Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

Papers of Edgar Finley Shannon, Accession #12706, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

This collection was given to the Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library by Eleanor Salem Shannon, Hanover, New Hampshire on November 20, 1999.

Biographical/Historical Information

Edgar F. Shannon, Jr. (1918-1997) was born to Edgar F. Shannon, Sr. and Eleanor Duncan Shannon on June 4, 1918 in Lexington, Virginia, where his father taught English at Washington and Lee University. Shannon also attended Washington and Lee University, graduating summa cum laude . He also received a Master's degree from Duke University in 1941 and from Harvard University in 1947, following his World War II military service in the United States Navy as a junior gunnery officer on the U.S.S. Quincy until it was sunk on August 8, 1942. Shannon remained at sea on active combat duty until V-J Day, participating in most of the major Pacific campaigns. He earned a Bronze Star and ten other battle stars during his service. He studied at Merton College, Oxford University, from 1947-1950 as a Rhodes Scholar, receiving his doctorate in philosophy in 1949.

In 1946, Shannon taught naval science and tactics at Harvard, and English from 1950-1956, becoming known as a scholar in Victorian literature. While on leave to England in 1953-1954, studying on Fulbright and Guggenheim research fellowships, Shannon began to concentrate on his life-long interest in the literary career and letters of Alfred Lord Tennyson. He wrote Tennyson and the Reviewers, 1827- 1851 and with Professor Cecil Y. Lang, co-authored a three-volume work, The Letters of Alfred Lord Tennyson . Shannon joined the University of Virginia faculty in 1956 as an associate professor of English.

Edgar Shannon served as the President of the University of Virginia from 1959-1974, still teaching part-time, and returned to full-time teaching in 1974 as the Commonwealth Professor of English. His presidency saw an increase in enrollment at the University, efforts to attract a first-rate faculty, racial integration, improvement in the facilities of the University, the achievement of full coeducation, and the social unrest caused by the Vietnam War and other issues.

Among the honors and positions he held were the Thomas Jefferson Award (1965), the Jackson Davis Award (1975), the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award (1939, as a student, and then a second time in 1975), a member of the Rockefeller Commission to investigate the domestic activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (1975), the boards of Washington and Lee University, the White Burkett Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, the U.S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Shannon also served as an elder at the Westminster Presbyterian Church of Charlottesville, and was a member of the Raven Society, and the Author's Club (London).

Edgar Shannon married Eleanor Bosworth of Memphis, Tennessee in 1956 and they had five daughters. Eleanor Bosworth Shannon was an assistant professor of history at Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee, from 1949- 1955, the acting dean of women from 1952-1955, and a trustee from 1980-1984. She graduated magna cum laude in international relations from Sweet Briar College and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She studied at Balliol College, Oxford, before earning her master's degree in history from Cornell University. Eleanor Shannon won the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award in 1972 in recognition of excellence of character and service to humanity. She also served as an elder at Westminster Presbyterian Church. In 1990, both of the Shannons established the Foundation for Excellence in Public Education: Charlottesville/Albemarle to provide resources for public school teachers, which was renamed in 1997 as The Edgar and Eleanor Shannon Foundation for Excellence in Public Education: Charlottesville/Albemarle. She died in Charlottesville, Virginia, on March 3, 2000.

Scope and Content

This addition to the papers of Edgar Finley Shannon (1918-1997), the fourth president of the University of Virginia, from 1959-1974, and Commonwealth Professor of English, from 1974 until his retirement in 1988, consists of 5,000 items (19 boxes, ca. 8.5 linear feet) including family correspondence, research and correspondence on family genealogy and history, scrapbooks and photograph albums, news clippings, obituaries and memorial programs, photographs, social calendars and guest books, and memorabilia.

Topics of interest in the correspondence of Edgar F. Shannon, Jr. series includes the period of student unrest at the University of Virginia culminating in the student strike in 1970 or the "Seven Days in May" (see correspondence and news clippings in Boxes 2, 8, and 9), particularly an exchange with Governor Linwood Holton over the Vietnam War controversy (October 2, 1970, Box 2). Other topics include correspondence about Shannon's selection as President of the University of Virginia and his retirement in 1974. There are also letters from his parents and grandparents to Shannon as a boy and young man, correspondence about the Vietnam War controversy and correspondence voicing concern about the proposal to admit women to Washington and Lee University.

The second series contains much personal family correspondence of Susan Lee Duncan, Edgar F. Shannon, Sr., and Eleanor Duncan Shannon.

The third series consists of topical files, including: family papers and genealogy of the Shannon, Duncan, and related families, including Eleanor Duncan Shannon's research on the Duncan family, correspondence, handwritten notes, and copies of records; the Commission on CIA Activities within the United States (Rockefeller Commission); Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; the Life Executive Space Tour; many news clippings concerning the career of Edgar Shannon and the University of Virginia; miscellaneous photographs about the Shannons; school papers of Edgar Shannon, Jr. as a student; travel to Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Sweden, and Norway; Shannon's service in the United States Navy; and the controversy about coeducation at Washington and Lee University. The third series also includes speeches by Shannon (Boxes 10 and 13).

The fourth series contains various memorabilia, bound volumes, scrapbooks, photograph albums, an address book, calendars and guest books kept by Eleanor B. Shannon at Carr's Hill, and a diary of Eleanor Duncan Shannon.

The fifth series contains restricted items removed from public access because of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

Arrangement

The papers of Edgar F. Shannon have five series: Series I: Correspondence of Edgar F. Shannon, Jr. (Boxes 1-2); Series II: Correspondence of other members of the Shannon family (Boxes 2-4); Series III: Topical Files (Boxes 4-13); Series IV: Scrapbooks, Photograph Albums, Other Bound Volumes, and Memorabilia (Boxes 14-18) and Series V: Restricted Materials (Box 19).

Separated Material

The following oversize and audiovisual items are not boxed with the collection but are housed separately under the numbers following each item:

Prologue to an Inauguration : Audiotape 0203, 0204 [might duplicate T422, T423]; Phonograph records (12 in): Phonodisk 0723, 0723-a, 0723-b, 0724; "Edgar Shannon Archive": Disk 0302; Dumas Malone award: Audiocassette 0577; Unidentified Audiocassette: 0578