Research Materials/Subject Files, 1960-1991

This series consists of primary and secondary materials which Walsh collected during the course of his research on Katherine Anne Porter and Mexico. It contains four parts: Katherine Anne Porter, Mexico and Related Subjects, Other Subjects, and Notes. By far the largest of these is the first. The first part has been further subdivided into primary and secondary materials. The primary materials include both unpublished and published correspondence and works written by Katherine Anne Porter. The unpublished materials include photocopies and transcriptions of Porter manuscripts and correspondence from various sources, primarily from the Papers of Katherine Anne Porter at the University of Maryland Libraries. It also contains transcriptions of unpublished interviews with Porter. The file of Porter's letters to Josephine Herbst was obtained from the American Literature Collection at the Beinecke Library at Yale University; that of letters to Morton Zabel and Sherwood Anderson came from the Newberry Library in Chicago. The folders containing photocopies and transcriptions of Porter correspondence and manuscript materials of the period from 1918 to 1976 contain materials from various sources (including the Mary Doherty Papers), although most were obtained from the Papers of Katherine Anne Porter. The file of J. H. Retinger materials has been retained in this series because Walsh arranged it to comprise both Retinger's letters to Porter and her notes on him. The copy of Porter's unpublished story "The Princess" is a transcription made by Porter scholar Mary Titus circa 1991. Walsh's notes from his 1977-1978 interviews with Porter are also filed in this section under his heading, "KAP Speaks to Me."

The published primary materials of Katherine Anne Porter are mostly photocopies of her published book reviews, fiction, and non-fiction as well as published interviews with her. Most of these have been photocopied from periodicals, but a few have been photocopied from the books in which they originally appeared. Some of the materials have been torn from magazines and newspapers rather than photocopied. There are photocopies of an entire issue of the Magazine of Mexico (March 1921) as well as of an entire issue of Survey Graphic (May 1924); Porter made substantial contributions to both of these. Probably the most valuable materials in this section are Walsh's transcriptions and notes from the Mexico City newspaper El Heraldo de México, where Porter work was published in November and December 1920. In October 1992, these were the only copies of some of this Porter material outside of Mexico City.

The secondary materials on Porter have retained, as much as possible, Walsh's arrangement: bibliographies, criticism of Porter works, dissertations and student work, general materials on Porter, and reviews of books about Porter.

The second part of the secondary materials, Mexico and Related Subjects, contains photocopies of materials by and about individuals Porter had known in Mexico, as well as on the Mexican revolution, Mexican labor organizations, politics, art, and music. The most valuable of these materials are those Walsh discovered among the military intelligence files at the National Archives which corroborate some of the facts surrounding Porter's 1920-1921 stay in Mexico and establish the identities and activities of some of the individuals who figure in her notes from the period. There are also Walsh's materials on the Oaxaca plot of 1921, to which Porter had a connection.

The third part, Other Subjects, includes materials on a variety of subjects relating to Porter: her friends and acquaintances from New York City in the 1920s, politics, Greenwich Village, World War I, the Pan American Federation of Labor, and Texas.

The fourth part, Notes, is comprised of Walsh's autograph notes from various sources on subjects relating to Porter and to Mexico. These notes also include Walsh's own observations and critical judgements.