Ivan Beede, Correspondence

Creator: Beede, Ivan

Collector: Kenneth Forward

Quantity: 1 box (0.5 linear feet)

Language: English

Restrictions: None

Access and Use: For information on access or copyright, please see our guidelines or email archives@unl.edu.

Historical Records Statement: Please see our statement on historical records and materials.

Preferred Citation: Ivan Beede, Correspondence (MS 0002). Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.

Formats: None

Ivan Granville Beede was born August 27, 1896, in Surprise, Nebraska. He grew up in David City, Nebraska, where his father Dr. S. C. Beede founded the local hospital. In 1914, Beede graduated from the David City High School. He attended the University of Nebraska from 1914 to 1918 and graduated with a B.A. After graduation, he went to Boston and worked for the Boston Post as a reporter and editorial writer. While working at the Boston Post, Ivan met Kenneth Forward and was instrumental in Forward accepting a teaching position in the English Department at the University of Nebraska.

Beede made several trips to Europe while working in Boston. He liked Parisian life so much that he spent several years there as an associate editor of The Transatlantic Review, during the time when Ford Maddox Ford served as editor. Beede also wrote a novel titled Prairie Women (Harper & Brothers, 1930).

Upon his return to the United States, Ivan settled in New York as a freelance magazine writer. Later on he accepted employment with the Office of Dependency Benefits at Newark, New Jersey. He died August, 18, 1946, and was buried in David City, Nebraska.

Scope and Contents

The collection contains Ivan Beede's letters to his friend Kenneth Forward written from 1920-1931. In his letters he described life in Boston, its social scene and political campaigns, the newspaper world, and discussed contemporary writers, plays, and other events. Of special interest are his interviews of the Gish sisters, R. Duncan, and Pola Negri. Beede also mentioned several University of Nebraska professors like Frye, Gaffney, Gass, and Rice, among others, obviously responding to remarks made in Forward's letters. Beede had contact with the American writers living in Paris in the 1920s. He interviewed George Moore, wrote about Gertrude Stein, N. Asch, the Ezra Pound disciples and Edna Millay. In his letter of May 29, 1923 he commented on an interview with Willa Cather.

In addition to the letters, the collection contains newspaper clippings, postcards, reviews, and some biographical materials.

Subjects:

Authors

Paris, France -- American writers

Boston (Mass.)

University of Nebraska