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Biography/History:
Pauline Van de Graaf Orr
Pauline Van de Graaf Orr was born in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, in 1861. She was the daughter of Jehu A. and Cornelia Van de Graaf Orr. Her father was a member of the Mississippi legislature, a colonel in the Confederate army, and a member of the Confederate Congress. Orr served as a circuit judge for the sixth judicial district from 1869 to 1876 and as a trustee of the University of Mississippi from 1872 to 1905. Pauline Orr's mother was the daughter of William Van de Graaf, a lawyer from Alabama.
From 1881 to 1885, Orr attended the Packer Collegiate Institute of Brooklyn, New York. She later studied comparative literature and philology at the universities of Munich and Zurich (1903-1905). Orr received a master of arts degree from Columbia University in 1912. She became head of the English department of Mississippi Industrial Institute and College (Mississippi State College for Women / Mississippi University for Women) at Columbus in 1885.
While teaching at the II&C, Orr was involved in various literary clubs. She also campaigned for women's suffrage after resigning from her teaching position in 1913. Orr served on the education committee of the Mississippi Women’s Suffrage Association in 1913. As vice-president and later president of the association, she organized equal suffrage leagues in Mississippi and represented the state nationally from 1914 to 1917. Orr was also a member of the literature committee of the National Federation of Women's Clubs.
Orr bought a house in New York City in 1921, and it became a gathering place for old friends from Mississippi. She lived there with two friends, classicist Miriam G. Pasley and physician Mary M. Hathorn, and with her nephew, Jerome Harris, assistant rector of St. Ignatius Episcopal Church. Orr worked for the League of Women Voters and literary clubs and managed her financial affairs. Nearly blind by the early 1950s, Orr moved to Springfield Gardens, New Jersey, with her nephew who was now rector of St. John Episcopal Church. Shortly before Orr’s death in November of 1955, the chapel and speech building at Mississippi State College for Women were dedicated to her.
Miriam G. Pasley
Miriam G. Pasley was the daughter of Thomas Jefferson Pasley of Como, Mississippi. She graduated with the first class of Mississippi Industrial Institute and College in 1889. That same year, Pasley became professor of Greek and Latin at the II&C. She lived with the Orr family and became Pauline Orr's closest friend in Columbus. Pasley pursued graduate studies at universities in Munich, Paris, Rome, and Zurich between 1894 and 1901 and at Columbia University where she received a master of arts degree. She left the II&C in 1920 to teach Greek and Latin at the Alcuin Preparatory School for Girls in New York City. Pasley lived with Orr until she died in 1931.
Myra Mason Lindsey
Myra Mason Lindsey was born in Harrison County, Mississippi, in 1889. She was the daughter of James T. and Frances M. Binford Lindsey. After attending the public schools in Long Beach, Lindsey received a bachelor of arts degree from the II&C in 1912. She was also a graduate of Tulane University and the Pulitzer School of Journalism at Columbia University.
Between 1921 and 1923, Lindsey worked for the Newark Star Eagle as a daily reporter and feature writer. After the success of her first two short stories, Vanilla Wafers (June 1923) and Miss Tenny's Yellow Streak (December 1923), which appeared in Scribner's Magazine, Lindsey left the Newark Star Eagle to pursue her writing. She was later fiction editor and assistant makeup editor of Good Housekeeping from 1926 to 1928. Meanwhile, Lindsey was publishing stories under the pseudonym, Rienza Rochelle, in Flynn's Weekly (Frank A. Musey Company). She then worked for McCall’s before moving to Jackson, Mississippi, where her family had relocated in 1918. Lindsey remained in Jackson until 1942, writing for the Clarion-Ledger and other local newspapers. She also opened a literary agency and taught magazine writing.
Returning to New York City in 1942, Lindsey resumed her literary activity, writing articles, fiction, genealogical and historical sketches, and verses. She also held various jobs in advertising, food editing, and manuscript reading. Lindsey worked with literary agent A. L. Fierst from 1947 to 1958, writing various pieces on commission. During these years, she was also very close to Pauline Orr, who was losing her eyesight. Lindsey often read to Orr and helped with some of her paperwork. She returned to Jackson in 1958, teaching creative writing at Millsaps College. Lindsey died in 1981.
Scope and Content:
Papers of Pauline Van de Graaf Orr
The papers of Orr depict her as a leader in both the women's higher education and suffrage movements at the turn of the twentieth century. The early papers include correspondence of Judge Jehu A. Orr regarding his daughter's career at the II&C. Judge Orr annotated some of his daughter’s letters of recommendation for the position of English department head at the II&C, including letters from Stephen Dill Lee, Colonel Neilson, and author Mary Lowe Dickinson (Packer Institute; The Silver Cross). Orr quickly established a reputation as a bright, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic teacher, as can be seen from the testimonials of II&C presidents Robert Frazer, Richard Jones, A. A. Kincannon, and H. L. Whitfield, as well as letters from Governor John M. Stone, professors W. M. Baskerville (Vanderbilt University) and Alfred Hume (University of Mississippi), J. N. Power, and scholar Laura Drake Gill.
