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 A. R. Ammons Papers #04517, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Provenance

Purchased from Vida Ammons Cox of Clarkton, N.C, in April 1988; received from William Harmon of Chapel Hill, N.C., in May 1988, December 1991 (Acc. 91010 and 92004), and December 1992 (Acc. 93014); received from Laurence Avery in February 1992 (Acc. 92029).

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.

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.

• Ammons, A. R., 1926- .
• Berkeley (Calif.)--Social life and customs.
• Cornell University--Faculty.
• Cox, Vida Ammons, b. ca. 1925.
• Harmon, William, 1938-
• Hatteras (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• Poets, American--Correspondence.
• University of California at Berkeley--Students.
• World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives.
• Family--North Carolina--Social life and customs.

A. R. Ammons was born in Whiteville, North Carolina, in 1926. He served as a sonar operator aboard the U.S.S. Gunason during World War II, traveling widely through the South Pacific. Returning to North Carolina, Ammons attended Wake Forest University, from which he received a B.S. degree in 1949. After a year as principal of Hatteras (North Carolina) Elementary School, Ammons and his wife Phyllis headed west, where Ammons did graduate work in English at the University of California at Berkeley until 1952.

Starting in 1952 and continuing into the early 1960s, Ammons worked for Freidrich & Dimmock, Inc., a New Jersey laboratory glassware manufacturing company. During this time, his poetry gained increasing acceptance. He left his manufacturing career in 1961 for a position on the English faculty at Cornell University. In 1971, he became a full professor, and, in 1973, Goldwin Smith professor of poetry.

Ammons has received many awards, among them the National Book Award for Poetry (1973), the Bollingen Prize in Poetry (1974), and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry (1981). Besides frequent publication in literary journals, Ammons has published many books, received numerous honorary degrees, and been the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Award.

The division between papers purchased from Vida Ammons Cox and those received from William Harmon has been preserved. Subcollection 1 is the Vida Ammons Cox material; the William Harmon materials are in Subcollection 2. Both subcollections are composed chiefly of letters from Ammons. There is little overlap in content among the letters housed in the two subcollections, however, because those in Subcollection 1 deal chiefly with family affairs and those in Subcollection 2 with literary matters. Subcollection 3 contains materials relating to Ammons and others.