Scope and Contents
The Mary Welsh Hemingway Papers document the life and career of the journalist Mary Welsh Hemingway, and include correspondence, writings, and personal papers. The correspondence includes letters to Mary and Ernest Hemingway from a variety of correspondents, both family and professional; copies of outgoing letters written by Ernest Hemingway; correspondence related to Mary Hemingway's involvement with the Overseas Press Club of America; and holiday cards and notes written to her mother, Adeline Welsh. The bulk of the writings is comprised of typescript drafts of Mary Hemingway's autobiography How it Was. Writings related to her father, Thomas J. Welsh, her travels, and other topics are also present. Personal and other papers include clippings related to Mary Hemingway's travels and public appearances, and to memorials for Ernest Hemingway; financial documents; photographs; and ephemera. They also contain papers of Mary Hemingway's father, Thomas J. Welsh, including a typescript autobiography, correspondence, and other family papers.
Dates
- 1892-1977
Creator
Conditions Governing Access
The materials are open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
The Mary Welsh Hemingway 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
Purchased from William Reese Co. on the Library Associates Endowment Fund, 2010.
Arrangement
Organized into three series: I. Correspondence, 1938-1976. II. Writings, 1940-1977. III. Personal and Other Papers, 1892-1972.
Extent
8.5 Linear Feet (10 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.hemingwaymw
Abstract
The Mary Welsh Hemingway Papers document the life and career of the journalist Mary Welsh Hemingway, and include correspondence, writings, and personal papers. The correspondence includes letters to Mary and Ernest Hemingway from a variety of correspondents, both family and professional; copies of outgoing letters written by Ernest Hemingway; correspondence related to Mary Hemingway's involvement with the Overseas Press Club of America; and holiday cards and notes written to her mother, Adeline Welsh. The bulk of the writings is comprised of typescript drafts of Mary Hemingway's autobiography How it Was. Writings related to her father, Thomas J. Welsh, her travels, and other topics are also present. Personal and other papers include clippings related to Mary Hemingway's travels and public appearances, and to memorials for Ernest Hemingway; financial documents; photographs; and ephemera. They also contain papers of Mary Hemingway's father, Thomas J. Welsh, including a typescript autobiography, correspondence, and other family papers.
Mary Welsh Hemingway (1908-1986)
Mary Welsh Hemingway, journalist and fourth wife of the author Ernest Hemingway, was born on April 5, 1908, in Walker, Minnesota, the daughter of Thomas James Welsh, a lumberman, and Adeline Beehler Welsh. She studied journalism at Northwestern University, and edited The American Florist before joining the staff of The Chicago Daily News in 1932. In 1937 she moved to London to write for The Daily Express, and beginning in 1940 she covered World War II in Europe for Time and Life magazines. Throughout her first two marriages, to Lawrence Cook and to Australian journalist Noel Monks, she used the name Mary Welsh professionally.
Mary Welsh met Hemingway in London in 1944, and they were married two years later in Havana, Cuba. During their fifteen years together, Mary Hemingway continued to work as a free-lance journalist but also supported her husband's writing, answering correspondence and typing his manuscripts. The couple kept homes in Idaho and Cuba, and travelled widely. Following Hemingway's suicide in 1961, she served as his literary executor and saw to press several posthumous works, including A Moveable Feast, established the Ernest Hemingway Foundation to support young writers, and arranged for the donation of his papers to the Kennedy Presidential Library. In 1976 she published her autobiography, How it Was, which focuses chiefly on her time with Ernest Hemingway.
In her later years Mary Hemingway lived in New York, where she died on November 26, 1986.
Sources include: The New York Times, 28 November 1986. Contemporary Authors Online, accessed via Gale Literary Database, 10 June 2011.
Processing Information
Collections are processed to a variety of levels, depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived research value, the availability of staff, competing priorities, and whether or not further accruals are expected. The library attempts to provide a basic level of preservation and access for all collections as they are acquired, and does more extensive processing of higher priority collections as time and resources permit.
This collection received a basic level of processing, including rehousing and minimal organization in 2010-2011. The bulk of the correspondence was removed from binders upon acquisition.
Information included in the Description of Papers note and Collection Contents section is drawn from information supplied with the collection and from an initial survey of the contents. Folder titles appearing in the contents list below are often based on those provided by the creator or previous custodian. Titles have not been verified against the contents of the folders in all cases. Otherwise, folder titles are supplied by staff during initial processing.
This finding aid may be updated periodically to account for new acquisitions to the collection and/or revisions in arrangement and description.
- Title
- Guide to the Mary Welsh Hemingway Papers
- Author
- by Beinecke staff
- Date
- July 2011
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description note
- Finding aid written in English.
Part of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Repository
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.