Between 1885 and 1913, Orr’s main correspondents were fellow teachers and students. These included lifelong friends Mary M. Hathorn and Miriam G. Pasley; scholars Eula Deaton (University of Chicago; University of Mississippi) and Rose Peebles (Vassar College); Annie Hederman Rea; Nannie Herndon Rice; writer Frances Gaither; columnist Anabel Power; and librarian Elizabeth West. These letters concern college life, Orr's teaching, and the S. T. Payer affair at the II&C. This controversy, purportedly instigated by Orr, concerned a letter signed by S. T. Payer, which was critical of the college administration. The papers regarding the S. T. Payer affair include letters or copies of letters of Governor Earl Leroy Brewer, Judge Eckle, editor Fred Sullens, attorney W. H. Watkins, and II&C president H. L. Whitfield.
From 1913 to 1920, Orr’s correspondence provides sources for the history of women's suffrage. Following her departure from the II&C and until the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, Orr’s papers include letters from the presidents of Mississippi women's clubs and organizations, including Ethel M. Clagett, Annie K. Kent, Nellie Nugent Somerville, Lily W. Thompson, and Anne Mims Wright. As president the Mississippi Women's Suffrage Association, Orr also corresponded with suffragettes Jane Addams, Alice Stone Blackwell, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Anna Howard Shaw. These letters concern internal policies of the organizations, state and national meetings, and articles and speeches on women's suffrage.
Orr often corresponded with political and scholarly friends while living in New York City. These letters are mainly from Mary M. Hathorn, Miriam G. Pasley, and Blanche C. Williams. The family letters, including those from Orr's sister, Corinne Orr Harris, and her nephews and nieces, increase with the years, as do the letters from Pasley's sister, Clara Pasley Clayton.
The manuscripts of Orr's articles, lectures, and speeches are incomplete, and, therefore, reflect only a portion of her literary and political activities. The lectures reveal Orr’s predilection for nineteenth-century English poetry and Middle English literature. Her articles and speeches reflect her concern for women’s education and suffrage. Orr left a number of notes, often in the form of verses, formulating her reflections or thoughts on literary subjects. Ten diaries cover Orr’s years of study in Germany (1903-1905) and the period from 1927 to 1932. Her political activities can be traced in three scrapbooks assembled during the women’s suffrage movement (1913-1917).
Papers of Miriam G. Pasley
The papers of Pasley mainly pertain to the Payer letter affair at the II&C in 1914. Her correspondence includes letters from II&C presidents Robert Frazer and H. L. Whitfield; University of Mississippi scholars Addison Hogue and J. S. Hudson; and letters to and from fellow teachers or students, including writer Francis Gaither, Mary M. Hathorn, and Orr. These letters concern Pasley's teaching, her relationship with Orr, and her dismissal resulting from the Payer letter affair in 1914 and subsequent reinstatement. There is correspondence between Pasley, her lawyer, A. W. Shands, and II&C president H. L. Whitfield and between Shands, Governor Earl Leroy Brewer, and Whitfield. Several letters relate to Pasley's involvement with the Mississippi Classical Association. Pasley’s papers also include some of her publications "Hawthorne" (Our Mutual Friend, Columbus: Mississippi Industrial Institute and College, 1897) and "The Civil War" (The Classical Journal, February 1918).
Papers of Myra Mason Lindsey
The majority of Lindsey’s papers are related to the publication of her first short stories in 1923 and to her work at the Newark Star Eagle (1921-1923) and Good Housekeeping (1926-1928). There are letters from journalists congratulating Lindsey on her literary success and on her work at the newspaper; letters to her at Good Housekeeping from authors, editors, and publishers such as Ellis Parker Butler, Herschell Brickell, Paul Ellerbe, Alma Martin, W. F. Melton, John H. Mitchell, Helen Price, and Charles Hanson Townes; and many other letters from lesser-known writers who were sending in manuscripts.
Until the 1940s, Lindsey was corresponding with New York editors, literary agents, and magazines about publishing her fiction. Her correspondents include Robert Bridges (Scribner's Magazine), Kenneth W. Hutchinson (Frank A. Munsey Company), Reader's Digest, the Saturday Evening Post, and many others. Copies of her two published short stories and more than ten unpublished ones can be found in her papers, as well as newspaper clippings of her articles or about her writing.
