Guide to the Rebecca Lawrence Lowrie Papers, 1846-1996 (bulk 1909-1977)

Collection Summary

Biographical Note

Ella Rebecca Lawrence (1891-1975) was born in Galesburg, Illinois on December 14, 1891, the third child of George Appleton and Ella Louise Park Lawrence. Rebecca graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar College in 1913 and received her M.A. in history from Radcliffe College. Having returned to Galesburg to accept a teaching position at Knox College, Rebecca met John Marshall Lowrie, a practicing attorney. The two were married on December 19, 1916.

The Lowries lived in New York City, where Mrs. Lowrie spent two years working for Macmillan Company and subsequently became a book reviewer for Harper Brothers (now Harper and Row). In addition to her regular assignments at Harper’s, she reviewed occasional books for The New Yorker and The Saturday Review of Literature . In 1928, while pursuing her literary career, Mrs. Lowrie wrote Cambric Tea, a book describing her rather lonely childhood in Galesburg. In 1931, Mrs. Lowrie resigned from Harper Brothers to accept a job as first reader for the Book-of-the-Month Club, a position she would hold until 1943.

Rebecca Lowrie served as a trustee of Vassar College from 1944 to 1952. Following her husband’s death in 1954, she moved to Chicago. After closing the Galesburg home, Mrs. Lowrie gave to Vassar a collection of over 3,000 volumes, many of which are now housed in the Special Collections Library. In 1965, Mrs. Lowrie made an outright gift to Vassar of the Elmwood Farm in Galesburg -- a tract of nearly 900 acres. To this generous gift, her will added 4,500 acres and securities valued in excess of $10 million, the largest bequest in Vassar’s history. Mrs. Lowrie requested in her will that after being held in trust for a period of 10 years, the income derived from the land be used to fund the Lucy Maynard Salmon Chair for American History to a level of $1.5 million, with the balance going to the Sarah Gibson Blanding Fund for the promotion of academic excellence at Vassar College.

For more Biographical information, see "Rebecca Lawrence Lowrie: An appreciation," by Alan Simpson. Vassar Views, July, 1977, no. 49

Scope and Content Note

The Rebecca Lawrence Lowrie Collection consists primarily of correspondence, typescripts, newsclippings, articles, speeches and addresses, and photographs. Also contained within the collection are a set of 22 Christmas cards designed for Rebecca Lowrie by Ralph Fletcher Seymour, a hand-written catalogue for the Park-Lawrence private library, and a scrapbook of newspaper reviews of Cambric Tea.

The bulk of the Collection consists of over 600 book reviews written by Lowrie between 1934 and 1952. Personal correspondence includes letters of general information. Contained within the Lowrie Collection are a set of 95 letters written by Rebecca Lowrie to Mary Simpson between 1963 and 1971. A set of 64 letters written by Lowrie to Eloise Ellery (1936-1956) can be found within the Eloise Ellery Collection at Vassar College. Also, a series of 27 letters from Rebecca Lowrie to Lucy Maynard Salmon written between 1912 and 1926, together with one letter from Lowrie to Mrs. Clark (1936) can be located within the Lucy Maynard Salmon Collection at Vassar.

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Encoded by Elizabeth Clarke, February 2007.

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