Collections : [Yale University -Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library]

The papers contain correspondence, writings, printed material, photographs, artwork, sound recordings, video recordings, and financial papers.

Chiefly photographs created and copied by Kagan while conducting research for his book, New World Utopias: A Photographic History of the Search for Community. The photographs document nineteenth- and twentieth-century utopian communities, most located in California, with others in New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. The collection includes material that Kagan collected about utopian communities, including audiotapes of interviews and related events, as well as drawings and photographs. The collection also includes examples of photography and graphic design that Kagan created for traditional and alternative newspapers, as well as examples of some of his book reviews and other writings. A small group of material documents social action at the University of California, Berkeley, and in the San Francisco Bay area during the 1960s.
Utopian communities and other groups represented in the collection include an unidentified Amish community, Ananda Ashrama, Caspar Compound, Divine Light Mission, Esoteric Fraternity, The Farm, Fundacio?n Indra Devi, Fountaingrove, Fountain of the World, Halcyon, Holy City, Icaria Speranza, Kaweah Colony, Krotona (including Happy Valley School), Lama Foundation, Lemurian Fellowship, Llano del Rio, The Lord's Land, Pisgah Faith Home, Pisgah Grande, Point Loma, Rosicrucian Fellowship, Questhaven Retreat, Self-Realization Golden World Colony, Table Mountain Ranch, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, Theosophical Society (Pasadena), Unification Church, and Vedanta Temple (Santa Barbara).

The collection contains both primary and secondary source material accumulated by Kagan while conducting research for his book, New World Utopias: A Photographic History of the Search for Community. In addition to personal correspondence pertaining to his research, and drafts of his manuscript for the book and related writings, Kagan's collection contains letters, photographs, documents, notes, writings, and other visual material and printed material, which document 19th and 20th century utopian communities, most of which were located in California. The archives of Walter Millsap, William and Lucille Riker and John and Agnes Varian, participants in Llano del Rio and Newllano, Holy City, and Halcyon respectively, are also present. The photographic component of the archive is particularly strong: numerous original photographs taken by community members are supplemented by field photographs that Kagan took in the 1970s, as part of his research.
Utopian communities represented in the collection include Llano del Rio, Newllano, Holy City, Halcyon, Fountaingrove, Icaria Speranza, Kaweah, Krotona and Ojai Valley, Pisgah Grande, Point Loma, and the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center.

The collection consists of correspondence, writings, and personal papers of the American historian and author Paul Leicester Ford. The correspondence is largely professional and documents Ford's work as an editor, historian, bibliographer, novelist and playwright. Ford's correspondents include John Kendrick Bangs, Samuel L. Clemens, Edward Everett Hale, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Rudyard Kipling, and S. Weir Mitchell; earlier letters written to others by James Fennimore Cooper and Jared Sparks are also present. Writings include notes and research materials, most concerning colonial and Federal-period America; drafts; printed versions of published articles; scripts and music for dramatic productions; and publicity for specific works as well as about Ford generally. The novel Janice Meredith and its dramatic adaptation starring Mary Mannering are partiuclarly well represented in the collection; also present is an unfinished historical novel about Elizabeth Chudleigh, Countess of Bristol, along with contemporary printed documentation concerning her trial for bigamy. The collection also contains examples of Ford's work as an editor/printer on his home press, including his genealogy of Noah Webster; a heavily extra-illustrated copy of Websteriana containing autograph manuscript fragments of Webster's dictionary; a genealogy of Gordon L. Ford; and a pamphlet entitled "1814. New London. Pettypaug Point." Some papers documenting the historical research of Worthington C. Ford are present, as well as ephemera from Gordon L. Ford's participation in events commemorating the centenary of Washington's inauguration. The collection also includes photographs and paintings of Ford, including two miniatures; a miniature of "Janice Meredith"; photographs of his parents and siblings; and portrait paintings of Ford's ancestors Noah Webster (by Samuel F. B. Morse) and Rebecca Greenleaf Webster (by Jared Bradley Flagg).

The collection consists of scripts and film reels documenting aspects of the film and theater career of Paul Newman. Scripts include annotated typescript drafts of screenplays (annotations seem to be those of Newman) for films, including The Color of Money, that shed light on Newman's creative process as an actor and his contributions to the screenplay revision process, as well as bound typescript copies of screenplays with photographs that document the production of certain films, such as Cool Hand Luke. Also found are screenplays for films directed by Newman, including Rachel, Rachel, and scripts for plays in which he starred, including C. C. Pyle and the Bunion Derby. Film reels include recordings and outtakes related to the making of various motion pictures and the television program "The Battler," in which Newman starred.

Collection consists of correspondence, writings, articles and notes by and about Sholem Asch gathered by Paul Novick, editor of the only paper willing to publish him at the height of the controversy over his trilogy, Der Man fun Notseres (The Nazarene, 1939), Der Sheliekh (The Apostle, 1943), and Meri (Mary, 1949). Jewish leaders accused Asch of teaching conversion to Christianity, a charge that Asch emphatically denied. Asch's writings reflect his concern for the Jews in Europe during and after the second World War.

The papers consist primarily of drafts of unpublished novels, works on literary criticism, and articles and essays, plus letters to Yale classmate Philip Skinner Platt.

Fifteen framed photographic prints of subjects primarily in the American Southwest and Mexico. Also present are two portraits of artist Rebecca Salsbury James.