An Inventory of His Personal Papers at the Harry Ransom Center
Creator:
Ransom, Harry Huntt,
1908-1976
Title:
Harry Huntt
Ransom Personal Papers
Dates:
1895-1983
Extent:
4 boxes, 1 oversize flat file
Abstract:
The personal papers consisting
of preparatory school and college-level student papers (essays, tests, and
class notes), photographs, correspondence, and memorabilia document the
academic career of this professor of English and chancellor of The University
of Texas.
Harry Huntt Ransom, the most significant library builder and
educator of the University of Texas' last half century, was born in Galveston
on 22 November 1908. From his parents, Harry H. and Marion G. Cunningham
Ransom, he early formed habits of public-spiritedness and diligence that
characterized his entire life. After graduating from the University of the
South in 1928, Harry Ransom received the master's and doctoral degrees in
English from Yale. Ransom arrived on the University of Texas campus in 1935
as
an instructor in the English Department and continued his association with
the
university until his death in 1976.
Harry Ransom was made an assistant professor in 1938, and
upon his return from military service--he left the Army Air Forces in 1946
with
the rank of major--he became an associate professor. Marriage to Hazel Louise
Harrod in 1951 and increasingly responsible administrative posts followed,
and
by 1961 Harry Ransom had been named chancellor of the University of Texas
system. He held that post until 1971.
It was during the middle 1950s that Harry Ransom first
articulated his desire to "make a good library better." He succeeded in
convincing the University's Board of Regents of the need for improved library
facilities, leading directly to the 1958 establishment of the Humanities
Research Center and, in 1963, to the opening of the Undergraduate Library
and
Academic Center. The revolution Harry Ransom wrought on the libraries of the
UT
Austin campus, together with his advocacy of the individual student, are his
enduring legacies.
Scope and Contents
The personal papers of Harry Ransom comprise, in the main,
his preparatory school and college-level student papers (essays, tests, class
notes), photographs of family and school life, some correspondence, and a
good
deal of memorabilia. While the collection spans the years from 1895 to 1983
the
bulk of it is concentrated in the period 1924 to 1953 and appears to represent
items Marion Ransom kept to document her son's academic career. The papers
therefore give a fair idea of the nature of Harry Ransom's education--and
his
success as a student--but they are not otherwise especially informative.
The papers have been organized into several series: Academic
papers, 1924-47 (1 box); Correspondence, 1895-1983 (1 folder); Memorabilia,
1908-76 (1 box); Photographs, 1895-1975 (1 box); and Printed materials, 1924-75
(6 folders).
Class notes, essays, graded examinations, and a commonplace
book are found in the Ransom academic papers, documenting his student life
at
Sewanee Military Academy, the University of the South, Harvard, and Yale.
There
is a small group of teaching notes and a grading book for his first year of
postwar teaching at the University of Texas. The materials are arranged
chronologically and clearly demonstrate Ransom's aptitude and diligence as
a
student.
The small body of correspondence centers around Ransom's
student life in the 1920s and `30s. His own letters are few in number, and
most
of these were addressed to his mother. Apart from giving some idea of his
scholarly and extracurricular interests as a student and his relationship
to
his mother the series is slight.
Materials as different as Harry Ransom's baby book (with
verse by his mother and notes by Ransom upon her death) and the tape recording
of the 1976 commemorative assembly held to mark his passing are found in the
Memorabilia series. Documents touching upon Ransom's early academic career,
together with numerous diplomas are present, as are some materials relating
to
his editorial work in wartime military service and to Marion Ransom's 1953
funeral. A small group of miscellaneous manuscripts and printed matter and
clippings are also housed in the series.
Apart from several family photographs made between 1915 and
1930 and a few photographs dating from after the Second World War the great
majority of the images in the Photographic series depict Ransom's school and
early professional life. A number of photographs of Hazel Ransom dating from
1938 into the 1960s, as well as photographs of various campuses complement
the
series. A considerable number of negatives is found in the series for which
prints are not present. Additional photographs are present in the Memorabilia
series in folders 2.3 and 2.9.
Minor printed materials relating to Sewanee, a group of
unused stationery, envelopes, and postcards from the bulk of the final series.
Also to be found here is a number of art prints and ephemera.
