Volume 4 - The Papers of Will Rogers

CLAREMORE (OK) — A part of Will Rogers’ life, never before made public, was unveiled in Claremore Tuesday. Correspondence, business papers and speech drafts are among items included in the fourth volume of “The Papers of Will Rogers” published by the University of Oklahoma Press. University of Oklahoma Regents, meeting on the Rogers State University campus, were the first to publicly see Volume 4 of the papers, edited by Steve Gragert, formerly of RSU, now Will Rogers Museum archivist-historian, and Dr. Jane Johannson, member of the RSU faculty, Pryor campus. Unveiling Volume IV "The Papers of Will Rogers" University of Oklahoma Regents Rogers State University Vice Chair Paul Austin (left) RSU President Joe Wiley (right) A copy was presented to each of the regents by Will Rogers Museums Director Michelle Lefebvre-Carter. Regents attending the meeting were Chairman Paul Austin of Seminole, Larry Wade of Elk City, Dr. John Bell of Oklahoma City, Tom Clark of Tulsa and Max Weitzenhoffer of Norman, who produced “Will Rogers Follies” on Broadway. front row: Michelle Lefebvre-Carter, Will Rogers Memorial Museums Jane Johansson, Co-Editor back row (left to right) Charles Rankin, Editor-In-Chief, University of Oklahoma Press John Drayton, Director, University of Oklahoma Press Steven Gragert, Co-Editor Lefebvre-Carter was joined in the presentation by University of Oklahoma Press Director John Drayton and Editor-in-Chief Charles Rankin. “Your support through Rogers State University and the University of Oklahoma Press has resulted in a landmark fourth edition of The Papers of Will Rogers,” she said. “This book is the product of great academic achievement, marvelous scholarship, professional publishing and an extraordinary life that is being amplified into history. “These volumes are worthy products that solidly present the evidence, the methods and towering achievements that compiled the life and legacy of Will Rogers.” She thanked RSU President Dr. Joe Wiley for the cooperative effort and the Sarkeys Foundation, Senator Stratton Taylor and Todd Vradenburg of Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers, for editorial support and for financial support in subsidizing publication of the final two volumes of the books. Volumes 1-3, chronicling writings of Will Rogers’ from birth through July 1915 were edited by Arthur Frank Wertheim and Barbara Bair and published by OU Press. Gragert said the fourth volume and a fifth, now in the hands of the copy editor, focus on previously uncollected papers to and from Will Rogers, most of which have not been published. He said for the “most part they were in the W ill Rogers Museum archives, but some came from other institutions and some from private sources.” The new books cover from September 1915 through Will’s death and the aftermath, including immediate issues after his death and formation of the Will Rogers Memorial Commission. Gragert has been working on the books fulltime since September 2001. He came to the Museum in July 2004 and continued work on Volumes 4 and 5. “We (he and Johansson) have examined 5,700 documents, comprised of 47,000 pages and built a data base preparing for selection of documents to include in the two volumes.” “It is transcribed exactly as Will Rogers and authors of the documents produced the documents … scratch-throughs, incorrect grammar, mispronunciation, letter-by-letter, so the reader can see how he was trying to shape thoughts and speeches to fit audiences … how he was developing his humor,” he said. “We were very precise, very exact and followed the style set by our predecessors (Wertheim and Bair). Reviewers have said it was seamless; kept the continuity.” All volumes include a chronology of Will’s life. “That in itself is a valuable piece of scholarship and resource.” The volume which debuted Tuesday includes “some fascinating information,” Gragert said, information that includes correspondence from several well-known people from that era including Henry Ford, Theodore Roosevelt, Florenz Ziegfeld and Calvin Coolidge. Public sale of the books will be announced later.