Guide to the Kate Douglas Wiggin Collection , 1867-1985, (bulk 1891-1917)
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Kate Douglas Wiggin Collection, Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, Maine.
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Kate Douglas Wiggin (1856-1923) lived in Hollis, Maine, New York City, and Santa Barbara and San Franciso California. She received her education through "dame school", home study, district school, female seminary, and academy, later attending a kindergarten training class.
Wiggin started teaching kindergarten in 1877, and founded San Francisco's Silver Street training school in 1880. She supported kindergarten movement throughout her life; the Story of Patsy and The Birds' Christmas Carol, Wiggin's first books, were written as fundraising efforts. She co-wrote several books with her sister, Nora Archibald Smith.
Out of her travels to Europe in the 1890s came books for adults, including Penelope's Progress and Penelope's English Experiences. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Wiggin's most famous book, was written in 1903.
In 1904, Bowdoin College presented an honorary degree to Wiggin, the second such degree the College granted to a woman. Soon after, she founded the Society of Bowdoin Women, a social and fundraising organization.
Wiggin was married twice, first in 1881 to Samuel Bradley Wiggin, who died in 1889, then to George Christopher Riggs in 1895. She died in Harrow England, August 24, 1923.
The collection contains correspondence, journals, book and story manuscripts, commonplace books, notebooks and notes related to Wiggin's writing; also includes lectures on kindergarten subjects, clippings, photographs and material concerning her Irish "literary pilgrimage." Correspondence is mostly with family including her sister Nora Archibald Smith and mother Helen Elizabeth Smith, and with Bowdoin community members including William De Witt Hyde, George T. Little, and members of the Society of Bowdoin Women. Other correspondents include: Frances Hodgson Burnett (1 letter), W.D. Howells (3 letters), Helen Keller (1 letter), and Jack London (1 letter). Loose clippings concern Wiggin, her homes, and special interests, while scrapbooks contain notices and reviews of her published works, especially Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Some photographs and reproductions of photographs in the collection are of Wiggin, her Maine home (Quillcote), the Scottish highlands, and Jack London (autographed). The collection is supplemented by first editions of Wiggin's works and autographed presentation volumes from her private library.
Unpublished chronological list of correspondents available in library; item level control.
More than 150 volumes of the writings of Kate Douglas Wiggin, including both her children's tales and works on the kindergarten movement in America, and 300 volumes inscribed to her by friends such as Helen Keller, James Whitcomb Riley, James M. Barrie, Eugene Field, Kenneth Graham, Sinclair Lewis, and Booth Tarkington are cataloged as part of the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives' rare book holdings.
Wiggin's correspondence, 1891-1922, much of it with family members, especially her sister Nora and her mother, or with members of the Bowdoin community, including President William De Witt Hyde, Librarian George T. Little and fellow members of the Society of Bowdoin Women. Also includes letters (1915) concerning Wiggin's efforts to stop a dam on the Saco river near her summer home and community in Maine; correspondence from Francis Hodgson Burnett, W.D. Howells, Helen Keller (Feb 12, undated), and Jack London; a letter from Ms. Wiggin to Ms. True, referencing a theatrical production of "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm"; and a typescript account of Wiggin's last few days and subsequent death in England in 1923. Further letters written to Kate Douglas Wiggin can be found in the miscellaneous scrapbooks, volume 4. An unpublished chronological list of correspondents (partial) is available.
Arranged chronologically.
1891-1923
Re the Society of Bowdoin Women, 1922
Undated
Writings, professional and personal, 1867-1919. Included are two journals, several book and story manuscripts, commonplace books, notebooks and notes related to her writing, lectures on the "Gifts of Froebel", and a braille version of The Birds' Christmas Carol.
Arranged alphabetically.
