuits, in the employ of such agencies as the Redpath Bureau and the J.B. Pond Lyceum Bureau. Although his first important lecture, “Stranger at the Gates,” dealt with the urban immigrant experience, Sarett soon developed a reputation and repertoire as an interpreter of the American wilderness. Sarett described many of his performances as “lecture-recitals,” reflecting their combination of prose and poetry. For such popular lectures as “The Children God Forgot” Sarett took the stage in full American Indian dress; on other occasions, he appeared in the hiking boots and heavy plaid jacket of a woodsman. In 1921 Sarett, billed as “the poet of the wilderness,” shared the platform with his friend Carl Sandburg, “the poet of the city.” In 1951 Columbia Records released a recording of Sarett reading from his collected works.
In 1920, over the protests of his devoted students at the University of Illinois, Sarett came to Northwestern University, where his teaching schedule would allow him to spend more time in the wilderness. Sarett made news in 1925, when he decided to live in the wilds of Wisconsin, commuting six hundred miles roundtrip to teach at Northwestern for one semester each year. At Northwestern, where he remained as Professor of Speech until his retirement in 1953, Sarett developed and offered several popular courses, including Persuasion, Prosody, the Teaching of Speech, Forms of Public Address, and Building the Lecture/Recital. In 1950 he was granted a three-year leave of absence because of poor health, and at the end of this leave he retired. Upon Sarett's retirement, the University established the Lew Sarett Chair of Speech. From 1951-1954 Sarett was Visiting Professor of Speech at the University of Florida. He died of a heart attack on August 17, 1954 in Gainesville, Florida, at the age of 66.
From childhood, Sarett had been attracted to all aspects of nature, an affinity which, together with his appreciation for American Indian culture and lore, is clearly reflected in his poetry. For many years Sarett devoted served for several months as a ranger in National Parks in Montana and Wyoming. He also acted as a wilderness guide, traveling over 12,000 miles in the remote forests and mountains of northern Minnesota and Canada by pack-train and canoe. For a time he served as an adviser on Indian affairs to the Department of the Interior. He lived among the Chippewa Indians of the Lake Superior region, and was adopted by them and given the name of Pay-shig Ah-deek, which means “Lone Caribou.” In 1964, ten years after his death, the Lew Sarett Wildlife Sanctuary and Nature Center was established in Benton Harbor, Michigan, by a gift of Mr. and Mrs. William Vawter to the Michigan Audubon Society. Sarett's diverse interests included horticulture; during his lifetime he produced six new varieties of dahlia, each of which won many awards.
Lew Sarett published six volumes of poetry, including Many Many Moons, The Box of God, Slow Smoke, Wings Against the Moon, The Collected Poems of Lew Sarett and Covenant with Earth: A Selection from the Poetry of Lew Sarett. Carl Sandburg wrote forwards for three of Sarett's books. Sarett was also the senior author, with William T. Foster, of Basic Principles of Speech. The first edition of this text was published in 1936, and a revised edition in 1946. Sarett's widow, Alma Johnson Sarett, prepared the third edition for publication in 1958 after his death, and the fourth edition was issued in 1966. Sarett and Foster also co-edited Modern Speeches on Basic Issues (1939), and, with James H. McBurney as junior author, wrote Speech: A High School Course. All three of these textbooks enjoyed wide use in schools and colleges.
Sarett was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by Baylor University in 1926. Beloit College awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters of Humanity in 1946. He was a member of numerous societies and professional organizations, including Phi Beta Kappa; Delta Sigma Rho, honorary forensic fraternity; Sigma Tau Delta, honorary English fraternity; Phi Delta Phi, legal fraternity; and Zeta Psi, social fraternity. He also held membership in the Midland Author's Club and the London Author's Club, among other organizations. He was one of the founders, in 1914, of what is now the Speech Communication Association, a national professional speech organization, and was secretary of the SCA from 1918-1920. At the time of his death Sarett was regional vice-president of the Poetry Society of America.
