Margaret Hitchcock Emerson Papers

Margaret Randolph Hitchcock Emerson (1899-1985) was the daughter of John Sawyer Hitchcock (AC 1889) and Mary Waters Bryan of Virginia, and the granddaughter of Dr. Edward ("Doc") Hitchcock (AC 1849) and Mary Judson on her father's side, and John Randolph Bryan ("Balloon Bryan," a Confederate soldier) and Margaret Randolph Minor on her mother's side. She married Henry Seelye Emerson (AC 1929), son of Professor Benjamin Kendall Emerson (AC 1865).

Hitchcock's maternal family had deep Southern roots, and her paternal family, Northern ones. The two regions were united in Margaret Hitchcock's generation when her grandfather Edward Hitchcock was invited to the University of Virginia to set up a physical education program like the one he had begun at Amherst. Instead of going himself, Hitchcock sent his son John shortly after the latter's graduation from Amherst College. In an interview recorded and housed at the university (see "Related Materials"), Margaret Hitchcock indicated that the Bryan family was in town to attend to the needs of an ill child when Mary Bryan met John Hitchcock. According to their daughter, John Hitchcock spent more time courting her mother than he did teaching (he was at UVA from 1889 to 1890). His subsequent medical career (and his daughter's life) was spent both in New England and in the South, and he retired in Virginia.

Margaret (Peggy) Hitchcock Emerson earned a bachelor's degree from Smith College (1922) and a master's degree from Columbia University (1925). She followed in the footsteps of her archivally-minded grandfather Doc Hitchcock and worked in the Hitchcock Memorabilia Room for many years, doing much of the early work for the archives.

Most of the material in this collection is correspondence from 1934, when Emerson's mother, Mary Waters Bryan Hitchcock died. Many of the correspondents are from the Minor, Bryan, and Williston families on Emerson's mother's side.

For Margaret Emerson's father's side, see the "Edward and Mary Judson Hitchcock Papers," which contains some correspondence to and from Emerson, as well as the "Edward and Orra White Hitchcock Papers," which covers Emerson's great-grandparents.