The Birds Christmas Carol [in braille]
Commonplace books: Quotations
Commonplace books: Q[uotations]
Commonplace books: The Saco River
Commonplace books: Thoughts on Singing from Waitstill Baxter
Journals: Daily Journal for 1867
Journals: Daily Journal for 1867 Life Letters [kept during trip to Europe, 1890]
Journals: Daily Journal for 1867 Life Letters [kept during trip to Europe, 1890]
Journals: Daily journal, 1900
Journals: Lectures on the Gifts of Froebel, manuscript
Manuscripts: Daughters of Zion [a Rebecca story]
Manuscripts: Daughters of Zion - envelope
Manuscripts: Love by Express
Manuscripts: The Music of the Century
The Old Peabody Pew by Kate Douglas Wiggin (Hollis, Maine July 1905)
Notebooks: Notes for Children's Stories
Notebooks: Notes International [and] Foreign
Notebooks: Notes for Love Stories
Notebooks: Notes Miscellaneous (I)
Notebooks: Notes Miscellaneous II
Notebooks: Notes on New England
Notebooks: Notes on New England I
Notes: Bubbling Betty - a serial for young women [and other tales]
Notes: Daft Davy
Notes: Mr. & Mrs. Popham's remarks
Notes: "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," 1903 [in electrotype]
Notes: "The Story of Patsy," 1889 [in electrotype]
Newsclippings, loose and in scrapbooks, 1885-1983. Loose clippings, many collected by the College, concern Wiggin, her homes and special interests; scrapbooks compiled by Wiggin contain notices and reviews of her published works. Researchers are asked to use photocopies of the more fragile scrapbooks.
Arranged alphabetically.
Clippings: 1904-1911
Clippings: 1912-1983, and undated
Scrapbooks: In Memoriam: Kate Douglas Wiggin
Scrapbooks: Juvenilia Miscellaneous
Scrapbooks: [Misc: Notices, programs, letters, notes, prose, etc.]
Scrapbooks: Mother Carey's Chickens
Scrapbooks: The Old Peabody Pew, Press Notices
Scrapbooks: Readings: Criticisms of [and] Programmes for
Scrapbooks: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Press Notices
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Notices
"Rebecca" Notices 1909
"Rebecca" Notices 1909-1910
"Rebecca" Notices 1911-1912
"Rebecca" Notices 1911-1912
Short Stories
The Story of Waitstill Baxter, Press Notices
Susanna and Sue
Title and Suggestion Book
Scrapbook: "Rebecca" Notices 1912
Material collected by Wiggin and supplemented by Special Collections, including pamphlets and excerpts on various subjects, fiction and non-fiction; lists of autographs; and notes, clippings and advertising material concerning an Irish "literary pilgrimage."
Arranged alphabetically.
Assorted pamphlets - fiction
Excerpts from assorted printed works
List of Authors of Autographed Books belonging to Wiggin; autographs written on Kate Douglas Rigg's dinner cloth
"Queens of Avalon" [printed]
Re Irish literary pilgrimage
Printed ephemera: Buxton Lower Corner, Maine and Miscellaneous, 1894-1985, n.d.
Printed ephemera: Promotional material
"She is so fair," music composed by Wiggin and published in 1884
Translations of the books by Wiggins, (list on poster board), n.d.
Undated photographs and reproductions of photographs of Wiggin, Quillcote, and of Scotland, especially the Scottish Highlands, the last of which relate to "Daft Davy." Also included is an autographed photo of Jack London, a photograph of Wiggin in cap and gown commemorating her 1904 honorary Bowdoin degree, and a 1910 silhouette of Wiggin by H. M. Parker, signed by Wiggin.
Arranged alphabetically.
Highlands and Scotland (contributing factors to "Daft Davy"), n.d.
London, Jack - autographed photo, n.d.
Quillcote, n.d.
Wiggin, 1910, n.d., and Nora Smith
Wiggin in cap and gown, with title "Kate Douglas Wiggin, Litt. D. Bowdoin College, 1904"
Wiggin silhouette by H. M. Parker, 1910, signed by Wiggin