There are no papers for the years that Lindsey lived in Jackson (1929-1942). The papers after 1942 reflect her professional work with New York publishers, the fiction and poetry manuscripts she was reading, and the diversity of the jobs she held. The correspondence from the 1950s mainly relates to Lindsey’s work with literary agent A. L. Fierst and to life in New York City. There are letters from colleagues Alice Booth and Jeanne Fierst and letters from Mississippi friends Norma Brickell, Daisy V. Joyner, Edith Marshall Tucker, and others. Lindsey, who was spending a great deal of time with Orr, probably began working on the biography of her old teacher at that time and possibly with Orr's collaboration. The drafts, letters, and extracts of letters are an exhaustive source for Orr's life. Finally, Lindsey's growing interest in Christian Science in the 1950s should be noted, as revealed by her correspondence with Lina Fleming of Jackson and the materials
Series Identification:
Papers of Pauline Van de Graaf Orr
Letters of recommendation from Orr's teaching period at the II&C, including some from Stephen Dill Lee, Colonel Neilson, and author Mary Lowe Dickinson; some letters are annotated by Judge Jehu A. Orr; correspondence pertaining to the II&C, including letters to and from college presidents Frazer, Jones, Kincannon, and Whitfield between 1885 and 1913; letters from fellow teachers or students, including Nona Archer Bell, Eula Deaton, Frances Gaither, Mary M. Hathorn, Emma May Laney, Miriam G. Pasley, Rose Peebles, Anabel Power, Annie Hederman Rea, Nannie Rice, Bertha Schaeffer, Ruth Stockett, Elizabeth West, and Blanche C. Williams; correspondence regarding the S. T. Payer letter affair at the II&C (1914); correspondence on women's rights, including Jane Addams, Alice S. Blackwell, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Laura Drake Gill on the national level; and Ethel Clagett, Annie K. Dent, Nellie Nugent Somerville, Lily Wilkinson Thomson, and Anne Mims Wright on the state level; family correspondence; 1885-1927 (box 1); 1928-1957; n.d. (box 2)
Statements of II&C teachers and students about Orr; II&C president H. L. Whitfield's assertions; resolutions and petitions of II&C alumnae and women's organizations; early conditions at the II&C. (box 2)
Diaries of Orr; the 1884 diary was originally kept by Judge Jehu A. Orr; it contains additions of Orr between 1900 and 1902. (box 3)
Lectures or fragments of lectures given by Orr at the II&C and afterward (Browning, Frost, Lowell, Shakespeare, and Tennyson; "The Book of Curteseye"; "The New Poetry"); lecture notes (copies, manuscripts, and notebooks). (box 4)
Literary notes in notebooks and on paper scraps; one notebook on Shakespeare; notes on Hedda Gabler; various other notes; notes and reviews on books; one notebook is in an old docket book of Judge Jehu A. Orr. (box 4)
Verses written on scraps of paper; notes in verse; translations of German poetry; newspaper clippings of poetry; one pressed flower album containing some of Orr's poems, 1894. (box 5)
Papers read by Orr on special occasions such as the death of Professor Calloway, Sunday services, her departure from the II&C, and the dedication of the chapel at Mississippi State College for Women; articles, programs, and speeches in support of women’s education, rights, and suffrage. (box 5)
Diplomas and registration books of Orr from the universities of Zurich (1904) and Munich (1905) and from Columbia University (1910-1911); "Rosalynde," master of arts thesis by Thomas Lodge (1912). (box 5)
Correspondence of Orr regarding bank accounts, bills, certificates, insurance, investments, stocks, and taxes. (box 5)
Three scrapbooks containing articles about Orr's activities as an educator and leader in the women's suffrage movement; articles about Orr and the dedication of the chapel and speech building at Mississippi State College for Women in 1954; articles about Pasley; one scrapbook includes articles on Judge Jehu A. Orr. (scrapbooks, box 22; items from scrapbooks, box 6; box 21)
Property titles, including seven land grants (1840-1841); will of William J. Van de Graaf (1842); personal papers of Judge Jehu A. Orr, including six letters from his daughter, Lizzie Orr Gates (1900-1906); two speeches delivered by Judge Orr in 1885 and 1894; and printed materials regarding Judge Orr (1904-1921). See also, The Southern Patriot (Houston, Miss.), 1848-1849, edited by Judge Jehu A. Orr, MDAH newspaper collection. (box 7)
Images of Orr, Pasley (including a pencil sketch), and friends; Judge and Mrs. Jehu A. Orr, the Orr house in Columbus; the Orr house in New York City; and Frances Gaither; autographed image of Anna H. Shaw (1917). (box 7)
