- Collection Overview
- Collection Description & Creator Information
- Access & Use
- Collection History
- Find Related Materials
Expanded View
Collection Overview
- Title:
- Margaret K. McElderry Papers
- Repository:
- Manuscripts Division
- Permanent URL:
- http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dczw12zj51d
- Dates:
- 1888-2011
- Size:
- 15 linear feet
- Storage Note:
- ReCAP (scarcpxm): Box 1-14
- Language:
- English
Abstract
Collection Description & Creator Information
- Content Description
The collection consists of the editorial files and personal papers of Margaret K. McElderry. Publisher files include editorial correspondence, legal documents, and production files related to specific authors and publications.
The personal papers include correspondence, ephemera, and photographs. Largely features correspondence from and photographs of children's book authors and illustrators McElderry befriended over her career, such as Joan Walsh Anglund, Susan Cooper, Fritz Eichenberg, and Antonio Frasconi, among others. Also includes some correspondence and photographs related to the McElderry family and the Bronte family.
- Arrangement
Processing archivists intellectually organized the collection into two series based on their creation and ownership history: Publisher Files and Personal Papers. Publisher files are largely organized and titled by author name and book title. Materials in the Personal Papers series were roughly sorted by genre/type and subject, and much of this series remains arranged in the order in which the materials were received.
- Collection Creator Biography:
McElderry
Margaret K. McElderry was an editor and publisher of children's literature. While an editor at Harcourt, Brace and World in 1952, McElderry became the first editor whose books won both the Newbery Award and Caldecott Medal in the same year. In 1971, McElderry founded the Margaret K. McElderry Books imprint at Atheneum, where she worked until her retirement and through Atheneum's mergers with Scribner, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster. She continued as an independent editor after her retirement and died in 2011. Margaret Knox McElderry was born on June 10, 1912, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to William McElderry (1873-1967) and Eveline Bronte McElderry (1873-1965), whose father was a first cousin of Emily, Charlotte, and Anne Bronte. After graduating from Mount Holyoke College in 1933, McElderry attended the Carnegie Library School in Pittsburgh and then worked at the New York Public Library from 1934-1943. She married Storer Boardman Lunt in 1967, and the two shared a summer home in Little Compton, Rhode Island.
Collection History
- Acquisition:
Gift of Susan Cooper Cronyn, executor to Margaret K. McElderry's estate, in 2011. Cooper received publisher files from Simon & Schuster in 2014, which she gifted to Cotsen in 2015.
- Appraisal
As part of routine appraisal practices, McElderry's academic robe, some holiday cards, and some awards were removed from the collection during 2023-2024 processing.
- Processing Information
Some people and places appearing in photographs were identified by Susan Cooper Cronyn and Amy Kellman in 2013.
Personal papers and publisher files were arranged and described by Melody Edwards '15 in 2015 and continued by Ellen Williams in 2017. Additional arrangement of personal papers by Aaron Pickett, assisted by student workers, in 2017 or earlier. Further processing and finding aid completed by Lauren C. Williams in July 2024.
Access & Use
- Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open for research.
- Conditions Governing Use
Single copies may be made for research purposes. To cite or publish quotations that fall within Fair Use, as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission is required. For instances beyond Fair Use, it is the responsibility of the researcher to determine whether any permissions related to copyright, privacy, publicity, or any other rights are necessary for their intended use of the Library's materials, and to obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders, if they have not already done so. Princeton University Library's Special Collections does not charge any permission or use fees for the publication of images of materials from our collections, nor does it require researchers to obtain its permission for said use. The department does request that its collections be properly cited and images credited. More detailed information can be found on the Copyright, Credit and Citations Guidelines page on our website. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us through the Ask Us! form.
- Credit this material:
Margaret K. McElderry Papers; Manuscripts Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library
- Permanent URL:
- http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dczw12zj51d
- Location:
-
Firestone LibraryOne Washington RoadPrinceton, NJ 08544, USA
- Storage Note:
- ReCAP (scarcpxm): Box 1-14
