This collection is located off-site. You will need to request this material at least three business days in advance to use the collection in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room.
This collection has no restrictions.
The Constance Webb Papers include correspondence, photographs, and drafts of writings by Webb. Webb edited two books of letters by C.L.R. James and materials related to those books can be found here. A few letters written by C.L.R. James and a smattering of material related to his work can also be found in this collection.
This collection is arranged in five series.
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.
This collection is located off-site. You will need to request this material at least three business days in advance to use the collection in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room.
This collection has no restrictions.
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. The RBML maintains ownership of the physical material only. Copyright remains with the creator and his/her heirs. The responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Constance Webb Papers; Box and Folder (if known); Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
C.L.R. James Papers Rare Book & Manuscript Library
C.L.R. James Institute Records, 1938-2002, 1939-2004 Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Anna Grimshaw Papers Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Darcus Howe Papers Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Martin and Jessie Glaberman Collection, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.
C.L.R. James Letters, Schomburg Center, New York Public Library, New York, New York
Richard Wright Collection, Schomburg Center, New York Public Library, New York, New York
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. Contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
Source of acquisition--Constance Webb. Method of acquisition--Gift; Date of acquisition--2009.
Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Papers processed Alix Ross; Anne Diebel, GSAS 2012; and Casiana Ionita, GSAS, 2013 2010.
Finding aid written Alix Ross 11/--/2010.
2011-02-26 xml document instance created by Carrie Hintz
2019-05-20 EAD was imported spring 2019 as part of the ArchivesSpace Phase II migration.
Writer, actress, and model Constance Webb (1918-2005) was the second wife of C. L. R. James (1901-1989).
Webb, the fifth of six children, was born and raised in Fresno, California. Her parents, Minerva Susan Reynolds Webb, and, George Detwyler Webb, were originally from Atlanta, Georgia. Webb joined the Socialist Party as a teenager; married and divorced two men, Norman Henderson, Jr. and Edward Keller, by the time she was twenty-five; and made her living initially as a model and an actress. She attended Fresno State College briefly, but never graduated from college.
Webb met C. L. R. James in 1939 after he spoke at an event in Los Angeles and shortly thereafter they began corresponding. Webb's side of the correspondence has not survived, but many of James' letters have. The bulk of those surviving letters are at the Schomburg Center in New York.
In the mid-1940s, after her second divorce, Webb left California for New York City. She took a room in the Barbizon Hotel for Women, began modeling for the Harry Conover Agency, continued an affair with Jack Gilford that had begun in California, and contacted James. James introduced Webb to Richard Wright and his wife, Ellen, Chester Himes and Ralph Ellison. Webb accompanied James when he attended the meetings of various Socialist organizations including the Johnson-Forest Tendency or Johnsonites, a small group for which James wrote under the byline "J. R. Johnson" and Raya Dunayevskaya, as "Freddie Forest". Webb began writing, too, a vocation that would outlast her acting and modeling careers. Her article"What Next for Richard Wright?" was published in Phylon in 1949. In 1946 she printed privately, and distributed"A hitherto unpublished manuscript by Richard Wright being a continuation of Black Boy." Webb and James married in 1946.
Webb and James' marriage lasted in fits and starts for nearly seven years. In 1949 C. L. R. James, Jr."Nobbie", their only child was born. They were separated forcibly in 1952, by James' arrest and detention on Ellis Island. In 1953, facing deportation, C. L. R. James left the United States, his home for 15 years, for England; Webb remained in New York with Nobbie. Through their parenting of Nobbie--Robert as an adult--Webb and James renewed their correspondence.
From the early 1950s through the early 1970s, Webb worked as an executive secretary or administrative assistant in a variety of businesses, first in New York and then in Los Angeles where she moved in 1970. During the 1950s Webb wrote for Correspondence, the Johnsonite newspaper, and accepted free lance projects. After a brief sabbatical from secretarial work, Webb's first book, Richard Wright: A Biography, was published in 1968.
By the end of the nineteen-fifties Webb was married to Edward W. Pearlstien (1928-2001), her fourth and last husband. Edward, a writer and a teacher, taught history at the Fieldston School, New York University and Hunter College. They remained married for over thirty years, a union that ended only with his death. Webb and Pearlstien worked together in their later years at Editorial Consultants, Inc., which they had founded along with Annette Welles in 1971. Editorial Consultants produced, primarily, reports, manuals and brochures for professional organizations. From 1973 until her retirement in 1987 Webb also worked as a technical writer for the Bechtel Power Corporation in San Francisco, California.
