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Anne Morrow Lindbergh papers

 Collection
Call Number: MS 829

Scope and Contents

The papers consist of correspondence, diaries, writings, childhood, school and college materials, housekeeping and social records, reports, memoranda and correspondence from the many organizations in which Anne Morrow Lindbergh took an active interest. Also included is voluminous mail from members of her reading public and memorabilia, both objects sent by admirers and items collected by her on her travels. The death of Charles Lindbergh in 1974 is documented by mail from friends, members of the public and organizations. Anne Morrow Lindbergh's writings make up the largest part of the papers and include her diaries (1929-1972, 1982-1988), drafts of her books, working notebooks, speeches, articles and stories and published reviews of her work. Also in the papers are printed copies of her publications. Her personal correspondence with friends and family runs over many years. Correspondence with friends includes letters exchanged with Anne Carrel, Harry Guggenheim, Corliss Lamont, Harold and Nigel Nicolson, Vita Sackville-West, Igor Sikorsky, Truman and Katherine Smith, Helen and Kurt Wolff, Jean Stafford and Mary Ellen Chase. Her family correspondence contains letters exchanged by Anne Morrow Lindbergh and members of her immediate family as well as members of the Morrow, Lindbergh and Cutter families.

In the introduction to the first published volume of her diaries and letters, Bring Me a Unicorn, Anne Morrow Lindbergh noted that in the Morrow family “an experience was not finished, not truly experienced, unless written down or shared with another.” This passion for committing experiences and events to writing is one of the unifying forces in Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s life. Her personal papers are a rarity for a contemporary individual, in that they provide almost complete documentation for the entirety of her life.

Through her papers Anne Morrow Lindbergh can be studied from a number of perspectives: as a writer (diarist, poet, essayist, and novelist); social critic; pioneer aviator; conservationist; and mother, housekeeper, and wife of one of the century’s most noted persons. Taken as a whole, the collection documents her continuing efforts at self realization.

Key to initials used by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, family, and friends in correspondence:

AML: Anne Morrow Lindbergh

ASL: Anne Spencer Lindbergh

C: Before 1929 Constance Cutter Morrow; after 1929 Charles Augustus Lindbergh

CAL: Charles Augustus Lindbergh

CC: and CMM: Constance Cutter Morrow

D and DD: Dana Atchley

DWM: Dwight Whitney Morrow

DWM, Jr.: Dwight Whitney Morrow, Jr.

ECM: Elizabeth Cutter Morrow (Mrs. Dwight Morrow)

ELLL: Evangeline Land Lodge Lindbergh

JML: Jon Morrow Lindbergh

K: Kay Smith, Katherine Sullivan, Kitty Taquey

LML: Land Morrow Lindbergh

MLM: Margot Loines Morrow

RML: Reeve Morrow Lindbergh

SML: Scott Morrow Lindbergh

Dates

  • 1906-1997

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

Series II, box 67B, may only be used under the supervision of Public Services staff.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright has been assigned to Reeve Morrow Lindbergh by Anne Morrow Lindbergh for materials she authored or otherwise produced. Copyright status for other collection materials is unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of Anne M. Lindbergh and Charles A. Lindbergh, 1941-1988; gift of Reeve Lindbergh, 1998, 2003; gift of the Estate of Anne M. Lindbergh, 2001; gift of William A. Atchley, 2003; gift of Michiko Nakagawa, 2006.

Arrangement

Arranged in eleven series: I. Correspondence from friends and acquaintances, 1915-1973. II. Family correspondence and personal files, 1906-1974. III. Publishers' correspondence, 1930-1973. IV. General correspondence, 1916-1974. V. Correspondence from readers, 1934-1973. VI. Outgoing correspondence, 1920-1973. VII. Writings, 1919-1976. VIII. Housekeeping and social records, 1927-1974. IX. Institutions, committees, and clubs, 1934-1973. X. Childhood, school, and college, 1912-1928. XI. Memorabilia, 1920s-1970s; and subsequent additions.

