Scholar, author, photographer, and life-long editor and chronicler of Jack Kerouac and other writers of the Beat Generation, Ann Charters was born in November 1936 in Bridgeport, CT, the daughter of Nathan (a contractor) and Kate (Schultz) Danberg. She attended the University of California, Berkeley (B.A., 1957) and Columbia University (M.A., 1959, Ph.D., 1965). Her papers include literary manuscripts, letters, notebooks, photographs, periodicals, broadsides, interviews, audio and video recordings, works of art, and first, fine, and small press editions of works by and about Beat writers.