University of Pennsylvania Finding Aids

The bulk of the papers pertains to Fauset’s endeavors as a creative writer. Twenty-one boxes contain multiple drafts, some manuscript but most typescript, of unpublished novels, including one which is, in essence, an autobiography. Additional writings include addresses, essays, lectures; published and unpublished short stories; and multiple versions of his University of Pennsylvania dissertation, which was later published by the University Press under the title, Black Gods of the Metropolis. Correspondence derives mostly from the 1960s and 1970s and includes letters from Nellie R. Bright, his co-author on America: Red, White, Black, Yellow. Other items of note include seven letters either to or from Alain LeRoy Locke, as well as a photograph of him; a photograph of Jessie Redmon Fauset and an outline of Junior Reading Book on Negro-White Relationships written by her; and a ledger beginning in 1855 for the Union Building and Loan Association, Philadelphia, at the back of which are manuscript texts by Isaiah C. Wears. The papers also contain five scrapbooks: one concerns Marcus Garvey and the four others comprise clippings of Fauset’s column The People’s Cause and I Write As I See (1938-1943). The bulk of the papers pertains to Fauset's endeavors as a creative writer. Twenty-one boxes contain multiple drafts of unpublished novels, including one which is, in essence, an autobiography. Additional writings include addresses, essays, lectures; published and unpublished short stories; and multiple versions of his University of Pennsylvania dissertation, which was later published by the University Press under the title, Black Gods of the Metropolis. Correspondence derives mostly from the 1960s and 1970s and includes letters from Nellie R. Bright, his co-author on America: Red, White, Black, Yellow.