Adeline Lobdell Atwater Papers

Atwater, Adeline (1887-1975). Adeline Lobdell Atwater Papers, ca. 1932-1956.
1 cubic ft.

Collection contains some of author, art dealer, and collector, Adeline Atwater’s manuscript stories and articles, most of which are undated but appear to have been written between 1932 and 1956.

Adeline Lobdell, born in 1887 and raised in Chicago, was educated at local seminaries and briefly at the Art Institute of Chicago. As a young woman she traveled widely before her first marriage to Henry Atwater. Adeline divorced in 1921. Her second career was as an author, and in 1931 she published a work of fiction entitled The Marriage of Don Quixote. In 1932, Atwater married Harold C. Pynchon and began concentrating on her writing. Some of her short stories and articles appeared in such publications as Red Book Magazine, New York Herald Tribune Magazine, and The Midwest Review of Literature. Among the works are two extensive pieces of interest. First, in 1932 Atwater kept a diary (extant in typescript) in the months prior to her marriage to Harold Pynchon, which details the life of a society woman in Chicago in the depression years. Secondly, the collection contains an undated typescript entitled Autobiography of an Extravert. This long work depicts pictures of life in turn-of-the-century Chicago; witnesses the Iroquois Theatre fire when Atwater was a girl; discusses her children’s education in the Montesorri Method in 1918; portrays life in Washington, D.C. in 1919, and Atwater’s work with the National Woman’s Party.

Call Number: Midwest MS Atwater
Finding Aids: Collection level catalog record
Inventory: Online

Adeline Atwater lived at this address, 270 E. Pearson St., during the 1930s. She received correspondence there regarding her work.