Donaldson Family Letters

Letter from Mabel Dodge Lujan to Norman Donaldson, 1938. (Box 1, Folder 2).

This is a collection of letters written to Norman V. Donaldson, his wife Hildegarde, and his daughter Virginia "Midge" Donaldson, by Mabel Dodge Luhan, Dorothy Brett, Robinson Jeffers, and "Eileen Q" (Eileen Quinn, who was sales manager for the University of New Mexico Press). Norman Donaldson became secretary of Yale University Press in 1938, was appointed managing director in 1945, and became director of the Press from 1950 until he retired in 1959.

The letters suggest that the Donaldsons were well acquainted with the intellectual and artist scene in Taos, New Mexico, and were kept updated through correspondence with Mabel Dodge Luhan and Dorothy Brett. Luhan's letters to Hildegarde and Norman Donaldson are informal and gossipy, and among other things, chronicle an incident in 1938 in which Robinson Jeffers' wife Una shot herself. Jeffers' letters to Hildegarde Donaldson are in response to the same incident. Letters from Brett to Midge and Norman Donaldson are chatty about the various characters visiting and residing in Taos. Eileen Quinn's cards to Norman Donaldson are light-hearted and congratulatory about Yale Press publications and publicity.