Lewis Lapham papers, 1950-2020

Summary Information

At a Glance

Call No.:
MS#2195
Bib ID:
18897194 View CLIO record
Creator(s):
Lapham, Lewis H.
Repository:
Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Physical Description:
66 Linear Feet (59 ms boxes and an assortment of rsc and cartons. A total of 91 boxes)
Language(s):
English .
Access:
You will need to make an appointment in advance to use this collection material in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. You can schedule an appointment once you've submitted your request through your Special Collections Research Account.

Material is unprocessed. Please contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.

Description

Content Description

The materials in this collection span a sixty-year period in the life of Lewis Lapham whose half century as editor of Harper's Magazine and Lapham's Quarterly runs parallel to his career as America's foremost essayist on the subject of power, wealth, and class. Called by Kurt Vonnegut "our greatest satirist", Lapham entered the newspaper industry in 1960 as a journalist for the San Francisco Examiner and New York Herald Tribune, soon contributing feature articles to the Saturday Evening Post where, under the mentorship of editor Otto Friedrich, he developed a trenchant, even-tempered style of reportage, one eschewing the fashionable, overheated tropes of New Journalism. Lapham's observational prose lent his writing a documentary acuity, rendering his larger-than-life subjects (Thelonious Monk, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Nelson Rockefeller, The Beatles) with a sense of scale commensurate to the epoch which produced them.

Using the Collection

Conditions Governing Access

You will need to make an appointment in advance to use this collection material in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. You can schedule an appointment once you've submitted your request through your Special Collections Research Account.

Material is unprocessed. Please contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.

Conditions Governing Use

Single reproductions may be made for research purposes. It is the responsibility of the user to secure permission for publication or use from the appropriate copyright holder.

Preferred Citation

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Lewis Lapham Papers; Box and Folder; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library

About the Finding Aid / Processing Information

Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Subject Headings

The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.

All links open new windows.

Name
Harper's magazine CLIO Catalog ArchiveGRID
Subject
Journalism CLIO Catalog ArchiveGRID
Satire, American CLIO Catalog ArchiveGRID