Welty (Eudora) collection [manuscript],circa 1882-2002.

By: Welty, Eudora, 1909-2001.
Material type: materialTypeLabelMixed materialsSubject(s): Erksine, Albert, 1911-1993 | Macdonald, Ross, 1915-1983 | Andrews, Frances E. 1858-1914 (Frances Eudora) | Maxwell, William, 1908-2000 | Porter, Katherine Anne, 1890-1980 | Price, Reynolds, 1933-2011 | Robinson, John Fraiser, 1909-1989 | Russell, Diarmuid, -1973 | Welty, Eudora, 1909-2001 | Welty, Christian Webb, 1879-1931 | Welty, Chestine A., 1883-1966 (Chestine Andrews) | Welty, Edward, 1912-1966 (Edward Jefferson) | Welty, Walter 1915-1959 (Walter Andrews) | Andrews, Edward R. 1853-1899 (Edward Raboteau) | Welty family | Lyell, Frank Hallam, 1911-1977 | Aswell, Mary Louise, 1902- | American fiction -- Mississippi | Novelists, American -- Biography | Photography, Artistic -- Mississippi | Short stories, American -- Mississippi | Depressions -- 1929 -- Mississippi -- Pictorial works | Jackson (Miss.) -- Pictorial works | Mississippi authorsOnline resources: Finding aid | Link to Electronic Resource for the Eudora Welty Digital Archives Summary: The Eudora Welty collection consists principally of drafts, revised copies, and printer's versions of Welty's works, including stories, books, essays, reviews, lectures, speeches, and drama. The collection also contains incoming and outgoing correspondence of Welty; negatives and photographs taken by Welty and her father; and memorabilia. Please click on “Collection Description” for a Series List and more detailed finding aids under each series.

This record has many physical items (455). View all the physical items.


No analog or digital photography. See curator for reproduction requests. See collection description for specific restrictions.

Before you visit, please confirm the availability of the collection material in which you are interested. The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded an implementation grant to MDAH to support the preservation, digitization, and enhancement of access to the papers of Eudora Welty. The Eudora Welty Foundation is matching MDAH’s contribution to the grant. The two-year project aims to professionally conserve and scan selected items in the Eudora Welty Collection. The preparation and digitization of items will necessitate the closure of selected series from May 2019 through April 2021. For more information contact Elisabeth Cambonga (ecambonga@mdah.ms.gov, 601-576-6868) or Laura Heller (lheller@mdah.ms.gov, 601-576-6889).

The Eudora Welty collection consists principally of drafts, revised copies, and printer's versions of Welty's works, including stories, books, essays, reviews, lectures, speeches, and drama. The collection also contains incoming and outgoing correspondence of Welty; negatives and photographs taken by Welty and her father; and memorabilia. Please click on “Collection Description” for a Series List and more detailed finding aids under each series.

Cite as: Eudora Welty Collection (Z/0301.000/S), Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

Watermarked JPEG tile sets, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, [2022]. Selected correspondence, manuscripts, photographs, and works of art on paper scanned as TIFF files and made accessible as watermarked JPEG tile sets.

Mode of access: Internet browser

Eudora Alice Welty was born on April 13, 1909, the daughter of Christian Webb Welty and his wife, Chestina Andrews Welty. Her family resided at 741 North Congress Street in Jackson, Mississippi, and then, in 1925, moved to 1119 Pinehurst Street, where Welty would reside until her death. Welty graduated from Jackson's Central High School in 1925, and then attended Mississippi State College for Women in Columbus, Mississippi, and the University of Wisconsin, where she received her bachelor's degree in 1929. She pursued graduate studies at the Columbia University School of Business in New York City, and returned to Jackson in 1931 upon the death of her father. In 1936, two of her stories, "Magic," and "Death of a Traveling Salesman," were accepted by Manuscript magazine. Between 1936 and 1941, Welty wrote a variety of stories collected in her first book, A Curtain of Green. In 1941, her novella, The Robber Bridegroom, was published. Welty began work on a short story in 1943 that became the novel Delta Wedding, published in 1946. Welty spent several months in San Francisco, California, in 1946 and 1947; and in 1949, The Golden Apples was published. Following its publication, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship and spent a year in Europe. By 1955, she had published The Ponder Heart and The Bride of the Innisfallen and Other Stories.

From 1955 to 1970, Welty published two short stories dealing with the Civil Rights movement, "Where is the Voice Coming From?" and "The Demonstrators," and worked on scenes for a novel while caring for her family. In 1959, her brother, Walter, died, and in 1966, her mother and her brother, Edward, died. The Optimist's Daughter was published in The New Yorker in 1969, and then as a book in 1972, winning the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. From 1970 to 1972, Welty converted the scenes she had written into Losing Battles, her last piece of fiction. In 1983, Welty delivered a series of lectures at Harvard University that were published in 1984 as One Writer's Beginnings. Welty was an accomplished photographer, and took many photographs during her work as a writer for the Works Progress Administration. Her photographs of Mississippi were first exhibited in New York City's Lugene gallery in 1936. The first book of her photographs, One Time, One Place, was published in 1971, followed by others including Photographs (1989) and Country Churchyards (2000). Welty received numerous honors including the American Book Award for Literature, the Charles Frankel Prize from the National Endowment for the Humanities, two Presidential medals, and the French Legion of Honor. Eudora Welty died in Jackson on July 23, 2001.

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