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Last modified: April 15, 2011
© 2011 University of Delaware Library
Identification: MSS 098, F184
Creator: Powell, Walter A. (Walter Anderson), 1855-1948.
Title: Walter A. Powell letters to William P. Frank
Inclusive Dates: 1928-1978
Bulk Dates: 1934-1935
Extent: 7 items (12 p.)
Abstract: Delaware historian Walter A. Powell wrote these four letters to Wilmington News Journal columnist William P. (Bill) Frank in response to Frank's inquiries about articles, pamphlets, or books written by Powell.
Language: Materials entirely in English.
MSS 098, F184, Walter A. Powell letters to William P. Frank, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.
Box 7, F184: Shelved in SPEC MSS 0098 manuscript boxes
Special Collections Department, University of Delaware Library / Newark, Delaware 19717-5267 / Phone: 302-831-2229 / Fax: 302-831-6003 / URL: http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/
Removals from purchased book, November 2010.
Processed and encoded by Anita Wellner, March 2011.
The collection is open for research.
Use of materials from this collection beyond the exceptions provided for in the Fair Use and Educational Use clauses of the U.S. Copyright Law may violate federal law. Permission to publish or reproduce is required from the copyright holder. Please contact Special Collections Department, University of Delaware Library, http://www.lib.udel.edu/cgi-bin/askspec.cgi
Walter A. Powell, formerly a Judge of the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri, was a Delaware historian who wrote A History of Delaware (1928) and The Pilgrims and Their Religious, Intellectual and Civic Life (1923).
Delaware journalist William P. Frank, widely known as Bill Frank, was a newspaper columnist and radio commentator for over 65 years. Bill Frank was also a Delaware historian, a Judaic scholar, a Shakespearean actor, and social activist. Though born in New York City in 1905, Frank grew up in Wilmington, Delaware. He died in Wilmington on August 21, 1989.
Sources:
The Christopher Publishing House, Boston. Flyer for A History of Delaware, 1928.
"William P. Frank Scholarship." http://www.degridiron.org/scholarship.html (accessed March 2, 2011).
Delaware historian Walter A. Powell wrote these four letters to Wilmington News Journal columnist William P. (Bill) Frank in response to Frank's inquiries about articles, pamphlets, or books written by Powell.
In the four letters Powell responded to requests for information or copies of his published work. Powell complimented Frank on his columns or commented on Frank’s printed work related to Delaware’s history, particularly Frank’s Delaware Sketches. Powell also thanked Frank for his compliments on Powell's own book, A History of Delaware. The letters suggest that a mutual respect existed between these two Delaware historians.
These letters were originally laid in Bill Frank’s copy of Since Coming to America written by Ebba Victoria Krebs, which is cataloged with imprints in Special Collections. Accompanying the letters is one of Mrs. Henrik Krebs's visiting cards, a prospectus for Walter Powell’s A History of Delaware, and a five-page paper titled "Henrik Johannes Krebs." The Krebs paper bears autograph notes on the verso of several pages and seems to be information toward a speech related to Krebs. The last paragraphs mention the Krebs school in Newport, Delaware, which was donated by Henrik Krebs to the community in 1926. The final sentence reads: "The principal of the junior high school, who will introduce you, is Mr. Michael Simmons," suggesting that a speech or presentation was being prepared.
The letters are arranged chronologically.
Autograph letter signed, 1934 May 15 [Box 7 F184]
1 item (1 p.)
Powell requested that Frank not write about his pamphlet, "Annals of a village in Kent County, Delaware: about the middle of the Nineteenth Century" (1934).
Autograph letter signed, 1934 July 25 [Box 7 F184]
1 item (1 p.) with envelope
Powell wrote this thank-you note for Frank's "gracious" treatment of his "Annals."
Autograph letter signed, 1935 January 20 [Box 7 F184]
1 item (1 p.)
Powell thanked Frank for sending a copy of Delaware Sketches (1934), which he read. He mentioned particularly the sketch on Patty Cannon.
Autograph letter signed, 1935 June 2 [Box 7 F184]
1 item (1 p.) with envelope
Powell wrote this thank-you for Frank's kinds words about Powell's A History of Delaware and welcomed a visit from Frank. He also mentioned that he had loaned the manuscript, about which Frank had inquired, to Francis A. Cooch of Newark.
Mrs. Henrik Johannes Krebs's visiting card, [1920s] [Box 7 F184]
1 item (1 p.)
This visiting card with Mrs. Krebs's name and address may have come with the book in which it was laid.
Prospectus for A History of Delaware, [1928] [Box 7 F184]
1 item (2 p.)
This prospectus was distributed by The Christopher Publishing House of Boston.
"Henrik Johannes Krebs", [1960-1978] [Box 7 F184]
1 item (5 p.)
This photocopy of a typed paper provided biographical information related to Henrik Johannes Krebs and bears autograph notes written on the verso of some of the pages. The paper appears to be background information toward a speech, possibly by Bill Frank since it was laid in a book from his library.