Related Materials

Related materials: Charles Augustus Lindbergh Papers (MS 325); Lindbergh Picture Collection (MS 325B); and Lindbergh Gift Collection (325A).

Associated materials: Anne Morrow Lindbergh Papers, Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts.

Extent

164.75 Linear Feet ( (301 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/mssa.ms.0829

Abstract

The papers consist of correspondence, diaries, writings, childhood, school and college materials, housekeeping and social records, reports, memoranda and correspondence from the many organizations in which Anne Morrow Lindbergh took an active interest. Also included are voluminous mail from members of her reading public and memorabilia, both objects sent by admirers and items collected by her on her travels. The death of Charles Lindbergh in 1974 is documented by mail from friends, members of the public and organizations. Anne Morrow Lindbergh's writings make up the largest part of the papers and include her diaries (1929-1972, 1982-1988), drafts of her books, working notebooks, speeches, articles and stories, and published reviews of her work. Also in the papers are printed copies of her publications. Her personal correspondence with friends and family runs over many years. Correspondence with friends includes letters exchanged with Anne Carrel, Harry Guggenheim, Corliss Lamont, Harold and Nigel Nicolson, Vita Sackville-West, Igor Sikorsky, Truman and Katherine Smith, Helen and Kurt Wolff, Jean Stafford and Mary Ellen Chase. Her family correspondence contains letters exchanged by Anne Morrow Lindbergh and members of her immediate family as well as members of the Morrow, Lindbergh and Cutter families.

Biographical / Historical

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906 Jun 22 - 2001 Feb 7), author and aviator, was born Anne Spencer Morrow in Englewood, New Jersey, the daughter of Dwight W. Morrow, an investment banker, diplomat, and United States senator and Elizabeth Reeve Cutter, an educator. She had three siblings, Elisabeth, Dwight, Jr., and Constance. She was educated at Miss Chapin's School and Smith College. During her senior year she was introduced to Charles Augustus Lindbergh in December 1927 at the American Embassy in Mexico City where her father was serving as ambassador. They were married in a secret ceremony in May 1929 at her parents’ estate in Englewood, New Jersey. She wanted to become a professional aviator and undertook an intense study of flying, radio theory, Morse code, and navigation, earning a pilot’s license and setting a transcontinental speed record with her husband in 1930 when she was seven months pregnant. Anne Lindbergh was the first woman in the United States to obtain a glider pilot's license

In July 1931, the Lindberghs took off on an extended survey flight for Pan American Airways over the Arctic Circle in Canada to Japan and China. After the tragic kidnapping and murder of her son Charles Jr., in 1932, she took some comfort in narrating her experiences as co-pilot and navigator in her first book, North to the Orient, published in 1935. The memoir went on to win the National Book Award and launch a celebrated career. After the birth of their second son, Jon, they undertook a second air survey expedition through the North Atlantic spending a happy period of time in Greenland where they mapped the mountain ranges and took air samples. They then flew south through Europe to Africa returning across the South Atlantic to Brazil and north to New York. In 1934, the National Geographic Society recognized her forty thousand miles of exploration with its prestigious Hubbard Award. She was the first woman to receive it.

