Amherst College Archives and Special Collections. All rights reserved.
© 2003 Amherst College Archives and Special Collections. All rights reserved.
Vachel Nicholas Lindsay was born in Springfield in 1879. In Central Illinois tradition, Lindsay was schooled in the virtues of Abraham Lincoln, and like Lincoln developed a fascination with the lives of the common people.
Lindsay attended Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio, for three years before studying art in Chicago and New York City. He later turned to poetry, a medium in which he found much greater success. After college, Lindsay spent much of his life walking across the country, performing and distributing copies of his poetry in exchange for bed and board.
Lindsay's verse is characterized by its lyric quality and its simple, forceful rhythms; his performances were remarkable for their animation. Among his volumes of poetry are The Congo and Other Poems (1914) and Every Soul Is a Circus (1929).
Excerpted from: http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/lindsay
The papers include correspondence, cards, newspaper and magazine clippings, programs, and a photograph, detailing the life of poet Vachel Lindsay, mostly sent to Eugenia Graham, who later became Mrs. R.F. Leftwich.
This collection is organized into five series:
There is no restriction on access to the Vachel Lindsay Collection for research use. Particularly fragile items may be restricted for preservation purposes.
Requests for permission to publish material from the Vachel Lindsay Collection should be directed to the Archives and Special Collections. It is the responsibility of the researcher to identify and satisfy the holders of all copyrights.
Please use the following format when citing materials from this collection:
[Identification of item], in Vachel Lindsay Collection [Box #, Folder #], Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College Library
The Vachel Lindsay collection was the gift of Frank Leftwich (AC 1958). The letters were written to Eugenia Graham, his mother, who met the poet while a student at Gulf Park Girls School and Junior College in Gulfport, Mississippi in the early 1920s. Lindsay was "touring" cities and schools in the south, reading his poetry at the time. Lindsay wrote to Eugenia Graham, who married R. Frank Leftwich in October 1924, over the course of several years. The letters were presented to Amherst College in June 2003.
Series 1, LETTERS, contains correspondence, chiefly between Vachel Lindsay and Miss Eugenia Graham from 1924 to 1931. Over the course of correspondence, Miss Eugenia Graham became Mrs. R.F. Leftwich, by marriage.
Series 2, POEMS, contains three poems; one printed on a Christmas card, one clipped from a magazine, and one handwritten, perhaps by Mrs. R.F. Leftwich.
Series 3, PROGRAMS, contains three programs, two listing Vachel Lindsay as reciting.
Series 4, PHOTOGRAPHS, contains a single mounted and framed photograph, credited to Gullicson, depicting Vachel Lindsay autographing a poem for the H.W. Fays collection, in DeKalb, Illinois.
Series 5, NEWS CLIPPINGS, contains a few photocopies of newspaper clippings that relate to Vachel Lindsay in various ways. Additionally, a longer article is included, written after Vachel Lindsay's death in praise of his poetry.