Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

Additional Papers of William H. Wranek, Jr., Accession #12763-a, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

These papers were given to the Library by William H. Wranek, Jr. through the Rare Books Division in 1971 and were accessioned in the Manuscripts Division on May 16, 1988.

Scope and Content Information

The papers of William H. Wranek, Jr. (1895-1971), Director of the University News Services, 1922-1960, consists of ca. 650 items (5 Hollinger boxes, 1.5 linear feet), 1910-1965, chiefly his notes and drafts for a proposed history of the University of Virginia's third half century, and miscellaneous papers.

The miscellaneous papers include personal and professional correspondence, carbons of news articles and radio broadcasts by Wranek, genealogical correspondence and research concerning the Wranek family, supporting documents for press releases, school notebooks, photographs, a travel diary (Italy), financial ledger, and special files on the dedication of the Barrett Room in Alderman Library, endowed professorships, the Graduate School of Business Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts, James E. Kindred, John Brown's Body publicity, and Thomas Jefferson and Albemarle County notes, possibly for his article published in the Magazine of Albemarle County History .

The file on the Barrett Room dedication includes Wranek's article, newsclippings about the event, an invitation, "A Brief Account of the Clifton Waller Barrett Library" by Herbert Cahoon, and photographs of Clifton Waller Barrett and some of his major acquisitions, including: Tamerlane by Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman's manuscript, "How I Made A Book," The Red Badge of Courage manuscript by Stephen Crane, the manuscript for James Branch Cabell's Jurgen , and Robert Frost's first book of poems, Twilight .

Wranek's correspondence consists mainly of personal and family letters, chiefly concerning the financial affairs of the family, 1929-1931. Other correspondents or topics include: Virginius Dabney (June 22, 1937); E.R. Stettinius, Jr. (October 31, 1941); John Cook Wyllie (November 29, 1961) and Bevin Alexander (August 13, 1963) both about his proposed University of Virginia history; and E.A. Alderman's views on women students at Tulane University (September 10, 1962).

Photographs include: Louis Johnson and Henry Taylor at Monticello on Founder's Day (1950), Robert Kennedy and Joseph McCarthy at the University of Virginia's Student Legal Forum (n.d.), and President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Senator Wayne Morse (1953).

Arrangement

This collection is arranged alphabetically within each series.