To protect their son Jon from intrusive publicity, the Lindberghs moved to England in 1935 after the kidnapping and murder trial of Bruno Hauptmann. In 1938 they moved to France to be near her husband’s scientific colleague Alexis Carrel. During those years she wrote about their Atlantic expedition, first for National Geographic and in a second bestselling book, Listen! The Wind, published in 1938. In The Wave of the Future (1940), a book-length essay, she tried to interpret their non-interventionist position to the public. During World War II she was kept busy raising four children: Jon, Land, Scott, and Anne. While Charles worked on bomber development at the Ford factory, Anne found some time to study sculpting at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Her last child, Reeve, was born in 1946. From the late 1940s through the 1960s, Anne Lindbergh published a large number of articles and poems in literary, women’s, and general magazines on a variety of personal and international issues. She wrote about the importance of balancing personal needs, social expectations, and obligations to family and community in her most popular and enduring work, Gift from the Sea (1955). Next to the Bible it was the non-fiction best seller of the year and sold 430,000 copies. To date, well over eight million copies have been sold, and at least 30,000 copies are sold annually.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh was motivated to write an essay, "The Heron and the Astronaut," after the Lindberghs attended the Apollo 8 launch from the Kennedy Space Center on December 21, 1968, the astronauts' first flight into the orbit of the moon. It was published in 1969 under the title Earth Shine, with her essay on Africa, "Immersion in Life." The Lindberghs built a modest home in Hana, Maui, Hawaii in 1969-1970. Working with the Nature Conservancy, Anne and Charles Lindbergh made substantial contributions toward the purchase of land in the Valley of the Seven Sacred Pools in Maui to extend Haleakala National Park more than 4000 acres from the inland crater to the ocean. After her husband’s death in 1974, she devoted much of her time to editing and publishing five volumes of her diaries and letters covering her life through the end of World War II.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh was enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame July 21, 1979, "for outstanding contributions to aviation by her participation in pioneering flights surveying air routes to the Orient and Europe, and as an extraordinary author encouraging public appreciation of aviation and air travel.” In the 1990s she moved from her home in Connecticut to her daughter Reeve's family farm in Vermont. Reeve Lindbergh dealt with the last seventeen months of her mother's life in the book No More Words, a sensitive and loving memoir of their time together, published in 2001. In 2012, the fourteenth book of her writings was published, Against Wind and Tide: Letters and Journals, 1947-1986, based on her papers in Manuscripts and Archives.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906 Jun 22 - 2001 Feb 7), author and aviator, was born Anne Spencer Morrow in Englewood, New Jersey, the daughter of Dwight W. Morrow, an investment banker, diplomat, and United States senator and Elizabeth Reeve Cutter, an educator. She had three siblings, Elisabeth, Dwight, Jr., and Constance. She was educated at Miss Chapin's School and Smith College. During her senior year she was introduced to Charles Augustus Lindbergh in December 1927 at the American Embassy in Mexico City where her father was serving as ambassador. They were married in a secret ceremony in May 1929 at her parents’ estate in Englewood, New Jersey. She wanted to become a professional aviator and undertook an intense study of flying, radio theory, Morse code, and navigation, earning a pilot’s license and setting a transcontinental speed record with her husband in 1930 when she was seven months pregnant. Anne Lindbergh was the first woman in the United States to obtain a glider pilot's license

In July 1931, the Lindberghs took off on an extended survey flight for Pan American Airways over the Arctic Circle in Canada to Japan and China. After the tragic kidnapping and murder of her son Charles Jr., in 1932, she took some comfort in narrating her experiences as co-pilot and navigator in her first book, North to the Orient, published in 1935. The memoir went on to win the National Book Award and launch a celebrated career. After the birth of their second son, Jon, they undertook a second air survey expedition through the North Atlantic spending a happy period of time in Greenland where they mapped the mountain ranges and took air samples. They then flew south through Europe to Africa returning across the South Atlantic to Brazil and north to New York. In 1934, the National Geographic Society recognized her forty thousand miles of exploration with its prestigious Hubbard Award. She was the first woman to receive it.

