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Sherwood Trask Papers

 Collection
Call Number: YCAL MSS 844

Description of the Papers

The collection consists of correspondence, writings, printed material, photographs, and personal papers by and relating to American educator and poet Sherwood Trask. Correspondence includes letters from writers, editors, publishers, members of the Modern School Movement, and family. Correspondence dating from the 1930s-40s includes letters from many writers and editors, including Edwin Muir, Edward Merrill Root, T. S. Eliot, Harriet Monroe, Marianne Moore, Lincoln Kirstein, Harold Vinal, and others. Other materials document Trask's interest in progressive education and his career as an educator, including his affiliations with the Modern School in Stelton, New Jersey and the Walden School in New York City.

Dates

  • 1846 - 1969
  • Majority of material found within 1921 - 1963

Creator

Information about Access

This collection is open for research.

Ownership & Copyright

The Sherwood Trask Papers is the physical property of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the appropriate curator.

Immediate Source of Acquisition note

Gift of Robert L. Jackson, 1967.

Extent

10.08 Linear Feet (11 boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Catalog Record

A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog

Persistent URL

https://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/beinecke.trask

Additional Description

Summary:

The collection consists of correspondence, writings, printed material, photographs, and personal papers by and relating to American educator and poet Sherwood Trask.

Sherwood Trask (1890-1973)

Sherwood Trask, educator and author, was born 5 February 1890 in Kewanee, Illinois. He was educated at Dartmouth (1911) before doing some graduate work at Dartmouth and Harvard and working a number of short-term jobs between 1912 and 1917, as an assistant to a social worker in Boston, an investigator of factories, a vocational counselor, and an agent to John Collier. Between 1919 and 1922 Trask studied utopian colonies and progressive schools and taught briefly at the Modern School in Stelton, New Jersey and Marrieta Johnson's School of Organic Education in Fairhope, Alabama. Trask then spent four years in Europe, from 1922 to 1926, before returning to the United States and to work at the Walden School in New York City.

Processing Notes

This collection received a basic level of processing, including rehousing and minimal organization. Descriptive information is drawn in large part from information supplied with the collection and from an initial survey of the contents.

Former call number: Uncat Za Ms 60.

This finding aid may be updated periodically to account for revisions in arrangement and description.

This collection was previously closed to research. That restriction was lifted in July 2019.

Subjects

Related Names

Finding Aid & Administrative Information

Title
Sherwood Trask Papers
Author
by Beinecke staff
Date
July 2019
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description note
Finding aid written in English.

Repository Details

Part of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Repository

http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/
Contact:
P. O. Box 208330
New Haven CT 06520-8330 US
(203) 432-2977

Location

121 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511

Opening Hours

Access Information

The Beinecke Library is open to all Yale University students and faculty, and visiting researchers whose work requires use of its special collections. You will need to bring appropriate photo ID the first time you register. Beinecke is a non-circulating, closed stack library. Paging is done by library staff during business hours. You can request collection material online at least two business days in advance of your visit, using the request links in Archives at Yale. For more information, please see Planning Your Research Visit and consult the Reading Room Policies prior to visiting the library.

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