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   Jacques Barzun Papers, ca.1900-1999.

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Preferred Citation

Jacques Barzun Papers. Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Columbia University.

COinS Metadata available (e.g., for Zotero).
picture

Summary Information

Abstract

The correspondence, researach, and teaching files of Jacques Barzun (1907-2012).

At a Glance

Call No.:MS#1483
Bib ID:4079628 View CLIO record
Creator(s):Barzun, Jacques, 1907-
Title:Jacques Barzun Papers, ca.1900-1999.
Physical description:194 linear ft. in 454 boxes; 1 drawer of oversized material; 11 correspondence file boxes (CLOSED); 2 small cartons (CLOSED); and 2 record storage cartons (CLOSED at ReCAP).
Language(s):In English
Access: This collection is located off-site. You will need to request this material at least two business days in advance to use the collection in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. . The Barzun family correspondence is closed. Permission is required to see the collection. Any scholar requesting access to the collection should submit a letter describing the nature of his or her project to Marguerite Lee Barzun. The letters of Lionel Trilling are closed except by permission of Marguerite Lee Barzun. 11 correspondence file boxes, 2 small cartons, & 1 tin box are closed.  More information »

Arrangement

Arrangement

Selected materials cataloged; remainder arranged. Materials are arranged into three series:

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Description

Scope and Content

The professional and personal papers of Jacques Barzun.

Series I: Cataloged Correspondence

Series II: 1976 Gift

Series III: 1977 Gift

Series IV: 1978 Gift

Series V: 1979 Gift

Series VI: 1980 Gift

Series VII: 1981 Gift

Series VIII: December 1981 Gift

Series IX: 1983 Gift

Series X: April 1983 Gift

Series XI: July 1983 Gift

Series XII: November 1984 Gift

Series XIII: 1986-87 Gift

Series XIV: 1988 Gift

Series XV: 1989 Gift

Series XVI: 1990 Gift

Series XVII: 1991 Gift

Series XVIII: 1992 Gift

Series XIX: 1993 Gift

Series XX: 1994 Gift

Series XXI: 1995 Gift

Series XXII: 1996 Gift

Series XXIII: 2000 Gift

Series XXIV: 2001 Gift

Series XXV: Gift of Virginia Xanthos, 1975

Series XXVI: Tape Recordings:

Series XXVII: Microfilms

Series XXVIII: Additions to the Collection

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Using the Collection

Offsite

Access Restrictions

 This collection is located off-site. You will need to request this material at least two business days in advance to use the collection in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. .

The Barzun family correspondence is closed.

Permission is required to see the collection. Any scholar requesting access to the collection should submit a letter describing the nature of his or her project to Marguerite Lee Barzun.

The letters of Lionel Trilling are closed except by permission of Marguerite Lee Barzun.

11 correspondence file boxes, 2 small cartons, & 1 tin box are closed.

Restrictions on Use

Readers must use microfilm of materials specified above.

Permission to publish materials must be obtained in writing from the Librarian for Rare Books and Manuscripts.

Preferred Citation

Jacques Barzun Papers. Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Columbia University.

Related Material

A bibliography of Barzun's work compiled by John Adams is available for download in Microsoft Excel format. The spreadsheet is current as of January 6, 2017.

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About the Finding Aid / Processing Information

Columbia University Libraries. Rare Book and Manuscript Library; machine readable finding aid created by Columbia University Libraries Digital Library Program Division

Processing Information

Processed 05/30/1990 HR

Papers Processed 05/01/1991 ME

Papers Processed 02/28/1992 HR

Papers Processed 01/12/1993 HR

Papers Processed 01/19/1994 HR

Papers Processed 01/23/1995 HR

Papers & books Processed 01/03/1996 HR

Correspondence & notes Processed 04/06/2000 HR

Correspondence & notes Processed 04/06/2000 HR

Machine readable finding aid generated from MARC-AMC source via XSLT conversion December 2, 2008 Finding aid written in English.
    2008-12-02 File created.
    2009/01/22 xml document instange created by Patrick Lawlor