To protect their son Jon from intrusive publicity, the Lindberghs moved to England in 1935 after the kidnapping and murder trial of Bruno Hauptmann. In 1938 they moved to France to be near her husband’s scientific colleague Alexis Carrel. During those years she wrote about their Atlantic expedition, first for National Geographic and in a second bestselling book, Listen! The Wind, published in 1938. In The Wave of the Future (1940), a book-length essay, she tried to interpret their non-interventionist position to the public. During World War II she was kept busy raising four children: Jon, Land, Scott, and Anne. While Charles worked on bomber development at the Ford factory, Anne found some time to study sculpting at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Her last child, Reeve, was born in 1945. From the late 1940s through the 1960s, Anne Lindbergh published a large number of articles and poems in literary, women’s, and general magazines on a variety of personal and international issues. She wrote about the importance of balancing personal needs, social expectations, and obligations to family and community in her most popular and enduring work, Gift from the Sea (1955). Next to the Bible, it was the non-fiction best seller of the year and sold 430,000 copies. To date, well over eight million copies have been sold, and at least 30,000 copies are sold annually.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh was motivated to write an essay, "The Heron and the Astronaut," after the Lindberghs attended the Apollo 8 launch from the Kennedy Space Center on December 21, 1968, the astronauts' first flight into the orbit of the moon. It was published in 1969 under the title Earth Shine, with her essay on Africa, "Immersion in Life." The Lindberghs built a modest home in Hana, Maui, Hawaii, in 1969-1970. Working with the Nature Conservancy, Anne and Charles Lindbergh made substantial contributions toward the purchase of land in the Valley of the Seven Sacred Pools in Maui to extend Haleakala National Park more than 4000 acres from the inland crater to the ocean. After her husband’s death in 1974, she devoted much of her time to editing and publishing five volumes of her diaries and letters covering her life through the end of World War II.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh was enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame July 21, 1979, "for outstanding contributions to aviation by her participation in pioneering flights surveying air routes to the Orient and Europe, and as an extraordinary author encouraging public appreciation of aviation and air travel.” In the 1990s she moved from her home in Connecticut to her daughter Reeve's family farm in Vermont. Reeve Lindbergh dealt with the last seventeen months of her mother's life in the book No More Words, a sensitive and loving memoir of their time together, published in 2001. In 2012, the fourteenth book of her writings was published, Against Wind and Tide: Letters and Journals, 1947-1986, based on her papers in Manuscripts and Archives.

