Margot Wells Backas and James J. Backas papers

Margot Wells Backas grew up in Pennsylvania, attending the Quaker boarding school, Westtown, located in West Chester, PA. She then attended Vassar College and went on to receive her MA in American cultural history from Harvard. Margot was a strong supporter of the arts in the Washington D.C. and Baltimore area. She was the humanities editor of the Johns Hopkins University Press, resurrected the New York publishing firm of Horace Liveright, and was an administrator at the National Endowment for Humanities. Backas joined the William Steinway Diary project at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in 2002 and continues to be a researcher there. Additionally, Backas has written book reviews for the Times of London and The Washington Post, among other publications. Backas serves as the literary executor of Anne Truitt’s estate.

In 1973, Margot married fellow patron of the arts, James J. Backas (1926-2003) in 1973. Jim was an accomplished musician who received his doctorate of arts in 1999 from Oklahoma City University. Backas was the founding director of the American Arts Alliance in Washington, D.C. and executive director of the Maryland State Arts Council. While he loved classical music, Backas advocated for more funding of folk life and folk artists. Mr. Backas was a lecturer of music history at the Peabody Conservatory. He died of a heart attack at the age of 77 in his Georgetown home on June 25, 2003.