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Elizabeth Gray Vining letters
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Held at: Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections [Contact Us]370 Lancaster Ave, Haverford, PA 19041
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Elizabeth Gray Vining (1902-1999) was born in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Her parents were John Gray and Anne Moore Gray. She attended Germantown Friends School and Bryn Mawr College (class of 1923). During her early adult years, Vining worked as a librarian, earning her degree from the Library School of Drexel Institute in 1926. She met her husband, Morgan Fisher Vining, during her time working in the library of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. After her husband's death in 1933, Vining returned to Germantown and was brought back in touch with her Quaker roots. She joined Germantown Meeting in 1934. She wrote 11 books, including a Newberry Award winning children's book entitled Adam of the Road (1942). Vining also worked for the American Friends Service Committee in 1946 as a tutor for Akihito, the crown prince (and later emperor) of Japan. Her later writing reflected a strong interest in Japanese culture as well as her close relationship with the Japanese royal family. Some of her popular books include: Windows for the Crown Prince (1952), Return to Japan (1960), The Virginia Exiles (1955), Friend of Life: A Biography of Rufus M. Jones (1958), and Being Seventy: The Measure of a Year.
Information courtesy of the Friends Journal 46 March 2000 page 40.
This collection contains correspondence from Elizabeth Vining to Charlotte, Alfred, and Ellen Oppler. If a letter has the original envelope, the envelope is found immediately behind the letter. There is one envelope from December 12, 1969 that does not appear to have a corresponding letter.
The letters are arranged chronologically. The two letters without years (March 29th and April 4th) are filed in the back. If a letter has the original envelope, the envelope is found immediately behind the letter. There is one envelope from December 12, 1969 that does not appear to have a corresponding letter.
The Elizabeth Gray Vining letters were donated to Special Collections, Haverford College in 2016 by Daniel B. Milberg, trustee for the estate of Ellen C. Oppler.
Processed by Madison Arnold-Scerbo; completed April, 2016.
People
Subject
Place
- Publisher
- Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections
- Finding Aid Author
- Madison Arnold-Scerbo
- Finding Aid Date
- April, 2016
- Access Restrictions
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The collection is open for research use.
- Use Restrictions
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Standard Federal Copyright Laws Apply (U.S. Title 17).