James Michener (Class of 1973) Papers
Scope and Contents
Series 1 includes personal and business correspondence. The bulk of the correspondence is between Michener and Swayne, with some annotations by Swayne. Michener’s correspondence concerning his POW/MIA search are filed in the John B. Haseman folder and the 1991-1992 folder of correspondence about Vietnam.
Series 2 contains Michener’s writings and papers. This includes segments of short stories and memoirs found in his papers, as well as short biographies of individuals he encountered during his travels. Copies of Dok Champa, while not exclusively written by Michener, are included. Also in this series is a folder containing a collection of clippings, certificates, and letters compiled by Michener, together with his list of the contents.
Michener sent large packets of clippings to those with whom he corresponded. These clippings, along with those saved by Swayne that mention Michener, are in Series 3. Also included are three folders of slides 1995-1996 sent to Swayne by Michener.
Dates
- 1998 - 2004
Creator
- Michener, James (Person)
Limitations on Accessing the Collection
Collection is open for research.
Copyright and Rights Information
Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce items in this collection beyond the bounds of Fair Use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder or their heirs/assigns. See http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-RUU/1.0/.
Biographical / Historical
James Michener, Class of 1973, attended Swarthmore College after serving in the U.S. Army in Asia twice during the Vietnam War. One of his letters was included in the book Letters from Vietnam (Random House, 2004) by Bill Adler. His experiences in the service drew him back to the region after graduation, where he has lived since 1987. This collection begins in 1988 when Michener was living in Hong Kong, writing to Kingdon Swayne, a retired diplomat whose principal postings were in Asia, who had been his teacher at Bucks County Community College.
In 1992 Lao Aviation hired Michener as editor of Dok Champa, an in-flight magazine for the airline. As a result, Michener moved into Villa Dara, his home in Vientiane, capital of Laos, where he established an advertising firm, Ophir. Via a diplomatic contact, he stumbled upon the fact that there exists a Vietnam Archive in Cuba that contains records of most if not all American prisoners of war who had been held in Hanoi.
It should be noted that Swayne convinced Michener to transfer to Swarthmore, Swayne's parents having been undergraduates there. Moreover, Michener's father and Swayne had been classmates at George School. In addition, Celia Price Patterson, whose mother was Michener's great aunt, had attended Swarthmore as had Barnard and Joseph, her brothers, Joseph having died there. So you can say Michener intentionally followed Quaker tradition.
Extent
1.75 Linear Feet
Language
English
Overview
James Michener, Class of 1973, attended Swarthmore College after serving in the U.S. Army in Asia twice during the Vietnam War. One of his letters was included in the book Letters from Vietnam (Random House, 2004) by Bill Adler. His experiences in the service drew him back to the region after graduation, where he has lived since 1987. This collection draws from his writings and correspondence with teacher Kingdon Swayne, a retired diplomat whose principal postings were in Asia.
Arrangement
The collection is divided into three series:
- Correspondence
- Writings
- Miscellaneous
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donor: Kingdon Swayne, 2000.
Donor: James Michener, 2003, 2004.
Separated Materials
The following materials, originally part of the collection, have been removed and recatalogued:
Processing Information
The bulk of the papers were given by Kingdon Swayne, who had written a history of George School and corresponded with Michener 1988-1997. These were combined with some additional correspondence and related papers from James Michener in 2003 and 2004. The papers were sorted into three series.
- Title
- James Michener Papers, 1998-2004
- Author
- FHL staff
- Date
- 2017
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- English
- Sponsor
- Encoding made possible by a grant by the Gladys Kriebel Delmas Foundation to the Philadelphia Consortium of Special Collections Libraries
Find It at the Library
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