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F. Scott Fitzgerald: Author & 1920s Icon: Primary Sources: Archives & Records

Manuscripts: Collections

F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald at Dellwood the month before Scottie's birth.

James Taylor Dunn and Family Papers
Robert R. Dunn, Jr. correspondence, miscellany, and photographs of F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1962-1982. Includes informal snapshots of F. Scott Fitzgerald and St. Paul friends, newspaper clippings, printed materials, and a photocopy of a letter written by Fitzgerald to Dunn shortly before his death. [Original letter is in the Reserve collection and requires curator permission to access.]
MNHS call number: Digital Finding Aid (See DUNN-GARRETT FAMILIES section)

Correspondence with F. Scott Fitzgerald and Family and Fitzgerald Memorabilia (Charles Oscar Kalman)

Charles Oscar Kalman (1872-1956) was an investment banker and corporate executive. Born in New York City, Kalman lived most of his life in St. Paul. He entered investment banking in 1908, was president of Kalman and Company from 1929 to 1939, and served on the board of several corporations. He and his second wife, Alexandra, became close friends of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald during their 1921-1922 residence in St. Paul and at White Bear Lake. Although the Fitzgeralds never returned to St. Paul after 1922, the Kalmans maintained a correspondence with them and occasionally visited them in the East and in Europe. Although theirs was largely a personal relationship, Kalman periodically gave the Fitzgeralds some financial assistance.  Letters from Scott discuss family news, his and Zelda’s health, and his finances. Zelda’s letters include friendly reminiscences, descriptions of Montgomery (Ala.), her daughter’s marriage, and her observations on current affairs. The collection includes correspondence and memorabilia, all of which is digitized and available through the digital finding aid. [Originals are in the Reserve collection and require curator permission to access. Formerly collection P1417.] 

MNHS call number: Digital Finding Aid

Charles W. and Mary Lesley Ames Family Papers (Norris Dean Jackson Album)
Personal papers and organizational records of businessman Charles W. Ames and several other members of his family, documenting their lives and involvements in a number of civic, cultural, religious, charitable, and war relief organizations. Charles and his wife Mary Lesley Ames are the parents of Elizabeth “Betty” Ames, who later married Norris Jackson. Both the Betty and Norris were childhood friends of Fitzgerald’s, and Fitzgerald wrote about the Ames family home in his short story, The Scandal Detectives. The Norris Dean Jackson Album, which includes photographs of Fitzgerald.  Materials related to Norris Jackson and Fitzgerald are also in the Lloyd C. Hackl and Lance S. Bellville Papers.
MNHS call number: Digital Finding Aid

Manuscripts: Single Letters

Letters to Thomas Boyd, 1924Signature from Letter, reading Sincerely Yours, F. Scott Ftizgerald
Two letters signed by Fitzgerald to Thomas Boyd, author of Through the Wheat and a confidante and colleague of Fitzgerald. One letter (June 23, 1924) discusses the French countryside, purchase of a car, his time in St. Paul (Minn.), his opinion of Sinclair Lewis, Boyd's writing style, and the value of Fitzgerald's novels. The second letter (approximately 1924) was written from Paris, and it critiques Boyd's later work and shares Fitzgerald's nervousness about his own revision attempts. [Original letters are in the Reserve collection and require curator permission to access.]
MNHS call number: Reserve 189 (See Catalog Record or Digital copy of letters)

Letter to Dawson Lobuston, 1919 Sept. 30
The handwritten letter to Dawson Lobuston, presumably an employee at the St. Paul Public Library, briefly notes his published writings to date, which at the time consisted largely of a few magazine stories and poems.  [Original letter is in the Reserve collection and requires curator permission to access.] 
MNHS call number: Reserve 57 (See Catalog Record or Digital copy of letter)

(F.Scott Fitzgerald) Letter to Robert D. Clark, 1921 February 9
In the letter Fitzgerald refuses to cater to or seek the respect of business, political, and social leaders, whom he considers his mental inferiors. He comments on Sinclair Lewis' Main Street and his own The Beautiful and Damned.  [Photocopy only]
MNHS call number: P422 (See Catalog Record or Digital copy of letter)

F. Scott Fitzgerald letter to Luce's Press Clipping Bureau, 1920 February 29.
Handwritten letter from F. Scott Fitzgerald written at Princeton University to Luce's Press Clipping Bureau, New York, explaining that he is a new author who is beginning to be published and requesting that Luce's provide him with news clippings about himself and his writings. [Original letter is in the Reserve collection and requires curator permission to access.]
MNHS call number: Reserve 167 (See Catalog Record or Digital copy of letter)

State Government Records: WWI Service

 

F. Scott Fitzgerald World War I military service record
Four-page questionnaire filled out by Minnesota veterans of World War I with biographical data and details of their military service. In his service record, Fitzgerald notes his change in occupation in his return to civil life: “was student - am now writer.” Part of the World War I military service records collection.
MNHS call number: Digital Finding Aid (Digital Copy of Record)

