This collection is open for research.
Hahn was born in St. Louis and lived there until her family moved to Chicago during her high school years. She later attended the University of Wisconsin and in 1926 received the first mining engineering degree awarded to a female student. Following graduation, until the spring of 1927, she worked for an engineering firm in St. Louis and then as a company courier for that firm in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Returning to the East during the summer, she attended Columbia University for graduate work, taught geology during the 1927/28 academic year, and then headed for Europe on her first overseas tour. After living in Florence and London, she returned home briefly in 1929 before going to the Congo and two years' residence there. In 1932 she began further travels, finally settling in Shanghai in 1935 where she taught English for three years.
All during this decade of travel and adventure Hahn wrote almost
continually--articles, stories, letters--and many of her pieces were printed in
In addition to drafts of her writings, typescripts, galleys, photographs, and research materials relating to many of her publications, the collection also contains several unpublished fictional pieces; college notes; family memorabilia and letters; photographs of various areas of the United States and Africa taken during the 1930's; clippings of book reviews and articles by and about Hahn; and miscellaneous clippings relating to people and places familiar to her.
Note on Indexing Term - "Travel": Contains Hahn's letters home to her family while she lived and travelled in Europe, Africa and China during the 1920s and 1930s. This correspondence is particularly descriptive of people, places and activities.
Complementing this collection are the Hahn-Brandt mss. which consist of her literary agent's files on her behalf, and the Bobbs-Merrill mss. containing materials related to her books published by that firm.
Other related manuscripts include: Hahn mss. II, Hahn mss. III, Hahn mss. IV
Acquired: 1975, 1976, 1989, 1992.
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Photocopying permitted only with permission of the Curator of Manuscripts, Lilly Library.
[Item], Hahn mss., Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.
[provenance note]
Processed by Staff.
Completed in
Correspondents, A-E
Correspondents, F-M
Correspondents, N-Z
(see also:
Includes: Noel Stearn--poems
(see also:
Includes: artwork for Pogo cartoon, by Walt Kelly