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Dorothy Duncan fonds
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Dorothy Duncan fonds

  • CA RBD MSG 698
  • Fonds
  • 1907-1972, predominant 1930-1957

The fonds documents Dorothy Duncan’s personal and professional activities as an American-born Canadian writer and painter, primarily between 1930 and her death in 1957. Duncan’s career as a writer is represented by scrapbooks, clippings, and photographs related to her published works, two unpublished manuscripts, and contracts and correspondence with publishers and her literary agent in New York. Her activities as a painter are documented in clippings, lists of paintings, and contracts with art galleries. The fonds also contains personal correspondence, including letters from friends, family, fans, and a significant number of letters from her husband, Hugh MacLennan. Duncan’s notebooks and diaries also attest to her personal and professional activities. They document her early adulthood in Illinois and her later life in Montreal, and include notes, agendas, and a ledger. The fonds also contains two albums of personal photographs.

Duncan, Dorothy

Personal records

The series consists of documents related to Dorothy Duncan’s personal life, including a copy of Dorothy Duncan’s birth certificate, clippings of obituaries from Duncan’s death, and two personal photo albums (1930-1940). The photo albums are a mix of family photos, personal travel photos, and commercial postcards and photos documenting Canada, the United States of America, and various European countries.

Literary and art works

The series consists of records pertaining to Duncan’s published works and art work. The series contains four scrapbooks of clippings related to each of her published books: “You Can Live in An Apartment” (1939), “Here’s to Canada!” (1941), “Bluenose: A Portrait of Nova Scotia” (1942), and “Partner in Three Worlds” (1944). Duncan’s work as a writer is also represented by publishing contracts from houses in New York and London (1940-1946), a series of photographs and captions that were used in “Here’s to Canada,” and files of newspaper and magazine clippings of articles written by and about Duncan, including a feature that she wrote about Gabrielle Roy. Duncan’s work as an artist is documented by files of clippings and contracts with art galleries. There is also a list of Duncan’s paintings included in one of the notebooks in Series 5 Notebooks and Diaries (1931-1957).