F. Scott Fitzgerald World War I bonus file (warrant #92058)
Applications for military service bonus payments to Minnesota veterans of World War I. Includes application for soldiers' bonus (including request for authorization of tuition), endorsed auditor's warrant, memorandum of tuition authorized, honorable discharge certificate, commission as second lieutenant (typescript copy), certification of date he reported for active service (holograph, signed), establishment of residence in St. Paul (typescript, signed), and affidavit confirming residence, by Norris D. Jackson. Part of the World War I bonus files and index collection.
MNHS call number: Digital Finding Aid (Digital Copy of Record)

Top of page labeled "Application for Soldier's Bonus"

Books & Other Publications

The Thoughtbook of F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Secret Boyhood Diary, edited by Dave Page. 
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013.
MNHS call number: PS3511.I9 T6 2013

A Life in Letters: F. Scott Fitzgerald, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli.
New York : Maxwell Macmillan International, c1994.
A Life in Letters is the most comprehensive volume of Fitzgerald's letters - many of them appearing in print for the first time. The fullness of the selection and the chronological arrangement make this collection the closest thing to an autobiography Fitzgerald ever wrote.
MNHS call number: PS3511.I9 Z48 1994

A Short Autobiography, edited by James L. W. West III.
New York: Scribner, 2011.
MNHS call number: PS3511.I9 Z46 2011

F. Scott Fitzgerald on Authorship, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli with Judith S. Baughman. 
Columbia : University of South Carolina Press, 1996.
Assembling letters and notebook entries with articles and reviews written for publication, F. Scott Fitzgerald on Authorship provides Fitzgerald's public and private writings on his trade and craft. The forty-six selections in this volume construct an autobiographical account of Fitzgerald's twenty-year endeavor to maintain careers as a commercial writer and as a literary artist.
MNHS call number: PS3511.I9 Z464 1996

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s St. Paul Plays, 1911-1914, edited by Alan Margolies. 
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Library, 1978.
MNHS call number: PS3511.I9 A19 1978

University of Minnesota Conference on F. Scott Fitzgerald: St. Paul’s Native Son and Distinguished American Writer: 1982 St. Paul, MN
Minneapolis, Minn: s.n., 1982.
MNHS call number: PS3511.I9 A49 1982

Rare Publications

Now and Then
Saint Paul, Minn.: St. Paul Academy.
[These items are on Reserve and require curator permission to access.]

  • Vol. 3, no. 4 (June 1911): Contains the short story "The Room with the Green Blinds" by Scott Fitzgerald.
    MNHS call number: Reserve LD7501.S14 S14n Vol. 3 No. 4 June 1911
  • Vol. 2, no. 4 (Mar. 1910): Contains the short story "A Debt of Honor" by Scott Fitzgerald.
    MNHS call number: Reserve LD7501.S14 S14n v.2:4 
  • Vol. 2, no. 1 (Oct. [1909]): Contains the short story "The Mystery of the Raymond Mortgage" by Scott Fitzgerald.
    MNHS call number: Reserve LD7501.S14 S14n v.2:1

Newman News, Vol. 9, no. 1 (Christmas 1912)
Hackensack, N.J.: the boys of Newman School, 1912.
Lists Francis Scott Fitzgerald as an associate editor and contains his short story "A Luckless Santa Claus."
MNHS call number: LH1.N4 N4 

The evil eye : a musical comedy in two acts, presented by the Princeton University Triangle Club, season of 1915-1916.
Trenton, N.J. : Smith Press, 1916. 
Theater program listing F. Scott Fitzgerald listed as the “composer of the lyrics” for the production. Includes historical information about founding of the Triangle Club. 
MNHS call number: PS3511.I9 E95 1915

Saint Paul Daily Dirge, "Vol. 1, no. 1.", "Friday, January 13, 1922."
St. Paul, MN, 1922. 
A satirical newspaper created by F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald as a joke for the Bad Luck Ball, held on Friday, January 13, 1922 at the St. Paul University Club.  To see more about the newspaper, see this Minnesota History Magazine article.  [Original is on Reserve and requires curator permission to access. 
MNHS call number: Reserve PS3511.I9 S25 1922 (See Catalog Record or Digital Copy)

 

Books with inscriptions by Fitzgerald

This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920
Inscribed to “To the Minnesota Historical Society” by author F. Scott Fitzgerald on June 10th, 1920. This copy was inscribed just several months after This Side of Paradise, Fitzgerald’s first novel, was first published. [This item is on Reserve and requires curator permission to access.]
MNHS call number: Reserve PS3511.I9 T54 1920 (See Catalog Record or Digital Copy of inscription)

The Farewell Address of George Washington, edited by Frank W. Pine.
New York : American Book Company, 1911. 
Copy owned by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Signed and inscribed by the author, describing himself as “playwright, poet, novelist, essayist, philosopher, loafer, useless, disagreeable, silly, talented, weak, strong, clever, trivial, a waste.” Inscription undated. [This item is on Reserve and requires curator permission to access.]
MNHS call number: Reserve E312.95 1911Nep (See Catalog Record or Digital Copy of inscription)

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