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Subject Headings

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

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Genre/Form

HeadingCUL Archives:
Portal		CUL Collections:
CLIO		Nat'l / Int'l Archives:
ArchiveGRID
Abstracts.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Addresses.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Advertisements.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Affidavits.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Agenda.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Agreements.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Announcements.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Annual reports.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Applications.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Appointment books.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Appointments.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Articles.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Attendance records.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Awards.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Bibliographies.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Bookplates.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Brochures.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Budgets.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Bylaws.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Calling cards.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Certificates.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Contracts.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Curricula vitae.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Curricula.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Diaries.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Dissertations.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Drafts (literary).PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Essays.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Examinations.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Festschriften.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Fiction.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Galley proofs.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Grade books.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Greeting cards.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Handbills.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Illustrations.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Indexes.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Interviews.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Invitations.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Itineraries.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Journals.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Lecture notes.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Lectures.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Librettos.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Lists.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Manuscripts (literary).PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Menus.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Minutes.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Monographs.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Motion pictures.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Newsletters.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Notebooks.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Notes.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Notices.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Obituaries.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Personnel records.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Petitions.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Phonograph records.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Photographs.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Pictures.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Plaques.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Playbills.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Poems.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Portraits.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Posters.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Press releases.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Proceedings.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Programs.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Proofs.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Prospectuses.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Questionnaires.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Reports.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Resumes.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Reviews.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Schedules.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Scores.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Scrapbooks.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Sheet music.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Speeches.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Surveys.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Syllabi.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Theses.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Timetables.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Transcripts.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Treatises.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID

Subjects

HeadingCUL Archives:
Portal		CUL Collections:
CLIO		Nat'l / Int'l Archives:
ArchiveGRID
Acheson, Dean, 1893-1971.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Adler, Mortimer Jerome, 1902-2001.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
American Academy of Arts and Sciences.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
American literature--20th century.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Arendt, Hannah, 1906-1975.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Associations, institutions, etc.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Auchincloss, Louis.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Auden, W. H. (Wystan Hugh), 1907-1973.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Authors.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Barber, Samuel, 1910-1981.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Bentley, Eric, 1916-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Berlin, Isaiah, 1909-1997.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Berlioz, Hector, 1803-1869.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Bowen, Catherine Drinker, 1897-1973.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Boyle, Kay, 1902-1992.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Bradbury, Ray, 1920-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Brooks, Cleanth, 1906-1994.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Buckley, William F. (William Frank), 1925-2008.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Bundy, McGeorge.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Butler, Nicholas Murray, 1862-1947.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788-1824.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Cage, John.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Campbell, Joseph.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Chambrun, Rene? de, 1906-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Chapman, John Jay, 1862-1933.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Charles Scribner's Sons.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
College teachersPortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Colum, Padraic, 1881-1972.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Columbia University.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Consultants.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Cowley, Malcolm, 1898-1989.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Crime--Fiction.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Critics.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Culture.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Dannay, Frederic, 1905-1982.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Day Lewis, C. (Cecil), 1904-1972.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Diamond, David, 1915-2005.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Diderot, Denis, 1713-1784.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Drew, Elizabeth.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Eastman, Max, 1883-1969.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Eberhart, Richard, 1904-2005.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Edel, Leon, 1907-1997.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Education--Study and teaching--United States.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Educators.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888-1965.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Encyclopaedia Britannica.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Erskine, John, 1879-1951.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Fadiman, Clifton, 1904-1999.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Fitts, Dudley, 1903-1968.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Follett, Wilson, 1887-1963.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan), 1879-1970.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Freeling, Nicolas.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
French literature.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Galantie?re, Lewis, 1895-1977.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Galbraith, John Kenneth, 1908-2006.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Gallico, Paul, 1897-1976.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Gill, Brendan, 1914-1997.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Ginsberg, Allen, 1926-1997.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Gold, Herbert, 1924-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Hart, Moss, 1904-1961.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Hazzard, Shirley, 1931-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Hellman, Lillian, 1905-1984.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Hersey, John, 1914-1993.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Hicks, Granville, 1901-1982.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Historians.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Historians.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Hope, Bob, 1903-2003.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Humphrey, Hubert H. (Hubert Horatio), 1911-1978.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Huxley, Aldous, 1894-1963.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Intellectuals.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
James, William, 1842-1910.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Jarrell, Randall, 1914-1965.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Johnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines), 1908-1973.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Kissinger, Henry, 1923-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Kronenberger, Louis, 1904-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Language and languages--Grammars.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Language and languages--Style.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Learned institutions and societies.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Learning and scholarship.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Lippmann, Walter, 1889-1974.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Lodge, Henry Cabot, 1902-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Lowell, Robert, 1917-1977.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
MacLeish, Archibald, 1892-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Markham, Edwin, 1852-1914.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
McLuhan, Marshall, 1911-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Menuhin, Yehudi, 1916-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Meredith, William, 1919-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Merton, Thomas, 1915-1968.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Merwin, W. S. (William Stanley), 1927-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Michener, James A. (James Albert), 1907-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Mielziner, Jo, 1901-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Miller, Henry, 1891-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Motherwell, Robert.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Music--History and criticism.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
National Institute of Arts and Letters (U.S.)PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Nin, Anai?s, 1903-1977.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Partridge, Eric, 1894-1979.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Peabody Conservatory of Music.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Podhoretz, Norman.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Praz, Mario, 1896-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Prokosch, Frederic, 1908-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Ransom, John Crowe, 1888-1974.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Research.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Rhetoric.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Rockefeller, Nelson Aldrich, 1908-1979.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Rodgers, Richard, 1902-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Romanticism.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Rukeyser, Muriel, 1913-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, 1917-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Scholars.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Science.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Shotwell, James Thomson, 1874-1965.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Snow, C. P. (Charles Percy), 1905-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Societies.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Spender, Stephen, 1909-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Style, Literary.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Tate, Allen, 1899-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Thomson, Virgil, 1896-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Trilling. Lionel, 1905-1975.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
United States--History.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Untermeyer, Louis, 1885-1977.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Warren, Robert Penn, 1905-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Wescott, Glenway, 1901-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Wilson, Edmund, 1895-1972.PortalCLIOArchiveGRID
Wouk, Herman, 1915-PortalCLIOArchiveGRID

