Horace R. Cayton:
A Preliminary Inventory of His Manuscripts for Long Old Road at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
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Administrative Information
Acquisition:
Purchase, 1967
Processed by:
Jonathan Reynolds, 2007
Restrictions
Access:
Open for research
Scope and Contents
This collection contains material for the autobiography of Horace R. Cayton, entitled Long Old Road and published in 1965. Cayton was one of the foremost African-American sociologists of his time, chronicling the experiences of urban black communities in the northern United States. An author and an educator, he dedicated his life to improving the social conditions of African-Americans in the earlier half of the twentieth century. The collection is organized into two series: I. Long Old Road Manuscripts, 1931-1965, and II. Related Papers, 1955-1965 also pertaining to the work.
Series I. is arranged according to the chapter titles of the finished book with background materials and outlines preceding the chapter manuscripts. The background material includes interviews with and short biographies of friends and family. Also present is an obituary for Cayton's sister, Madge, and works about his ancestors, including Hiram Revels, the first African-American person elected to the U.S. Senate.
This section has two compiled notebooks of later drafts of the chapters which parallel the finished work; however, two chapters are missing: “The White Man, Too, Has Troubles,” and “Blood Makes Good Paint.” They also contain the manuscript of “Back to the Black Metropolis,” which is not present in an earlier form.
The Related Papers in Series II. are organized by date. Present are correspondence, including letters by Cayton to his publisher and agent as well as letters from each of them, all regarding Long Old Road. Also included are Cayton's résumé, along with his entry for Who’s Who in America for 1965. There is also a summons for a defamation lawsuit against Cayton and his publisher, Trident Press, brought by Yvonne Plummer for implying that she was of dubious morals.
The collection does not contain material relating to any other work by Horace R. Cayton or directly concerning his personal life outside of what is in the autobiography.
Index Terms
Subjects
Container List
Series I. Long Old Road Manuscripts, 1931-1965 |
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| Background Material | |||||||||||||
| Box | Folder | ||||||||||||
| 1 | 1 | Cayton family events, timeline | |||||||||||
| Cayton, H. R., in 1887 story by Van B. Shaw, typescript and correspondence, 1959 | |||||||||||||
| Cayton, Horace R., Sr., biography, typescript | |||||||||||||
| Cayton, Madge R., obituary, typescript, 1943 | |||||||||||||
| Cayton, Revels, interview for “Labor Pains,” typescript | |||||||||||||
| Cayton, Revels, and Violet Rae, interview for “The Bride Was White,” typescript, 1962 | |||||||||||||
| Hardin, Robert, article on the election of, 1931 | |||||||||||||
| Lohman, Joe, interview for “To Be in Chicago in the '30s,” typescript, 1962 | |||||||||||||
| Revels, Hiram, biography by Elizabeth Lawson, typescript and correspondence, 1958 | |||||||||||||
| Roethke, Theodore, article on the death of, 1963 | |||||||||||||
| 2 | Chapter outlines and synopses | ||||||||||||
| Chapters | |||||||||||||
| 3 | “Childhood in the West,” notes, typescript, and short story version | ||||||||||||
| 4 | “The Voyage,” handwritten first draft and typescript | ||||||||||||
| 5 | “A Boy’s Reformation,” 3 typescripts of the first draft and a typescript of the third draft | ||||||||||||
| 6 | “Labor Pains,” notes, 3 typescripts of an earlier draft and a typescript of a later draft | ||||||||||||
| 7 | “This Policeman’s Lot Was to Learn,” 2 incomplete typescripts of earlier drafts and a typescript of a later draft | ||||||||||||
| 8 | “The Bride Was White,” notes, typescript, and a short story version | ||||||||||||
| 9 | “To Be in Chicago in the '30s,” notes and typescript | ||||||||||||
| 10 | “Tuskegee Was Quite a Place,” first draft typescript and second draft typescript | ||||||||||||
| 11 | “Escape to Europe,” notes and typescript | ||||||||||||
| 12 | “Back to Black Metropolis,” notes | ||||||||||||
| 13 | “The Dark Inner Landscape,” notes and typescript | ||||||||||||
| 2 | 1-2 | “In Fear and Trembling,” notes, 8 typescripts of various drafts | |||||||||||
| 3 | “The White Man, Too, Has Troubles,” typescript | ||||||||||||
| 4 | “The Crackup,” notes and typescript | ||||||||||||
| 5 | “Blood Makes Good Paint,” 2 typescripts and an incomplete short story version | ||||||||||||
| 6 | “The World Is Now the Scene,” article, notes, and a typescript | ||||||||||||
| 7 | “The Battle Is Being Won,” notes and incomplete typescript | ||||||||||||
| 8-9 | Compiled notebooks 1 and 2 | ||||||||||||
| 3 | 1 | “Corrected office copy” of chapters 1-3, typescript | |||||||||||
| 2 | Proof copy | ||||||||||||
Series II. Related Papers, 1955-1965 |
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| Correspondence | |||||||||||||
| Box | Folder | ||||||||||||
| 3 | 3 | Outgoing, 1962-1963, undated | |||||||||||
| 4 | Incoming, 1955-1964 | ||||||||||||
| Personal Papers | |||||||||||||
| 5 | Defamation lawsuit by Yvonne Plummer Terrelongue, 20 December 1965 | ||||||||||||
| Negro Leadership Conference, 27-29 August 1965, program | |||||||||||||
| Résumé, 1965 | |||||||||||||
| Who’s Who in America 34th ed. entry form, 1965 | |||||||||||||
