Adelaide Crapsey papers
Creator: Crapsey, Adelaide, 1878-1914
Call Number: A.C89
Dates: 1878-1934
Physical Description: 2.0 Cubic feet
Language(s): Materials are in English
Repository: Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester

Table of Contents:

Biographical/Historical Note
Scope and Content
Subject(s)
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Access
Use
Citation
Content List
Collection Overview
Title: Adelaide Crapsey papers
Creator: Crapsey, Adelaide, 1878-1914
Call Number: A.C89
Dates: 1878-1934
Physical Description: 2.0 Cubic feet
Language(s): Materials are in English
Repository: Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester

Biographical/Historical Note
Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914) was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Algernon Sidney Crapsey and Adelaide (Trowbridge) Crapsey. Her father was assistant minister of Trinity Church, Brooklyn, but within the first year after Adelaide's birth he became rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Parish, Rochester.

Adelaide Crapsey attended public schools in Rochester, then entered Kemper Hall, Kenosha, Wisconsin in 1893. She graduated in 1897 at the head of her class, and entered Vassar College, from which she graduated in 190l. At Vassar she was the class poet for three years and editor-in-chief of the 1901 Vassarion.

Before beginning her planned teaching career Adelaide Crapsey took a year's vacation to regain her strength and to recover from the shock caused by the death of her sister Emily in 1901. She then taught literature and history at Kemper Hall from 1902 to 1904, and Miss Lowe's School in Stamford, Connecticut from 1906 to 1908. In the meantime she had spent the year 1904-05 in Rome studying at the School of Classical Studies of the American Academy. She returned to Rochester in time to attend her father's trial for heresy, at the end of which he was deposed from the ministry.

The strain of the trial, with the death of her eldest brother Philip in May 1907, left Adelaide Crapsey in poor health. She accompanied her father to the Hague Peace Conference in June, but her health did not improve from the trip, and it was decided that she should return to Rome in December 1908. In the following two years she lived in Rome and London, with short periods in Paris and Fiesole. She continued her study of English prosody at the British Museum in 1910, and corresponded with T.S. Omond, an English prosodist, concerning possible publication of her work.

Adelaide Crapsey obtained an appointment as an instructor in poetics at Smith College in 1911, and returned to the United States immediately to begin work in February. Her health continued to be poor, and she was frequently overcome with fatigue. In the summer of 1911, her condition was diagnosed as tuberculosis. She did not tell her family, but continued to teach at Smith. In July 1913, she collapsed and was sent to a private nursing home at Saranac Lake, New York, where she stayed until August 1914. She then returned to her family home in Rochester, grew suddenly worse, and died October 8, 1914.

Her poetry was published after her death by Claude Bragdon (Verse, Manas Press, 1915) and the completed portion of her work on prosody as A Study in English Metrics in 1918. A second edition of Verse was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1922, reprinted in 1926 and 1929, and a third edition was published in 1934, reprinted 1938.

Scope and Content
The collection consists of correspondence, manuscript and typed copies of poems, manuscript and typed drafts of the studies of metrics, reading notes, critical notices of Verse, published and unpublished articles about Adelaide Crapsey, photographs and memorabilia.

Subject(s):
Poetry
Correspondence
Photographs
Crapsey, Adelaide, 1878-1914
Poets, American
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of: Paul B. Crapsey January 23, 1961; Esther Lowenthal January 23, 1961, June 8, 1965, and November l, 1966; Arthur H. Crapsey, Jr., March 24, 1970; John S. Marsh March 20, 1978. Also various purchases.Access
The Adelaide Crapsey papers is open for research use. Researchers are advised to contact Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation prior to visiting. Upon arrival, researchers will also be asked to fill out a registration form and provide photo identification.Use
Reproductions are made upon request but can be subject to restrictions. Permission to publish materials from the collection must currently be requested. Please note that some materials may be copyrighted or restricted. It is the researcher's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright or other case restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in the collections. For more information contact rarebks@library.rochester.eduCitation
[Item title, item date], Adelaide Crapsey papers, A.C89, Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester
Administrative Information
Author: Finding aid prepared by Rare Books and Special Collections staff
Publisher: Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester
Address:
Rush Rhees Library
Second Floor, Room 225
Rochester, NY 14627-0055
rarebks@library.rochester.edu
URL:


Content List