In 1985 Webb, concerned about James' deteriorating health, wrote to his assistant, Anna Grimshaw, an anthropologist and recent graduate of Cambridge University, with advice on his care. This letter was the beginning of a two-decades-long relationship sustained through correspondence and their collaboration on several C. L. R. James-related projects. Webb also kept in contact with a variety of other C. L. R. James scholars and Richard Wright scholars.
In retirement Webb took on a series of writing projects. She transcribed and edited, with Anna Grimshaw, two collections of C. L. R. James letters: Special Delivery: The Letters of C.L.R. James to Constance Webb, 1939-1948 (1996) and The Nobbie Stories for Children and Adults, which was published posthumously (2006). She published a memoir of the first half of her life, Not Without Love: Memoirs (2003) and wrote several extensive drafts of a novel. The novel was left unfinished when Webb died in 2005.
Genre/Form |
---|
Correspondence |
Name |
Grimshaw, Anna |
Himes, Lesley |
James, C. L. R (Cyril Lionel Robert), 1901-1989 |
Pearlstien, Edward W., 1928- |
Rowley, Hazel |
Webb, Constance |
Wright, Richard, 1908-1960 |
The bulk of this series comprises transcriptions of letters from James to Constance Webb and to their son, C. L. R. James, Jr. and other materials related to Special Delivery: The Letters of C.L. R. James to Constance Webb, 1939-1948 and The Nobbie Stories for Children and Adults, the two books of James' correspondence edited by Webb. Much of the other correspondence found here between Webb and James relates to their son, C. L. R. James, Jr., and many of these letters are transcriptions or photocopies. (Many of the original copies of James' letters to Webb, and to his son, are held at the Schomburg Center.) This series also includes a small amount of correspondence by James to others, a typescript draft of American Civilization along with a few other pieces by James, and writings and materials related to the Johnson-Forest Tendency.
Box 1 Folder 1
Box 1 Folder 2
Box 1 Folder 3
Box 1 Folder 4
Box 1 Folder 5
Box 1 Folder 6
Box 1 Folder 7 to 9
Box 1 Folder 10
Box 1 Folder 11
Box 1 Folder 12
Box 1 Folder 13
Box 1 Folder 14
Box 1 Folder 15
Box 1 Folder 16
Box 1 Folder 17
Box 1 Folder 18
Box 1 Folder 19
Box 1 Folder 20
Box 1 Folder 21
Box 1 Folder 22
Box 1 Folder 23
Box 1 Folder 24
Box 1 Folder 25
Box 2 Folder 1
Box 2 Folder 2
Box 2 Folder 3 to 4
Box 2 Folder 5
Box 2 Folder 6
Box 2 Folder 7 to 10
Box 3 Folder 1 to 5
Box 3 Folder 6 to 8
Box 3 Folder 9
Box 3 Folder 10
Box 3 Folder 11
Box 3 Folder 12
Box 4 Folder 1
Box 4 Folder 2
Box 4 Folder 3
Box 4 Folder 4
Box 4 Folder 5
Box 4 Folder 6
Box 4 Folder 7
Box 4 Folder 8
Box 4 Folder 9
Box 4 Folder 10
Box 4 Folder 11
Box 4 Folder 12
Included in this series are correspondence and materials related to Webb's biography of Richard Wright and other writings of hers that concerned Wright.
This sub-series contains correspondence to and from Webb and others regarding her research of Richard Wright's life and work, and inquiries to her after the publication of the Wright biography. There are two letters by Wright to Margrit de Sablonier, the Dutch translator of Wright's work.
Box 4 Folder 13 to 16
Box 5 Folder 1
Box 5 Folder 2
Box 5 Folder 3
Box 5 Folder 4
Box 5 Folder 5
Box 5 Folder 6
Box 5 Folder 7
Box 5 Folder 8
Box 5 Folder 9
Box 5 Folder 10
Box 5 Folder 11
Box 5 Folder 12
Box 5 Folder 13
Box 5 Folder 14
Box 5 Folder 15
Held here are an unpublished speech by Wright, and drafts of a continuation ofBlack Boy.Webb's writing in this sub-series includes drafts of her biography of Wright, encyclopedia entries, Webb's proposal for another Wright project and her notes regarding Ellen Wright.
Box 5 Folder 16
Box 5 Folder 17
Box 5 Folder 18
Box 5 Folder 19
Box 6 Folder 1 to 2
Box 6 Folder 3
Box 6 Folder 4
Box 6 Folder 5
Box 6 Folder 6
Box 6 Folder 7
Box 6 Folder 8
Box 6 Folder 9
Box 6 Folder 10
Box 6 Folder 11
Box 6 Folder 12
Box 6 Folder 13
Box 6 Folder 14
Box 6 Folder 15
Correspondents in this series include scholars of C. L. R. James and those concerned with his care; scholars of Richard Wright; and editors, friends and family. Much of the correspondence from the late 1990s through 2005 consists of printed copies of often quite lengthy emails. Anna Grimshaw, Lesley Himes and Hazel Rowley are among those with whom Webb corresponded most frequently. Copies of Webb's letters to many of her correspondents can also be found here. The bulk of the correspondence dates from the 1980s through the early 2003.