Printed materials: The State Teachers' Association of Mississippi Annual Meeting (1891), Meh Lady (1904), The Spectator (1911-1915), The House of a Thousand Friendships (n.d.), American Woman's Association; books: eleven volumes annotated by Orr, including histories of England and Rome; anthologies of English literature; Beowulf, Browning, Keats, and Shelley; Victorian poetry; Edelweiss, An Alpine Rhyme by Mary Lowe Dickinson (1876) given to Orr by the author in 1881; printed materials (box 8); books (boxes 9-10)
Papers of Miriam G. Pasley
Correspondence of Pasley with II&C presidents Robert Frazer and H. L. Whitfield; with fellow teachers, including Orr; with professors at other universities, including J. S. Hogue and A. Hudson; and with writer Frances Gaither, physicist Mary Maxwell, and columnist Anabel Power; correspondence of Governor Earl Leroy Brewer and attorney A. W. Shands concerning Pasley's dismissal and reinstatement at the II&C (June-September 1914); several letters relating to the Mississippi Classical Association. (box 11)
Papers regarding the Calloway-Orr Society, the II&C, and teaching; poetry. (box 11)
Lecture notes for Latin classes. (box 11)
Articles include "Hawthorne" (Our Mutual Friend, Columbus: Mississippi Industrial Institute and College, 1897); "The Civil War" (The Classical Journal, February 1918); and A Pageant--Greece (1919). (box 11)
Daughters of the American Revolution application; calling cards; death announcement; and warranty deed. (box 11)
Annotated volumes, including a history of Greece and Rome in Latin; Matthew Paris; Sartor Resartus with an inscription by Orr; Rubayat of Omar Khayyam. (box 12)
Papers of Myra Mason Lindsey
Lindsey's correspondence (1922-1928; 1942-1958) relating to her writing and editing in New York City: letters from the staff of the Newark Star Eagle, including Roy D. Carter and publisher H. S. Talmadge; letters from authors, editors, or publishers, including Herschell Brickell, Robert Bridges, Ellis Parker Butler, Paul Ellerbe, A. L. Fierst, Kenneth W. Hutchinson, Harnett T. Kane, Alma Martin, W. F. Melton, Helen Price, David Solomon, and Charles H. Townes; letters from Readers' Digest and the Saturday Evening Post; letters to and from colleagues, including Alice Booth and Jeanne Fierst; letters from Mississippians living in New York City, including Herschell and Norma Brickell, Daisy V. Joyner, and Edith Marshall Tucker; letters from friends in Jackson, including Lina Fleming, Bertha Sumner, and Alice Sutherland (1921-1928; 1942-1958; n.d.). (box 13)
Two published short stories: "Vanilla Wafers" (Scribner's Magazine, June 1923) and "Miss Tenny's Yellow Streak" (Scribner's Magazine, November 1923); unpublished short stories, including "Be Nice to Mr. Jasper," "Blooming Alone," "The Dogwood Blooms Again," "First Rhapsody," "Greasy Gallop," "Lily of the Alley," "Ol' Mingo," "The South-Belle," "Trail of Beauty," and others; fragments of short stories. (box 14)
Verses submitted to various magazines and newspapers; rhymes composed on various occasions; and drafts. (box 15)
Reviews; genealogical and historical sketches, including one on the Lowell family for the American Publishing Society; radio scripts (advertising); and food editing. (box 15)
Drafts of biography of Orr; biographical materials, including letters, excerpts of letters, extracts of Mississippi newspapers and the Spectator, and speeches. (box 16)
Articles from the Daily Clarion Ledger and the Newark Star Eagle regarding Lindsey's short stories that were published in Scribner's Magazine; references to Lindsey in the press; Lindsey's articles in the Newark Star Eagle; poem published in the Saturday Evening Post; food editing; miscellaneous articles, including some relating to Christian Science. (boxes 16-17)
Work history of Lindsey; press card (1921); curriculum vitae of Hazel Lindsey. (box 17)
Correspondence relating to taxes; paychecks; tax forms; and unemployment records. (box 17)
Music book given to Lindsey by her grandmother, Almyra A. Lindsey, in 1910; English literature books, including Gnomic Poetry in Anglo-Saxon by Blanche C. Williams; and religious books. (boxes 18-19)
Materials pertaining to New York School of Writing director A. L. Fierst; literature about writing; opera librettos and programs (1947-1948; 1952-1953); Christian Science literature; and The Legend of Pascagoula by Emma Corrine Lindsey Bennett. (boxes 20-21)
Images of Lindsey; one pen-and-ink drawing signed J. R. Fleneghan and stamped "Good Housekeeping, October 1922." (box 20)