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Washington University Libraries Acquire Harley Hammerman Collection on Eugene O’Neill

By Joel Minor

In December 2018, Washington University Libraries acquired the Harley Hammerman Collection on Eugene O’Neill, an archive of manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, and other materials related to the life and work of playwright Eugene O’Neill.

Closeup of book spines within the Eugene O'Neil Collection.
The Eugene O’Neill Collection includes materials related to the playwright’s life and work, including books and a playbill from a 1934 production of Ah, Wilderness.

A native New Yorker, O’Neill (1888-1953) was an acclaimed dramatist who completed more than 50 plays, including Long Day’s Journey into Night, The Iceman Cometh, Desire under the Elms, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. These and other works by O’Neill are considered masterpieces of 20th-century theatre and remain in widespread production.

In his plays, O’Neill made use of the techniques of realism, and he often focused on working-class characters. He was a four-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1936.

The Harley Hammerman Collection on Eugene O’Neill was acquired from Harley Hammerman, an alumnus of the Washington University School of Medicine and a longtime O’Neill enthusiast. Hammerman provided materials for Washington University’s 1988 Eugene O’Neill Centennial exhibition. He is the creator of the website eoneill.com, where materials from the collection can be viewed.

Three movie posters for film adaptations of Eugene O'Neil's printed works. The movies are "Mourning Becomes Electra," "The Iceman Cometh," and the Spanish version of "Lond Day's Journey into Night" or "Larga Jornada Hacia la Noche."

“The Libraries are honored to be chosen as the permanent home of this amazing collection that has taken Dr. Hammerman decades, and extreme devotion, to build,” says Nadia Ghasedi, associate university librarian for Special Collections Services. “We look forward to sharing the collection with faculty, students, and the greater community.”

Along with first editions of the playwright’s works, the collection features handwritten and typed letters written by O’Neill to significant cultural figures; handwritten manuscripts and typescripts; vintage photographs of O’Neill and his immediate family—many by key photographers—and rare handbills, posters, scripts, and promotional books related to productions of his plays. Personal items belonging to O’Neill and a sculpture of him commissioned by Hammerman round out the archive.

Two of O’Neill's books set flat alongside each other. The books are O’Neill's Dynamo and Lazarus Laughed.
Washington University Libraries’ Harley Hammerman Collection of Eugene O’Neill is the second-largest O’Neill collection at an institution; Yale University’s Eugene O’Neill Collection is the largest.

Before Hammerman’s collection was acquired by the Washington University Libraries, it was the largest Eugene O’Neill archive in private hands. It is now the second-largest O’Neill collection at an institution; Yale University’s Eugene O’Neill Collection is the largest.

“To have this fabulous collection now housed permanently at Washington University is a scholar’s dream come true,” says Henry Schvey, professor of drama and comparative literature at Washington University. “The collection will provide tremendous opportunities for research on arguably America’s greatest playwright by graduate students, biographers, and scholars from the world over.”

The collection is housed in Washington University Libraries’ Julian Edison Department of Special Collections. It will be processed and cataloged later this year.