Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Samuel Aaron Tannenbaum papers #1920, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Gift of Dorothy R. Tannenbaum of New York, N.Y., in 1954; transfer from the Rare Book Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1983 (Acc. 83097).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: Roslyn Holdzkom, July 1992

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

This collection was rehoused under the sponsorship of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Office of Preservation, Washington, D.C., 1990-1992.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Adams, Joseph Quincy, 1881-1946.
• English literature--Early modern, 1500-1700--History and criticism.
• Ferenczi, Sandor, 1873-1933.
• Folger Shakespeare Library.
• Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939.
• Furness, Horace Howard, 1833-1912.
• Greg, W. W. (Walter Wilson), 1875-1959.
• Jones, Ernest, 1879-1958.
• Kempling, William Bailey, 1869-1941.
• Lawrence, William J. (William John), 1862-1940.
• Modern Language Association of America.
• Nason, Arthur Huntington, 1877-1944.
• Oliphant, Ernest Henry Clark, 1862-1936.
• Paleography, English.
• Porter, Charlotte Endymion, 1859-1942.
• Psychoanalysts.
• Psychologists.
• Putnam, James Jackson, 1846-1918.
• Rollins, Hyder Edward, 1889-1958.
• Shakespeare Association of America.
• Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Authorship.
• Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Autographs.
• Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Relations with women.
• Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Spurious and doubtful works.
• Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Stage history.
• Speilman, M. H. (Marion Harry), 1858-1948.
• Stopes, Marie Carmichael, 1880-1958.
• Tannenbaum, Samuel Aaron, 1874?-1948.
• Wallace, Charles William, 1865-1932.

Samuel Aaron Tannenbaum was born in Hungary around 1874. After immigrating to the United States in 1886, he studied at the College of the City of New York. In 1895, he became a citizen of the United States. In 1898, he received his M.D. degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University and began practicing psychotherapy in New York City. Tannenbaum was twice married--in 1901, to Jeannette S. Rosett and, in 1942, to Dorothy Rosenzweig with whom he collaborated on several publications.

Tannenbaum's publications reflect his career in psychotherapy and his intense interest in Shakespeare and his times. Major works range from The Psychology of Accidents (1924) and The Patient's Dilemma (1935) to Problems in Shakespeare's Penmanship (1927) and Shakespearean Scraps and Other Elizabethan Fragments (1933). He contributed a great many articles to journals in the field of psychotherapy and the field of Shakespearean scholarship, serving for many years as the editor of the Shakespeare Association Bulletin.

Chiefly correspondence, 1905-1943, between Tannenbaum and other specialists in the field of 16th- and 17th- century English literature, including Joseph Quincy Adams, Horace Howard Furness, W. W. Greg, William Bailey Kempling, W. J. Lawrence, Arthur Huntington Nason, Ernest Henry Clark Oliphant, Charlotte Endymion Porter, Hyder Edward Rollins, M. H. Spielmann, Marie Charlotte Carmichael Stopes, and Charles William Wallace. Letters discuss Tannenbaum's interest in Shakespeare and his works, with particular emphasis on questions of disputed authorship. Also included are letters about Tannenbaum's efforts to collect publications relating to Shakespeare and his times, and to the workings of such organizations as the Shakespeare Association, the Modern Language Association of America, and the Folger Shakespeare Library. Among the small number of letters not relating to English literature are those from individuals in the field of psychology, including a 1908 letter from Sigmund Freud; two 1913 letters from Sandor Ferenczi; one 1912 letter from James Jackson Putnam; and seven letters, 1918-1919, from Ernest Jones about the establishment of an English language journal on psychoanalysis. There are also a few writings by Tannenbaum on literary and medical topics and a small number of photographs.

• Pictures (P-1920/1-8, OP-PF-1920/1)