The University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library recently acquired the work of Gwendolyn E. Brooks, who in 1950 became the first African-American to win a Pulitzer Prize. She was also appointed as Illinois’ poet laureate as Carl Sandburg’s successor until her death 32 years later.

“We’re very excited about this acquisition because Brooks is one of the most important American poets in the 20th century,” said Anna Chen, curator of the Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

With financial assistance from the President’s and Chancellor’s offices, the library purchased Brooks’ literary archive from her daughter, Nora Brooks Blakely.

The collection includes 150 boxes of Brooks’ works spanning more than six decades, including poetry and prose she wrote as a teenager, annotated photographs, notes recording her daily life, her thoughts and current events that she had jotted down as well as extensive correspondence with other writers. 

As a great American poet, Gwendolyn Brooks’ archives allow researchers and scholars to get a sense of how she worked and what she thought, said Valerie Hotchkiss, director of the library, in an email.

“We’ve already had people contacting us who are interested in the collection to see if it’s ready,” said Marten Stromberg, another curator of the library. “It’s a wealth of information about Gwendolyn Brooks. You don’t know what you’ll be able to get out of this collection until you start working with it.”

The library serves the community of scholars from the University and beyond who are interested in researching a writer’s creative process and the historical context of the periods in which these writers were working.

“Brooks was very devoted to nurturing young poets,” Chen said. “We are also very interested in involving not just University students but also primary and secondary students who are exploring her poetry and her creative process.”

Chen said the curators of the library are currently involved as archivists to account for all of Brooks’ materials. 

“We will rehouse and inventory the entire collection so that scholars and students can easily identify items they would like to study further,” Hotchkiss said.  

The curators are working to build an understanding of how the materials fit together while arranging, describing and rehousing them to ensure they will be accessible for researchers. 

“A sense of discovery is one of the most exhilarating products of archival work,” Chen said. “Definitely looking at all the letters, manuscripts, notes, photos and other materials, it’s clear that there are many discoveries to be made with this collection.”

Archives document and preserve the creative process, making them part of the cultural record.

“Whether it is the work of a writer or an artist or a political figure or even an institution, it falls to the archivist to be a steward for the memory of that institution or that person,” Chen said.

Stromberg said the job of an archivist is to bring history to people through the objects that have been preserved.

“We have the primary resources,” he said. “Without these, you’re just trusting the description in the textbooks about what happened in the past.”

Because patrons and researchers have access to historical literary works and archives online, Stromberg believes this actually increases the awareness of the material so more people visit and study collections they’ve never seen before.

He said there are some things a person can learn from the object itself that can’t be learned from a digital image.

“Something about being in the presence of the object itself, knowing that this thing was held and read by someone 400 years ago, I don’t think is a worthless experience,” Stromberg said. “Inspiration has its own value.”

Jacqui can be reached at [email protected].