In 1914 Sarett married Margaret Husted. They had two children: Lew Sarett, Jr., became a distinguished chemist (he synthesized cortisone in 1945), and Helen Osgood Sarett Stockdale became an attorney. Margaret Husted Sarett died in 1941. Two years later, Sarett married Juliet Barker, a voice teacher with a graduate degree from the Northwestern University School of Speech (1924); she died in 1945. In 1946 he married Alma E. Johnson, who had received her M.A. (1938) and Ph.D. (1942) degrees from Northwestern. Alma Johnson Sarett (Anderson), a professor of speech at the University of Florida, died in 1982.
Scope and Content
The Lew Sarett Papers illuminate Sarett's personality and methods as a successful and popular teacher and poet. The Papers also shed light on a time period in American history when themes of respect for nature and for Native Americans found a receptive audience among poetry lovers and lecture audiences.
The Papers are arranged in six general categories: Biographical Materials (including Clippings); Correspondence, Teaching Files (including Lecture Notes), Speeches, Publications (including Manuscript Drafts and Notes), and Photograph Albums and Scrapbooks.
Biographical materials include biographies, clippings, obituaries, awards, and other items, and span the years 1926 to 1972 (with a few undated items filed at the end of the folder). The Biography folder contains autobiographical and biographical sketches, press releases, announcements, and two student papers: “Lew Sarett, The Man and His Poetry,” by Palmer Hilty (1929) and “Lew Sarett, The Man,” by J.A. Bitzer (1935). Many of the newspaper and magazine interviews and articles in the Clippings category also contain biographical details. In addition to the folder of Obituaries, see also the Condolence Letters received by Alma Johnson Sarett. Clippings, from newspapers, popular magazines, and professional journals, include notices of Sarett's speaking engagements; interviews with and articles about Sarett; and articles about Sarett's prize-winning dahlias. While many of the clippings cite Sarett's poems, reprints of his poetry will be found in the Publications category. Announcements of Sarett's lectures include promotional flyers for the program in which Sarett and Sandburg appeared together. Clippings span the years 1907 to 1975; one folder contains undated clippings. Of particular note are the lengthy articles about Sarett by Neil Clark from the February and March, 1926, issues of the American Magazine (the typescript of these articles is filed in Folder 4), which emphasize Sarett's transformation from poor urban youth to poet of the wilderness. Most of the clippings documenting Sarett's performances on the lecture circuit are filed in the Clippings Scrapbook (1915-1918) in Box 15. Clippings relating to Sarett's published work, including reviews of his books, are filed in the Reviews folders (loose clippings), Box 12, or in the Clippings Scrapbook (1915-1926) in Box 15.
Correspondence includes general, literary, and student correspondence, as well as letters of condolence sent to Sarett's wife after her husband's death. General Correspondence spans the years 1910 to 1954. Subject Correspondence includes Sarett's correspondence with his publishers, with Northwestern University faculty and administrators, and with students; audience reaction to Sarett's lecture-recitals; and correspondence relating to the Northwestern University Library event in 1956 which acknowledged Alma Sarett's presentation of her husband's papers to the University. A bound volume, presented to Sarett on his retirement from Northwestern University, contains letters of appreciation from colleagues and former students across the country, arranged in alphabetical order. Sarett corresponded with many writers, poets and other well-known individuals of his time, from Jane Addams to Morton Zabel; these letters (almost exclusively incoming), spanning the years 1916 to 1954, are foldered individually and arranged alphabetically by the surname of the correspondent. The letters are located in Boxes 4 and 5; a list of the “Correspondents of Note” follows.
Correspondents of Note (A-T, Box 4; U-Z, Box 5)
Addams, Jane, 1934
Albright, Horace M., 1921
Allen, Hervey, 1934
Amsbary, (Wallace) Bruce, 1922-1925
Anderson, Sherwood, 1934
Austin, Mary, 1929
Bates, Katharine Lee, 1927-1928
Benet, Stephen Vincent, n.d.
Benet, William Rose, 1922-1936
Bodenheim, Maxwell, n.d.
Braithwaite, William S., 1919-1927
Canby, Henry Seidel, 1921-1934
Clark, Neil McCullough, 1925-1929
Cook, Edmund Vance, 1925-1926
Corwin, Norman, 1944
Davidson, Gustav, 1951
Deutsch, Babette, 1926
Dillon, George, 1940
Eastman, Max, 1932-1934
“Ellery Queen”, 1950-1951
Farrar, John, n.d.
