Tagged: NHPRC

NHPRC Grant | Kurt Wiese papers

This is one in a series of posts related to our NHPRC-sponsored project: Twentieth Century Children’s Literature: Exploring the Past, Understanding the Present. Previous posts can be found here.

Special Collections and University Archives is pleased to announce the publication of a newly revised finding aid for the Kurt Wiese papers (Ax 445). The finding aid is available on ArchivesSpace.

Illustration by Kurt Wiese for North America: The Land They Live in for the Children Who Live There by Lucy Sprague Mitchell (New York: Macmillan, 1931), circa 1931, Kurt Wiese papers, Ax 445, Box 1, Folder 8, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR.

The Kurt Wiese papers represent a major portion of Wiese’s body of work produced as an illustrator and author of American children’s literature. The collection is comprised of original children’s book production material and personal papers.

The children’s book production material series includes Wiese’s original artwork and related preparatory materials used in the creation of children’s books written by Wiese and other authors. The bulk of the artwork is comprised of ink and litho crayon illustrations on paper and board, but it also includes press-ready color-separated art on acetate, dummies, cover art, sketches, and proofs. It also includes typed manuscripts, as well as publisher and author correspondence.

The personal papers series includes personal and commercial artwork by Wiese not created for children’s books, as well as personal scrapbooks and photographs of Wiese. The original artwork is comprised of sketchbooks, drawings, paintings, and etchings, as well as some illustrations for magazines, periodicals, and greeting cards.

Cover sketch by Kurt Wiese for Freddy and Simon the Dictator by Walter Rollin Brooks (New York: Knopf, 1956), circa 1956, Kurt Wiese papers, Ax 445, Box 21, Folder 6, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR.

Kurt Wiese was born on April 22, 1887 in Minden, Germany. From 1909 to 1915, he worked and traveled throughout China and Southeast Asia. But at the outbreak of World War I, he was captured and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in Australia. After being released at the end of the war, Wiese returned to Germany but the economy was so bad that he left for Brazil, where he began his career in illustration. In 1927 Wiese moved to the United States, where he married Gertrude Hansen in 1930 and they permanently resided in New Jersey. His first critical success in book illustration was Felix Salten’s Bambi in 1929. Wiese wrote and illustrated 20 children’s books and illustrated another 300 for other authors. He received the Caldecott Honor Book Award in 1946 for You Can Write Chinese and in 1948 for Fish in the Air. He also illustrated the Newbery Award winner Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze, and the Newbery Honor books Honk the Moose, Li Lun, Lad of Courage, and Daughter of the Mountains. Kurt Wiese died on May 27, 1974.

20th Century Children’s Literature: Exploring the Past, Understanding the Present

I am pleased to announce the publication of a new website, 20th Century Children’s Literature: Exploring the Past, Understanding the Present.  This digital exhibition traverses the complex terrain of 20th century children’s literature, a fascinating rubric through which one can understand the tenor of our past.  Ranging from optimistic and inclusive to racist and historically problematic, the works selected for this exhibition mirror the radical changes occurring in the United States during the post-World War II period.  Stories tended to emphasize both patriotic values and American history, the ideals for which the “Greatest Generation” fought. Democracy, American entrepreneurship, and technical innovation are portrayed as core to the United States’ ascendancy as a world power.  The dark side of these narratives, of course, can be seen in the white-washing of American history that sugarcoats the harsh realities of the slavery of African-Americans, and represents the genocide of the Native American population as part of the inevitable “forward march of progress.”

This project is the culmination of a two-year grant from the National Historical Publications & Records Commission to reprocess, conserve, and promote three illustrator/author collections from Special Collections & University Archives.  The Edwin Tunis Collection, the Kurt Wiese Collection, and the Kurt Werth Collection are all available for use in the Special Collections & University Archives reading room.  Wiese and Werth illustrated for a wide range of significant authors, including Ann Nolan Clark, Lucy Sprague Mitchell, and Walter R Brooks, whose works can also be explored in the digital exhibition.

If you were interested in the October 28 panel discussion on race and identity in children’s literature but were unable to attend, you may find a recording of the talk here.