Box 7 Folder 1
Box 7 Folder 2
Box 7 Folder 3
Box 7 Folder 4
Box 7 Folder 5
Box 7 Folder 6
Box 7 Folder 7
Box 7 Folder 8
Box 7 Folder 9
Box 7 Folder 10 to 13
Box 7 Folder 14
Box 7 Folder 15
Box 7 Folder 16
Box 8 Folder 1 to 2
Box 8 Folder 3
Box 8 Folder 4
Box 8 Folder 5
Box 8 Folder 6
Box 8 Folder 7
Box 8 Folder 8 to 9
Box 8 Folder 10
Box 9 Folder 1
Box 9 Folder 2
Box 9 Folder 3
Box 9 Folder 4
Box 9 Folder 5 to 6
Box 9 Folder 7
Box 9 Folder 8
Box 9 Folder 9
Box 9 Folder 10
Box 9 Folder 11
Box 9 Folder 12 to 14
Box 10 Folder 1 to 4
The manuscripts and editorial materials for The Nobbie Stories for Children and Adults and Special Delivery: The Letters of C.L.R. James to Constance Webb, 1939-1948, both edited by Webb can be found in the Series I: C. L. R. James, 1932-1991. In this series are poetry, drafts of Webb's memoir, Not Without Love: Memoirs, multiple drafts of an unpublished novel and a few clippings of articles by Webb. A few pieces written by others, including Webb's husband Edward Pearlstien are also included here.
Box 10 Folder 5
Box 10 Folder 6
Box 10 Folder 7
Box 10 Folder 8 to 16
Box 10 Folder 17 to 18
Box 10 Folder 19
Box 10 Folder 20
Box 10 Folder 21
Box 10 Folder 22
Box 10 Folder 23
Box 10 Folder 24
Box 11 Folder 1 to 2
Box 11 Folder 3
Box 11 Folder 4 to 8
Box 11 Folder 9
Box 11 Folder 10
Box 11 Folder 11
Box 11 Folder 12 to 13
Box 11 Folder 14
Box 11 Folder 15
Box 11 Folder 16
Box 11 Folder 17
Box 11 Folder 18
Box 11 Folder 19
Box 11 Folder 20
This series contains an eclectic mix: address books, notebooks, sketches and artwork; employment and personal documents; subject files, materials from two lawsuits; and a Selective Service Appeal regarding C. L. R. James, Jr. Included in the Selective Service Appeal material is correspondence with Conrad Lynn, the New York City civil-rights attorney who represented C.L.R. James, Jr. Also in this series are photographs of Webb, C.L.R. James, and friends and family.
Box 12 Folder 1
Box 12 Folder 2
Box 12 Folder 3
Box 12 Folder 4 to 5
Box 12 Folder 6
Box 12 Folder 7
Box 12 Folder 8
Box 12 Folder 9
Box 14 Folder 1
Box 14 Folder 2
Box 12 Folder 10
Box 12 Folder 11 to 12
Box 12 Folder 13
Box 12 Folder 14
Box 12 Folder 15
Box 12 Folder 16
Box 12 Folder 17
Box 12 Folder 18
Box 12 Folder 19
Box 12 Folder 20
Box 12 Folder 21
Box 12 Folder 22
Box 12 Folder 23
Box 12 Folder 24
Box 12 Folder 25
Box 12 Folder 26 to 27
Box 12 Folder 28
Box 12 Folder 29
Box 13 Folder 1
Box 13 Folder 2
Box 13 Folder 3
Box 13 Folder 4
Box 13 Folder 5
Box 14 Folder 3
Box 14 Folder 4
Box 14 Folder 5
Box 14 Folder 6 to 10
Box 14 Folder 11
Box 14 Folder 12 to 13
Box 14 Folder 14
Box 14 Folder 15
Box 14 Folder 16
Box 14 Folder 17 to 24
Box 14 Folder 24
Box 14 Folder 26
Box 14 Folder 27
Box 14 Folder 28
Box 14 Folder 29
Box 14 Folder 30
Box 14 Folder 31
Box 14 Folder 32
Box 14 Folder 33
Box 14 Folder 34
Box 14 Folder 35 to 36
Box 14 Folder 37
Box 14 Folder 38
Box 14 Folder 39