Field, Ben, 1926-1927
Fishbein, Dr. Morris, 1929-1934
Foerster, Norman, 1927
Ford, Ford Maddox (Hueffer), 1921
Frank, Waldo, n.d.
Frederick, John T., 1921-1927
Frost, Robert, 1922-1953
Gard, Wayne, 1925-1927
Garland, Hamlin, n.d.
Garnett, Louise Ayers, 1921-1934
Gilliland, Strickland, n.d.
Guiterman, Arthur, 1926-1939
Harrison, Henry, 1931
Henderson, Alice Corbin, 1919-1922
Hersholt, Jean, 1941
Heyward, Du Bose, 1934
Heywood, Dorothy “Porgy”, 1934
Hill, Frank, 1921-1928
Hillyer, Robert, n.d.
Holmes, John A., 1931-1936
Horner, Governor Henry, 1934
Kantor, MacKinlay, 1932
Kreymborg, Alfred, 1921
Kinitz, Stanley J., 1933-1939
Le Gallienne, Richard, 1923-1924
Lieurance, Thurlow, 1920-1925
Linderman, Frank B., 1922-1931
Love, Robertus, 1926
Lowell, Amy, 1921-1923
Lowes, John Livingston, 1934
McCutcheon, John, 1934
McKay, Claude, 1922
Markham, Edwin, 1925-1932
Masters, Edgar Lee, 1941
Mayo, Dr. Charles H., 1934
Mencken, H.L., 1934
Merriam, H.G., 1929
Monroe, Harriet, 1918-1936
Moody, Harriet, Mrs. Wm. V, 1925
Nathan, Robert, 1922-1923
Neihardt, John Gneisenau, 1928
O'Donnell, Charles L. CSC, 1925-1928
Piper, Edwin E., 1919
Pound, Louise, 1941-1943
Preston, Keith, n.d.
Raphaelson, Sampson, 1919-1951
Rascoe, Burton, 1919-1924
Read, Opie, 1916-1918
Ridge, Lola, n.d.
Robinson, Edwin A., 1925
Roosevelt, Mrs. Franklin D., 1954
Sandburg, Carl, 1918-1954
Sarett, Lew, Jr., 1950-1952
Scollard, Clinton and Jesse Rittenhouse, 1919-1920
Seiffert, Mrs. Otto, n.d.
Sherman, Stuart Pratt, 1919-1923
Sherry, Laura, 1921
Sigmund, Jay G., 1925
Snow, Wilbert, 1925-1935
Speyer, Leonora, n.d.
Starrett, Vincent, 1922-1955
Stork, Charles Wharton, n.d.
Sullivan, A.M., 1950-1951
Swift, Ivan, n.d.
Taft, Lorado, 1934
Taggard, Geneviève, n.d.
Teasdale, Sara (Filsinger), 1919
Tietjens, Eunice, 1921
Tittle, Ernest F., 1934
Torrence, Ridgely, 1930
Untermeyer, Jean Starr, 1921
Untermeyer, Louis, 1919-1941
Van Doren, Carl, 1919-1923
Van Doren, Mark, 1940
Vinal, Harold, 1925-1928
Wheelock, John Hall, 1919-1928
White, William Allen, 1926
Wiggam, Lionel, n.d.
Wilder, Thornton, 1934
Wilkinson, Marguerite, 1919-1927
Zabel, Morton Dauwen, 1929-1936
While Sarett's Teaching Files include some folders of syllabi, bibliographies, and exam questions, as well as three folders of notes taken by one of Sarett's students (1928-1933), the bulk of this category is comprised of Sarett's Lecture Notes. The notes fill over five boxes (nearly two linear feet) and provide an in-depth view of Sarett's teaching method and his lecture style. All but a few of the notes are written or typed on 5” x 8” cards. Many cards are undated, since Sarett revised and reused the lecture notes from year to year; some bear such notations as “omit in 1945.” Sets of cards contain outlines of the lecture to be delivered, and many are numbered on the front, but since the cards were used and revised over a long period of time, the numbering is not always continuous or relevant. In most cases the notes appear on only one side of the cards, but occasionally the outline continues on the back of the card, and sometimes striking illustrations of the topic in question, taken from magazines, correspondence or student writing, are pasted onto the card. Several folders are labeled “overflow”; these contain additional lecture notes on the specified topic from which Sarett could choose if he had extra time.
