Guide to the Benét Family Papers, 1803-1970

Collection Summary

Historical Note

Laura, William Rose, and Stephen Vincent Benét were the children of James Walker Benét and Frances Neill Rose. James Walker Benét was a colonel in the U.S. Army, following in the footsteps of his father, the first Stephen Vincent Benét, a brigadier general. Both father and son managed ordnance, and because of this, Laura, William and Stephen spent much of their early childhood living at a series of arsenals: Fort Hamilton on the shores of the New York Harbor, the Springfield Armory in Massachusetts, the Frankfort Arsenal near Philadelphia, the Watervliet Arsenal near Albany, and finally the Benicia Arsenal in California. They also spent periods with Colonel Benét's grandparents in Washington, D.C., and lived for several years in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Buffalo, New York.

It was while the family was at the Watervliet Arsenal, that the boys were sent to Albany Academy (then a military school), and Laura attended the Emma Willard School in Troy. Laura went to Vassar College to continue her education, and William went to Yale. Stephen, who was much younger, attended Hitchcock Academy in California while his father was stationed in Benicia, then followed his brother to Yale.

Laura Benét employed herself as a social worker, newspaper editor, poet and author. She worked as a settlement worker at the Spring Street Settlement in New York City, 1915-1917; as a placement worker at the Children's Aid Society, New York City; a sanitary inspector for the American Red Cross, Augusta, Georgia, 1917-1919; a secretary and assistant book page editor at the New York Evening Post; an editor at the New York Sun; as a book review editor's assistant and book review substitute at the New York Times; and as a free-lance writer from 1930 until her death. She received and award from the National Poetry Center in 1936, and an honorary degree from Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1967.

William Rose Benét was an author and poet as well. He wrote for Century Magazine, the Saturday Review of Literature, and published several books of poems, and one novel. He was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Dust Which is God, an autobiographical verse narrative. He was married four times. He had three children with Teresa Thompson (sister to the novelist Kathleen Thompson Norris), who died during the influenza pandemic in 1919, just seven years after they were married. He had another child with the poet Elinor Wylie. They were married from 1923 until her death in 1928. His third marriage was to Lora Baxter (1932-1937), and his last marriage was to Marjorie Flack, an author and illustrator of children's books. Their marriage lasted from 1941 to his death in 1950.

Stephen Vincent Benét was also an author and poet. He too won a Pulitzer Prize, in 1929, for one of his most noted poems, "John Brown's Body." He may be best known, however, for his short story, "The Devil and Daniel Webster." Stephen married Rosemary Carr, a reporter in Paris for the Chicago Tribune, in 1921, and had three children. He had severe cases of scarlet fever and typhoid as a child, and suffered from arthritis as an adult; he died in 1943 of a heart attack at the age of 44.

Family Nicknames

Scope and Content Note

The collection includes extensive family correspondence, including letters to and from Laura Benét’s brothers Stephen Vincent and William Rose. Correspondence of note includes a letter to Laura Benét from Edna St. Vincent Millay, letters from Rachel Field and Lola Ridge, and two letters from Robert Frost, to William Rose Benét. Eight folders contain correspondence from novelist Kathleen Thompson Norris to her sister Teresa Thompson Benét, wife of William Rose Benét. Some correspondence to Laura Benét includes editorial commentary from Stephen Vincent Benét (SEE manuscripts: All for a Silver Shoe, and Inheritors of the Earth).

A significant volume of the collection’s correspondence is from Laura to her mother Frances Rose Benét and father, Colonel James Walker Benét, written during her years at Vassar (1904 – 1907). Many of the letters note the name of the dormitory in which she lived at the time of writing. Letters in the collection include extensive correspondence between Laura and her mother, Frances Rose, as well as correspondence between Frances Rose and her mother Mary Lee Rose.

Photographic prints include a scrapbook (1907) of Benicia Arsenal (California), home of Frances and James Walker Benét during the years Laura completed studies at Vassar, and a small collection of photographic prints taken at Slabsides, the New York residence of American naturalist and nature essayist, John Burroughs.

Three cubic feet contain manuscript drafts by Laura Benét, one of which holds primarily fragments of writings, partial drafts and notations.

Arrangement

Access and Use

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Encoding Information

Encoded by Laura Streett, April 2016. Updated by Emma Gronbeck, August 2024.

Administrative Information