Rockefeller Archive Center

Rockefeller Archives Center

Sleepy Hallow, New York

Collection: Ford Foundation records, American Literary Manuscripts (ALM) collection

Arrangement: The O’Connor correspondence is in Box 17, labeled “Meredith through O’Hara” in a folder entitled “O’Connor, Flannery.”

The Ford Foundation began funding its Creative Writers Fellowship program in 1957. In 1959, O’Connor applied for and received $8,000 from the Fellowship program (CW 1252). The collection contains seventeen letters dating from January 1959 to August 1961. Ten of these letters are from Flannery O’Connor, one is from Joseph McDaniel, Jr., and six are from Humanities and the Arts Program Director, W. McNeil Lowry.

The letters in this collection concern O’Connor’s application for and acceptance of the Ford Foundation Fellowship. The collection contains an evaluation of O’Connor by Richard G. Stern and a nomination form from Margaret G. Trotter. Also included in O’Connor’s files are nomination forms from O’Connor for Robert Fitzgerald and Cecil Dawkins, both of whom were apparently applying for fellowships. Along with the letters, are statements concerning O’Connor’s financial affairs from 1956, 1957, and 1958, and a schedule of Ford Foundation payments made to O’Connor in 1959 and 1960.