Archives West Finding Aid

The Janet Stevenson Papers contain many published and unpublished manuscripts. The nonfiction articles include pieces on the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott in the 1950s; civil rights issues; and woman's rights issues. These articles appeared in publications such as: American Heritage and Atlantic Monthly. There are also numerous pieces of correspondence with her publishers and literary agent. A journal/letter that was written to friends and recounts her six-month sea odyssey became the subject of her critically acclaimed novel, Woman Aboard. Galley proofs from her published works are in this collection, and research documents for several biographies including: African American opera singer Marion Anderson, actress and native of England Frances Anne Kemble, naturalist and bird artist John James Audubon; and Robert W. Kenny, California State Senator and state Attorney General and defense attorney for some of the "Hollywood 10."

Important in the Correspondence Series is information concerning the dismissal of Stevenson from the faculty of the University of Southern California in 1952, for alleged connections with the communist party. Also included are letters from her New York City literary agent, Berthold Fles, and many of her publishers. She had a long professional relationship with many of them. There are also personal letters to her mother, Mrs. John Marshall, and her ex-husband, Philip Stevenson and their two sons, that describe Stevenson's world tour in 1961. These letters include details of May Day in Moscow at Red Square.

The Literary Manuscripts Series is comprised of book-length manuscripts, plays, short stories, radio scripts, teleplays, screenplays, speeches, political literary criticism, articles, and essays. This series also includes any research material related to the manuscripts. For example, in 1980 the book The Undiminished Man was published. This biography is about the political life of California attorney, state senator and attorney general Robert W. Kenny. He was an influential liberal that championed the rights of several of the "Hollywood 10" before the Thomas Die Committee from the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). This research includes audio recordings from interviews with Kenny; some of Kenny's personal letters, photographs, and copies of his own unpublished biography; and correspondence with Stevenson. Two additional libraries contain portions of the Kenny collection. They are: the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, and University of California Bancroft Library. Other published works that include interesting research materials are: An American Family, The Ardent Years, Departure, Marian Anderson, and The Montgomery Bus Boycott. It is important to note the manuscript Right Ascension was never published but was excerpted from the published book, Departure. Additional research material for the latter can be found filed with research material for Right Ascension.

Three of Stevenson's produced plays are within this series. "Counter Attack," produced on Broadway in 1944, and later turned into a successful motion picture film. "Declaration," a play well received and reviewed in Southern California and produced by the Actors Lab. "The Third President," a rewrite of "Declaration," and produced by Southern Players, Laboratory Theatre, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in 1976.

Stevenson wrote under several pen names and seemed to use them when writing outside of her usual topics of biography, non-fiction and historical fiction. The names are: Janet Marshall, Janet Lewis, Clare Thorne, Allison Thorne, Jane(t) Holmes, and Jane Marsh. As near as can be ascertained, Jane Marsh was used exclusively for her poetry.

Series V: Magazines/Articles includes published works from as early as 1933, when Stevenson was an undergraduate at Bryn Mawr College to a political/environmental article published in 1984. It also includes published pieces in Life Story, True Confessions, and The Woman. These are the actual magazines and newsletters, not copies or tear sheets. Some of Stevenson's student work can be viewed in Series VI: College Materials. This includes original plays, a costume project that includes her original watercolor designs, and a piece of interest to the literary researcher titled, "The Order of the Canterbury Tales," complete with a diagram of the order.

As a septuagenarian, Stevenson successfully ran for mayor of Hammond, Oregon and became involved with Home Rule issues and the environmental impact studies concerning the Columbia River estuary near the town. Information pertaining to these items can be found in Series VII. Also included in this series is information on the firing of her second husband, Benson Rotstein, from the Astoria [Oregon] High School faculty.

The Miscellaneous series includes original, mostly undated, unpublished poetry by "Jane Marsh," odd reviews and publicity for some books, and additional information concerning Stevenson's firing from the University of Southern California in 1952. The Audio Recordings series has extensive interviews with Robert W. Kenny and interviews from radio shows when Stevenson and her first husband, Philip Stevenson, were guests.

The final two series contain a libretto with research information on the opera, "Lysistrata," produced in 1984, and a closed manuscript titled, The Last Town in Oregon. This box is closed to the researcher until the event of the author's death.