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History / Biographical Note

Biographical Note

Jacques Barzun was born in a suburb of Paris in 1907 and died in San Antonio, Texas in 2012.

The son of Henri Martin Barzun, a writer and diplomat, and Anna-Rose Barzun, Barzun grew up in the a family milieu which he described as "nursery of living culture". He met many artists and writers of the modernist era, including Marcel Duchamp, Ezra Pound and Jean Cocteau.

As an undergraduate, Barzun was the Columbia University Spectator's drama critic and editor of Varsity , the literary magazine>. He way also president of the Philolexian Society and class valedictorian.

He taught his first class at Columbia, Contemporary Civilization, after graduating from the college. He later served as a history professor and was well known for his humanities courses, teaching for almost 50 years.

In the 1930s, Barzun taught the first Colloquium on Important Books class, the precursor to Literature Humanities, with Lionel Trilling, and developed the Core Curriculum's humanities focus.

Barzun served as dean of graduate faculties in the 1950s and then provost from 1958 to 1967. Barzun obtained the rank of University Professor, the highest rank in the University, in 1967.

Barzun was an outspoken critic of American universities and objected to the politicization of the academy. He strongly condemned both student protesters and faculty during the 1968 student riots.

Barzun wrote ober 30 books. Among the notable titles are Teacher in America (1945) and From dawn to decadence : 500 years of cultural triumph and defeat, 1500 to the present (2000).

After retiring from the University in 1975, he remained an advocate for Columbia and the Core Curriculum.

A devoted Dodgers fan who knew the team when it still played at Ebbets Field, Barzun once remarked, 'Whoever wants to know the heart and soul of America had better learn baseball.' That quote is now inscribed on the walls of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

He was awarded the Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush, and was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honor, France's highest award. He became a U.S. citizen in 1933.

In October 2007, a month before his 100th birthday, Barzun was presented with the Great Teacher Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates. At the event, Professor Emeritus of History Henry Graff called Barzun 'the Babe Ruth of humanistic study and teaching.'

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