Preferred Citation:	E. P. (Ellsworth Prouty) Conkle Collection (Manuscript Collection MS-00897). Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin.
	Acquisition:	Gifts, 1976-1999 (G741, G11428). The E. P. Conkle Collection was formerly a part of the Center’s Theater Arts Manuscripts Collection, but now forms a separate, discrete collection.
	Processed by:	Joan Sibley and Richard Workman, 2024, with assistance from Kayla Jones and Mireya Saldivar. Note: This finding aid replicates and replaces information previously available only in a card catalog. Please see the explanatory note at the end of this finding aid for information regarding the arrangement of the manuscripts as well as the abbreviations commonly used in descriptions.

Repository:

Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin

	The below Memorial Resolution was provided by the University of Texas at Austin Faculty Council and was prepared by a special committee consisting of Professors Coleman A. Jennings (Chair), David Nancarrow, and Webster Smalley:
	E. P. Conkle came to teach at The University of Texas at Austin in 1939, one year after the founding of the College of Fine Arts. Having received degrees from the University of Nebraska and his doctorate in Playwriting from the University of Iowa, and after spending two years at Yale in George Pierce Baker’s English 47 class, he developed and led the playwriting program of the Department of Drama (now Theatre and Dance) for thirty-four years. He also became the departmental graduate advisor and was instrumental in instituting the M.F.A. and Ph.D. degree programs. For eight summers Professor Conkle taught playwriting at the Banff School of Fine Arts in Banff, Canada.
	Besides teaching and advising drama students Professor Conkle constantly wrote for the theatre, himself. He had more than fifty plays published, both one-act and full-length, and for a time his own writing included a weekly CBS radio show, Honest Abe. The series was based on Conkle’s play about Lincoln, Prologue to Glory, originally written for and produced by the Federal Theatre Project on Broadway in 1938. His 200 Were Chosen was also produced on Broadway.
	Many of his plays, rooted in American folk life, capture the humor and wisdom of country and small-town living a generation or more ago. The most famous of the short plays in this genre is the frequently produced Sparkin’.
	The Department of Theatre and Dance has produced several of Conkle’s folk plays including Johnny Appleseed in 1940. A musical version of the play, entitled Fresh from Heaven, was performed in 1973, the year Professor Conkle retired and was named Professor Emeritus. Premiere productions of full-length plays No Time for Heaven and Quest for an Answer were also mounted by the department.
	Among Conkle’s students when he taught playwriting at the University of Iowa was Tennessee Williams; at The University of Texas students included Pat Hingle, Tommy Tune, and Fess Parker.
	Ellsworth Prouty Conkle was born on July 10, 1899, and grew up on a farm in Nebraska. He received his bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Nebraska. He did graduate work at Yale University from 1926 to 1928, won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1929, and received a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship from 1934 to 1936. He received a doctorate in playwriting at the University of Iowa in 1936.
	Dr. Conkle is survived by his wife, Virginia, and a son, E. P. Conkle II, of Austin, a daughter, Alice Elena Cogdell, of Arlington, Texas; two brothers, Francis, of Wheatland, Colorado, and Orville, of Peru, Nebraska; and six grandchildren.

