Papers of Gloria Albee, 1910-2008 (inclusive), 1970-2006 (bulk)

The collection documents Albee's personal and professional life and her active espousal of feminist and socialist causes. It includes biographical and genealogical information; autobiographical writings; diaries, appointment books, and calendars; coursework; financial records; correspondence (including with family members); plays and material related to the role of women in theater; speeches and articles; material re: the Socialist Workers Party, the Fourth Internationalist Tendency, and the Militant Forum; videotapes; and audiotapes. Material related to Albee's mother, daughter, and other family members is also included. Folder titles were created by the processor: Albee's titles, when used, appear in quotation marks.

Series I, Biographical and personal, 1950-2008 (#1.1-16.6, 30.10-33.15, FD.1, PD.1-PD.3, T-482.1 - T-482.3), contains clippings about Albee and interviews with her; her resume; calendars and appointment books; coursework, including papers and exams for classes at Hunter College, Sarah Lawrence College, Fairhaven College, the University of Washington, and Scottsdale Community College; medical records; financial records (including tax records); a draft memoir covering Albee's childhood and teenage years, including her first suicide attempt (#15.11); and a detailed chronology of Albee's life until 1998 (with events in the lives of her mother, husband, and daughter also recorded) (#11.7). Also included are Albee's journals, in which she records her thoughts about the men she knows, her frequent concerns about money and her health, difficulties encountered and the satisfaction she felt while writing her plays, and her Fourth Internationalist Tendency activities, and feelings about family members. The series also includes writings about her family, including her theories that her mother was illegitimate (#1.7) and believed she (Rita) had sold her soul to the Devil (#1.6), and correspondence. In 1974 and 1975, Goodman and Albee, who had separated, exchanged a series of letters regarding their differing expectations of their relationship, including the extent to which Goodman should financially support Albee and their daughter (#5.10, 5.12-5.13, 6.2); in subsequent years their relationship became more amicable, with Goodman often offering comments on Albee's plays (#6.3). Other correspondents include Albee's mother, daughter, son-in-law, and friends from Hunter College, theater, and socialist organizations. Correspondence topics include Albee's studies, her housing situation and health, social activities, family history, travel (to Cuba and England), her playwriting and the performance of her plays, efforts to find employment, and her financial concerns.

In 1988, Albee began taking classes with Allan Brick, then a professor of English literature at Hunter College. A requirement for one of his classes was that students keep a journal in which they wrote comments about the course readings and submit it to Brick periodically, giving him the chance to write his reactions. Through this exercise and their shared interest in literature, the two became friends. The series includes these joint journals, additional coursework for classes Albee took with Brick, their correspondence, and poems and plays by Brick. These folders (#30.10-33.12) are closed until January 1, 2020.

Series II, Family, 1910-2003 (#16.7-23.17, FD.2-FD.3, PD.4-PD.7, T-482.4 - T-482.5), consists primarily of Rita Albee's journals, which she kept from 1950 to 1986. These journals were numbered chronologically (with gaps) by either Rita or Gloria Albee and have been maintained in that order. The series also includes Gloria Albee's notes re: her mother's journals in which she lists key life events (#17.11) and writes that while she initially thought "My mother was a locked-in kind of person, a repressed Yankee who never told anyone anything about what she really thought or felt, and the notebooks could only reflect this" she later realized that her mother had "managed on occasion to use these books to express some of her feelings" (#17.11). (In these notes and in her own chronology of her life (#11.7), she refers to her mother being raped on January 1, 1986; this traumatic event is not mentioned in Rita's diary for that year.) The series also includes Rita's correspondence with her granddaughter, with her close friend Noreen McSorley, with her daughter-in-law, and with her son. According to Gloria Albee, "Fred" Albee was a "user of women": this series includes Rita's correspondence with Evelyn Cronmiller, a former friend of "Fred" Albee who was hoping to be reimbursed for money she had lent him. The series also includes Rita's birth and death certificates; condolence letters received by Gloria on Rita's death (#17.5); material related to Rita's work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; financial records; and a letter Rita received from Winston Churchill (#22.4).

The series also contains letters of condolence, an obituary, and a death certificate and memorial service program for Albee's daughter Anna Munczek, a schoolteacher who died of a heart attack at the age of 34. Also included are report cards, diplomas, and graduation programs; material re: Munczek's two marriages; school yearbooks from schools at which Munczek taught (#23.6, 23.13); writings by Munczek including her account of her 1971 trip to Washington DC (#23.11); a lock of hair from her first haircut; and letters from her father. Of particular note is a notebook in which Munczek, as part of a twelve-step program, recorded her feelings of resentment towards the people in her life (#22.14). The series also includes an affidavit of birth, death certificate, and funeral register for Albee's maternal grandmother (#23.17); reminiscences by family members (#T-482.4 - T-482.5); an affidavit of birth, obituary, and burial certificate for her father (#16.8), and a small amount of material related to her brother (#16.9), husband (#22.13), son-in-law (#23.15), grandfather (#23.16), and grandmother (#23.17, PD.7). The series is arranged with a family tree appearing first, and then alphabetically by family member. For Gloria Albee's correspondence with Rita, Anna, "Fred" and his wife Brenda, Wilder Albee (her uncle), and Leonard Goodman, see Series I.

Series III, Professional, 1970-2002 (#23.18-27.11, FD.4, PD.8-PD.10, T-482.6 - T-482.7, Vt-255.1), contains Albee's scripts and screenplays; correspondence, reviews, programs, publicity, and flyers regarding productions and readings of her plays; a videotape of The Yellow Wallpaper (Vt-255.1); flyers for performances by the Feminist Repertory Theatre and correspondence with Myrna Lamb re: performance of her plays; a sampling of publications typeset by Albee (#27.9); articles written by Albee (#27.10-27.11); and Action for Women in Theatre, a report on discrimination against women directors and playwrights co-written by Albee in the 1970s (#25.2). The series also includes correspondence re: a computer supply business Albee briefly embarked on with her brother (#23.18); lecture notes for classes Albee taught at the University of Washington and a proposal for a women's studies course (#24.11); and correspondence, budget forms, flyers, and articles related to work at Hunter College's women's center collective and women's studies department, and with Returning Woman and Poder magazines. The series is arranged alphabetically.

Series IV, Activism, 1961-2006 (#27.12-30.9, F+D.1, T-482-8, Vt-255.2), documents Albee's involvement with the Socialist Workers Party, the Fourth Internationalist Tendency, and the Fourth Internationalist Tendency's Bulletin in Defense of Marxism. This material includes speeches re: women's rights, articles and essays (some written under the names Laura Cole and Gloria Allen), meeting minutes, and correspondence. The series also includes speeches made on behalf of the Militant Forum; notes by Albee re: her involvement with the Greater Boston Peace Action Committee's march on Washington and a copy of her daughter Anna's story about the trip (#29.3); and a videotape, flyers, sign-up sheets, and correspondence re: the anti-war and pro-choice protests Albee helped to organize at Hunter College (#29.4-29.5). Also included are correspondence and meeting minutes from Albee's tenure on the Actors Fund Home resident council, and a survey re: residents' feelings on the quality of food offered at the home. The series is arranged alphabetically.

Most of the photographs in this collection are or will be cataloged in VIA, Harvard University's Visual Information Access database. Others, referred to as "uncataloged" photographs, are not of sufficient research interest to warrant cataloging and are simply treated as part of the documents they accompany; they are marked on the back with an asterisk in square brackets [*].