Is someone able to help this patron? Ilka Gordon Subject: Looking for possible research leads Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2010 13:38:29 -0400
Hi Ilka, Sheri suggested your help in a question that came to me from a John Carroll University English professor with an interest in T.S. Eliot, b. Sept 26, 1888. T.S. Eliot used the last names of a number of his classmates at Smith Academy in St. Louis in an experimental play called Sweeney Agonistes. Contemporary criticism sees the origin of these names in American popular culture, as, for instance, Yiddish Vaudeville. The professor is interested in determining if Eliot's classmates were indeed of Jewish descent. If this could be determined, he feels it would be of great value to scholars in understanding Eliot's attitudes toward Judaism. The classmates are August Rodney Krutzsch, Otto Henry Schwarz, and Louis Frederick Klipstein. Klipstein was one year behind Eliot. These names appear in Sweeney Agonistes as alliterative duals, Swarts and Klipstein, Klipstein and Krumpacker. This question could very well retread earlier attempts at seeking an answer; this would be interesting to know. In any event, it would be interesting to get at least some leads for me to pursue or a general notion of the possibilities of acquiring this information in a time when people were not as likely to disclose this information about themselves. Below I copied what the professor has done. I did discover that Otto Henry Schwarz (1888-1950) was the second chair of OB/GYN at the University of Washington Medical School from 1928 to 1940. His father, Henry Schwarz, was the first to head the department. As this was the second permanent OB/GYN department in the United States it was a landmark achievement. Interestingly, I did not find mention of any of these family names in Zion in the Valley: The Jewish Community of St. Louis by Walter Ehrlich. I apologize for the length of this note. Any place you feel this could be posted for the attention of a wider audience would be highly appreciated. Sincerely, Nevin Mayer Library Liason for the English Department >From the professor: As for primary materials, I have consulted Eliot's grades, but not the grades of his classmates, which remain off-limits unless I can get the permission of their heirs. I was able to view Eliot's grades/attendance only because I got permission from the Eliot estate. What remains off bounds to the public is the information pertaining to their matriculation at Smith (grades, attendance records of these students). Washington U applies privacy laws--intended for living students--very strictly. I know of no other archive that applies such laws to archival material of people long dead. The catalog of Smith Academy (then a department of Wash U--hence why Wash U has the archives of Smith) was published and is therefore in the public domain. In these documents I found the class lists, with the names and addresses of Eliot's classmates. I have not searched for other public records, such as birth certificates, which I would presume are open to public scrutiny, being official government documents. As a literary scholar, and not a historian, I don't know how to go about such inquiries. --- Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: hasaf...@osu.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