	American playwright and long-time University of Texas at Austin professor of drama E. P. Conkle’s papers include manuscripts for his plays and other writings, correspondence, and professional as well as personal papers. Additional documentation for theatrical productions comprises clippings, music and orchestra parts, photographs, posters, production programs, and scrapbooks. Also present is Conkle's collection of Charlotte Gray, ingénue actress, singer, and dancer with the Sothern-Marlowe Co. and George M. Cohan.
	The E. P. Conkle papers were originally part of the Ransom Center's Theater Arts Manuscripts Collection, but now forms a separate, discrete collection. The collection was originally described in a card catalog and this finding aid now replicates and replaces the former card catalog description. The card catalog segment remains organized into four series: I. Works; II. Letters (outgoing correspondence); III. Recipient (incoming correspondence); and IV. Miscellaneous (third-party works and correspondence). See the Indexes for Works, Letters, Recipient and Miscellaneous in this finding aid to further identify titles of works and correspondent names present in this collection
	Series I. Works, 1931-1971 (33 boxes). Well-represented among Conkle’s works are 200 Were Chosen, written about the New Deal settlement of the Matanuska Valley Colony in pre-statehood Alaska; his 1938 Abraham Lincoln play Prologue to Glory written for the Federal Theatre Project; and the subsequent Honest Abe radio show, 1940-1941.
	Series II. Letters, 1946-1972 (1 folder) and Series III. Recipient, 1925-1976 (14 boxes). Correspondence includes mostly letters from other playwrights and writers, publishers, directors, actors, theatres, universities, educators, students, friends, and family members. Among these are Theodore Apstein, Joseph B. Baldwin, Ethel Fairmont Beebe, Leo Bulgakov, Donald Cameron, Elena Conkle Cogdell, Mary Estella Prouty Conkle, Virginia McNeal Conkle, Frieda Fishbein (agent), Samuel French, Inc., Sidney Harmon, Cleve Haubold, Pat Hingle, Sylan N. Karchmer, Margaret Gardener Mayorga, Fess Parker, Charles A. Schmidt, Tennessee Williams, and the University of Texas at Austin.
	Series IV. Miscellaneous, 1903-1972 (5 boxes). Although made up primarily of works by others and correspondence by/to others (for example, letters written by others to wife Virginia Conkle), the Miscellaneous series does include some materials related to Conkle which are career-related, such as grade books and notes and papers, as well as personal records such as address and appointment books and financial papers. Of career interest are congratulatory messages for the Fresh from Heaven premiere in 1972 and fan letters for Honest Abe, 1940-1941.
	In addition to the above papers, this finding aid also describes materials recently added to the Conkle papers: a small 1999 acquisition; a few items found in an internal Conkle collection file; and an additional fourteen boxes of Conkle papers formerly held in the Performing Arts Collection. The fourteen boxes are arranged as:
	Theater-Related Papers, 1914-1975 (4 boxes). This segment comprises clippings, music and orchestra parts, posters, production photographs, programs, and scrapbooks. These provide valuable documentation for dramatic productions related to Conkle at during his time at Yale University (1926-1928), the University of Delaware (1928-1930), the University of Iowa (1932-1936), and the University of Texas at Austin (1939-1972).
	Personal Papers, 1916-1978 (3 boxes). These include artwork, a small group of additional correspondence, educational and teaching records, memorabilia, photographs, printed materials, and scrapbooks.
	Charlotte Gray Materials, 1890-1969. (3 boxes). Gray was also known as Charlotte Wharton and Charlotte Gray Sheriff (Mrs. Arthur N. Sheriff) and these papers document her career through clippings, photographs, programs, and disbound scrapbook pages, including her work with the Sothern-Marlowe Company and in two George M. Cohan productions. Among the productions are Fifty Miles from Boston, A Midsummer Nights’ Dream, Peggy from Paris, Piff, Paff, Pouf, The Talk of New York, and others, circa 1903-1912.
	Supplementary materials for Gray are found in Series IV. Miscellaneous in folder 52.2: two contracts, correspondence, a diary (1907), and other information such as a career chronology, lyrics for a song from Peggy from Paris, and an actors’ side for the role “Sadie” in Fifty Miles from Boston. There is also one letter from Victor Moore to Gray in folder 52.3.

George Mason University. E. P. Conkle Papers, 1928-1994. University of Iowa Libraries. Carbon copy typescript for Two Hundred Were Chosen by E. P. Conkle, 1936. University of Southern California, USC Libraries Special Collections. Federal Theatre Project scripts, 1935-1939. Includes scripts for 200 Were Chosen; Minnie Fields; Paul and the Blue Ox; and Prologue to Glory by E. P. Conkle. Yale University Library. Production book compiled for Things Is That-a-Way by E. P. Conkle, Yale University Experimental Theatre, 1928.

Harry Ransom Center. Theater Arts Library Books (42 books either written by or previously owned by E. P. Conkle).

	HRC Guide Headings
		American Literature
		Performing Arts
		Playwrights
		Tennessee Williams