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John MacKay Shaw Collection, 1737-2007

 

Summary

Creator:
Shaw, John MacKay, 1897-1984
Abstract:
The John MacKay Shaw Collection consists of the Childhood in Poetry Collection and other materials he collected that relate to the six themes that are evident throughout the Collection: bibliography, biography, children, collecting, publishing, and writing. These other materials include articles, audiovisual materials, biographical materials, catalogs, correspondence, literary materials, notes, photographs, programs, and publications documenting his personal, business, and collecting activities.
Extent:
69.00 Linear Feet
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

[Title of Item], [Date of Item], John MacKay Shaw Collection, Special Collections, Florida State University Libraries, Tallahassee, Florida. https://purl.lib.fsu.edu/fa/MSS-2008-006

Background

Scope and content:

The John MacKay Shaw Collection, housed at the Florida State University Libraries, includes over 22,400 books in the Childhood in Poetry Collection and over 46 linear feet of other materials that document the personal, business, and collecting activities of John MacKay Shaw, an internationally-known book collector. The Childhood in Poetry Collection is one of the foremost repositories of the poetry of childhood. It includes the books by, for, and about children, and additional materials he collected relating to the themes (bibliography, biography, children, collecting, publication, and writing) of the collection.

Biographical / historical:

John Shaw was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on May 15, 1897. In 1911, he immigrated with his mother and two sisters to Philadelphia where his father had already found work and a place for the family to live. He quit school at the age of 14 and went to work as an errand boy at John Wanamaker's Department Store. Later he took stenographic courses at the Wharton Business School. He enlisted in the Army in 1917 and was stationed in France with the Ambulance Corp during World War I.

Custodial history:

John MacKay Shaw, in anticipation of his retirement in the late 1950s, sought a repository where he could continue to work on his Childhood in Poetry Collection and collect materials related to the building of that collection. Jacqueline Dupont, Florida State University alumna and friend of his daughter Cathmar, suggested FSU. In 1959, 6,000 volumes of the Childhood in Poetry Collection, along with its collector, came to FSU.

Processing information:

In 1997, under the supervision of librarian Kathy Shelfer, students began organizing the piles, folders, and envelopes of loose materials that Shaw collected. These materials included articles, catalogs, serials, programs, and other items, as well as the notes Shaw wrote about the books and their authors. Under her supervision, students began making folders headed by authors' names and a few other headings Shaw had used. Cathmar Prange, John Shaw's daughter, assisted during the winter of 1997-98.

Arrangement:

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR MAJOR SERIES, WITH BOX NUMBER LOCATIONS

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Indexed terms

Subjects:
Bibliography
Biography
Book collecting--United States.
Children
Children's poetry
Collectors and collecting.
Letters--20th century
Poets, American--20th century
Publishers and publishing.
Writing.
Autographs.
Advertising fliers
Pamphlets
Poetry
Genealogy
Manuscripts
Books
Clippings (Books, newspapers, etc.)
Correspondence
Drawing
Financial Records
Illustrations
Lecture notes
Lectures.
Maps
Newsletters
Obituaries.
Photographs
Postcards.
Programs
Reports
Slides.
Names:
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 1836-1907.
Barton, Bernard, 1784-1849
Belloc, Hilaire, 1870-1953
Bewick, Thomas, 1753-1828
Blake, William, 1757-1827
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 1806-1861
Browning, Robert, 1812-1889
Bryant, William Cullen, 1794-1878
Burns, Robert, 1759-1796
Carleton, William, 1794-1869
Carman, Bliss, 1861-1929
Carroll, Lewis, 1832-1898
Cory, Fanny Y
Cowper, William, 1731-1800
Daly, T. A. (Thomas Augustine), 1871-1948
Dalziel, George, 1815-1902
De La Mare, Walter, 1873-1956
Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886
Dodge, Mary Mapes, 1830-1905
Douglas, Lord Alfred Bruce, 1870-1945
Drinkwater, John, 1832-1937
Dunbar, Paul Laurence, 1872-1906
Eliot, Ebenezer, 1781-1849
Farjeon, Eleanor, 1881-1965
Field, Eugene, 1850-1895
Fyleman, Rose, 1877-1957
Gale, Norman R. (Norman Rowland), 1862-1942
Geisel, Theodor Seuss, 1904-1991
Gilbert, W. S. (William Schwenck), 1836-1911
Graham, Stephen, 1884-1975
Grahame, Kenneth, 1859-1932
Graves, Robert, 1895-1985
Gray, Thomas, 1716-1771
Greenaway, Kate, 1846-1901
Guest, Edgar A. (Edgar Albert), 1881-1959
Hemans, Mrs., 1793-1835
Herbert, A. P. (Alan Patrick), 1890-1971
Herford, Oliver, 1863-1935
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809-1894
Hood, Thomas, The Elder, 1799-1845
Housman, A. E. (Alfred Edward), 1859-1936
Howitt, Mary, 1799-1888
Hunt, James Henry Leigh, 1784-1859
Johnson, Burges, 1877-1963
Keats, John, 1795-1821
Kerlan, Irwin, 1912-1963
Kingsley, Charles, 1819-1875
Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936
Lamb, Charles, 1775-1834
Lang, Andrew, 1844-1912
Larcom, Lucy, 1824-1893
Lear, Edward, 1812-1888
Levertov, Denise, 1923-1997
Lindsay, Vachel, 1879-1931
Locker-Lampson, Frederick, 1821-1895
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 1807-1882
Lowell, James Russell, 1819-1891
Macdiarmid, Hugh, 1892-1978
Macdonald, George 1824-1905
Mcginley, Phyllis, 1905-1978
MacGregor, Archie
Masefield, John, 1878-1967
Mayfield, John
Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 1892-1950
Milne, A.A., 1882-1956
Montgomery, James, 1771-1854
Morley, Christopher, 1890-1959
Nash, Ogden, 1902-1971
Noyes, Alfred, 1880-1958
Phillips, George
Pitter, Ruth, 1897-1992
Potter, Beatrix, 1866-1943
Quarles, Francis, 1592-1644
Wiggins, Laura Elizabeth Richards, 1886-1988
Riley, James Whitcomb, 1849-1916
Rossetti, Christina Georgina, 1830-1894
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 1828-1882
Russell, George William "A.E."
Saxe, John Godfrey, 1818-1887
Scollard, Clinton, 1860-1932
Scott, Walter, 1771-1832
Sendak, Maurice, 1928-
Shaw, John MacKay, 1897-1984
Sigourney, Dora Sigerson, 1868-1918
Southey, Robert, 1774-1843
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894
Tabb, John B. (John Banister), 1845-1909
Tennyson, Alfred, 1809-1892
Thackeray, William Makepeace, 1811-1863
Watts, Isaac, 1674-1748
Whittier, John Greenleaf, 1807-1892
Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850
Yeats, W. B. (William Butler), 1865-1939

Access and use

Restrictions:

Collection is open to all researchers.

This collection is in an offsite storage location. Please contact lib-specialcollections@fsu.edu with requests for access or for more information.

Terms of access:

Copyright owned by Florida State University.

All requests for permission to quote, publish, broadcast or otherwise reproduce from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Associate Dean for Special Collections and Archives. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Florida State University Libraries as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the researcher.

Preferred citation:

[Title of Item], [Date of Item], John MacKay Shaw Collection, Special Collections, Florida State University Libraries, Tallahassee, Florida. https://purl.lib.fsu.edu/fa/MSS-2008-006

Location of this collection:
116 Honors Way
Tallahassee
FL
32306-2047
USA