Chronology

1906 June 22
Born in Englewood, New Jersey
1912
Entered Dwight School, Englewood, New Jersey
1919
Entered Miss Chapin's School, New York City
1924
Entered Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts
1927 Dec 21
Met Charles Augustus Lindbergh at U.S. Embassy in Mexico City where he was guest of Ambassador Morrow
1927 Dec 28
First flight with Charles A. Lindbergh
1928 Jun
Received Elizabeth Montagu Prize and Mary Augusta Jordan Prize for original literary works
Graduated from Smith College with B.A. in English
1929 Feb 12
Engagement to Charles Augustus Lindbergh announced
1929 May 27
Married to Charles A. Lindbergh in Englewood, New Jersey
1930
Made her first solo flight
Became first woman in United States to obtain glider pilot's license
Resided in Princeton, New Jersey
1930 Apr 20
Was co-pilot and navigator on transcontinental record flight with Charles Augustus Lindbergh
1930 Jun 22
Birth of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr.
1931
Obtained pilot's license
Made flight from New York to Sibera, Japan, and China
Completion of first home on 400 acre tract in Hopewell, New Jersey
1931 Oct 5
Death of Dwight W. Morrow
1932 Feb
Made radio appeals for Chinese flood relief
1932 Mar 1
Kidnapping of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr.
1932 May 12
Discovery of body of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr.
1932 Aug 16
Birth of Jon Morrow Lindbergh
1933 Jun
Gave Hopewell estate as home for children
1933 Jul
Awarded Cross of Honor by United States Flag Association for her part in survey
Began 3,000 mile, 5 1/2 month flight with Charles A. Lindbergh to survey transatlantic air routes, including second visit to Russia
1934 Sep
Published "Flying Around the North Atlantic" in National Geographic
Received Hubbard Medal from National Geographic Society for her work as co-pilot and radio operator on survey flight
Bruno Hauptmann arrested and charged with kidnapping of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr.
1935 Jan
Testified at trial of Hauptmann
1935 Jun
Received honorary M.A. from Smith College
Received threats on Jon's life
Published North to the Orient
1935 Dec 21
Resided at Weald Seven-oaks, Kent in "Long Barn" on the estate of Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West
Sailed secretly to England
1936 Jul
Visited Berlin
1937
Flight to India
1937 May 12
Birth of Land Morrow Lindbergh
1937 Oct
Visited Germany
1937 Dec
Made first trip to the United States since 1935
1938
Published Listen! the Wind
1938 Jun
Moved from England to islet of Illiec near Port Blanc, France, where Alexis Carrel had summer residence
1938 Aug
Made third visit to Russia
1938 Oct
Visited Berlin
1939 Apr
Resided at Lloyd Neck, Huntington, Long Island, New York
Returned to the United States
1939 Jun
Received honorary L.L.D. degrees from the University of Rochester and Amherst College
1940
Published The Wave of the Future which advocated a policy of "reform at home rather than a crusade abroad"
1940 Jan
Published "Prayer for Peace" in Reader's Digest
1940 Oct 2
Birth of Anne Spencer Lindbergh
1940 Dec 24
Gave radio address of "Feeding Europe" (published as "The Wind of Privation or the Sun of Mercy?") for American Friends Service Committee
1941 Jun
Published "Reaffirmation" in Atlantic Monthly
1942 Jul
Moved to Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, while Charles A. Lindbergh served as aviation consultant to war industries
1942 Aug 13
Birth of Scott Morrow Lindbergh
1944
Published The Steep Ascent
Lived at Tompkins House, Westport, Connecticut
1945 Oct 2
Birth of Reeve Morrow Lindbergh
1946
Purchased house on three acre lot at Scott's Cove, Darien, Connecticut
1947 Jan
Published "My Most Unforgettable Character" in Reader's Digest -- a remembrance of Edward Sheldon, the playwright
Sent as correspondent for Reader's Digest to assess recovery efforts in Europe
1948 Jan
Published "The Flame of Europe" in Reader's Digest
1948 Feb
Published "One Starts at Zero" in Reader's Digest
1948 Apr
Published "Anywhere in Europe" in Harper's Magazine
1948 Sep
Published "Airliner to Europe" in Harper's Magazine
1948 Dec
Published "The Mother and the Child" in Harper's Bazaar
1950 Dec
Published "Our Lady of Risk" in Life
1955
Published Gift from the Sea
1955 Jan
Death of Elizabeth Cutter Morrow
1956
Published The Unicorn and Other Poems, 1935-1955
1962
Published Dearly Beloved, a novel treating various aspects of marriage
1964 May 19
Published "As I See Our First Lady," a view of Lady Bird Johnson in Look
1966 Oct 21
Published "A Safari Back to Innocence," impressions of East Africa, in Life
1967 Jan
Published "Discovery and Renewal" in Reader's Digest
1969 Feb 28
Published Earthshine, which reflected growing interest in conservation
Published "The Heron and the Astronaut" in Life
1970 Feb
Received honorary L.L.D. degree from Smith College
Addressed meeting on environmental pollution at Smith College
1970 Jul
Published "Harmony with the Life around Us" in Good Housekeeping
1971
Published Bring Me a Unicorn: Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1922-1928
1973
Published Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead: Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1929-1932
1974
Published Locked Rooms and Open Doors: Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1933-1935
1974 Aug 26
Death of Charles Augustus Lindbergh
1976
Published The Flower and the Nettle: Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1936-1939
1979 Jul 21
Inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame
2001 Feb 7
Death of Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Title
Guide to the Anne Morrow Lindbergh Papers
Status
Under Revision
Author
compiled by John Dojka, Jane Thomson, Daphne Burt, Sheilah Conneen, Judith Schiff, and staff of Manuscripts and Archives
Date
September 1978
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description note
Finding aid written in English.

Part of the Manuscripts and Archives Repository

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