Sarett's Speeches and Lecture-Recitals materials include outlines, notes, and drafts; separate folders contain undated material. In Sarett's characteristic style, many of the outlines for speeches were typed on note cards. Speeches include several given to organizations such as Rotary and the National Speech Association. Of note is the printed pamphlet “Poland's Offering to the American,” the speech which won Sarett the Wisconsin State Oratorical Championship in 1910 (a copy of his prize-winning speech for 1911 is in the Scrapbook dated 1905-1912). In 1938, Sarett spoke to the Dahlia Society on “The Philosophy of a Dahlia-Grower.” Also of particular interest is the notebook filled with outlines for Sarett's lecture-recitals (circa 1932-1943), revealing his approach to these performances, from packing for the trip to self-motivation and selection of the poems to be recited. An undated folder contains Sarett's settings and choices of poems for proposed recordings of his poetry. During the late thirties and early forties, Sarett wrote a number of “Radio Sketches”—scripts for radio broadcasts consisting of a folkloric tale, an autobiographical incident, or a talk on speech or poetry, combined with readings of his poems or those of other poets. A list of these radio sketches is found in the folder dated 1937-1938. The last folder contains Sarett's notes and drafts for speeches on the occasion of his retirement from Northwestern University in 1953.
Publications include bibliographies, reviews, and promotional materials as well as clippings and reprints of Sarett's poems. Separate folders hold reviews and promotional materials relating to Sarett's books of poetry and to his textbooks on speech. For reviews of Sarett's early work, see also the Clippings Scrapbook dated 1915-1926. Folders of Manuscripts and Drafts are also divided into poetry and prose. Of particular interest is the draft of one of Sarett's earliest poems, “To a Wild Goose ….” The folders of drafts reveal the extent to which Sarett revised and reworked his poems before their publication. Notes include a transcript of an interview that Sarett conducted with medicine man John Still-Day in 1921, as well as notes taken during a trip to Yellowstone and a list of the American Indian artifacts Sarett collected over the years.
Sarett's first wife, Margaret Husted Sarett, carefully compiled four Photograph Albums and three Clippings Scrapbooks documenting her husband's life and their life together. The albums and clippings span the years 1905-1926 and are organized by date and/or theme. Mrs. Sarett captioned most of the photographs and identified most of the sources for the clippings. The first page of each photo album has a synopsis of events pictured in the album. The first book of clippings covers Sarett's high school and college years and contains notices of his oratorical competitions and scholastic achievements; the two later scrapbooks hold clippings relating to Sarett's summer lecture tours (1915-1918) and to his publications (1915-1926).
A note about the Clippings Scrapbooks: two of the Scrapbooks contained pages of overlapping clippings that were brittle, difficult to handle, and unsuited to microfilming. These scrapbooks were sent for treatment to the Northwestern University Library Conservation Department, where the clippings were removed and attached to new, acid-free paper. Page numbers refer to the original page from which the clippings were removed. Captions were transferred from the original pages.
An oversized folder holds Musical Scores—published or in manuscript—arranged by various people and based on Sarett's poetry, including perhaps his best-known poem, “Four Little Foxes.”
Arrangement of Materials
Clippings are arranged in chronological order.
General correspondence is arranged chronologically. Subject correspondence is organized alphabetically by topic and chronologically within the folders.
Lecture Notes are arranged alphabetically by course name or lecture topic (for example, “Persuasion Course C23” or “Rhyme”) and date between the 1920s and 1953.
Speeches and Lecture-Recitals are organized chronologically where possible.
Subjects
Corporate Name
Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.). School of Speech--Faculty
Personal Name
Subjects
Wilderness areas--United States--Poetry
