Large archive of material from the personal files of Walter Winchell, comprising thousands of letters and telegrams to Winchell, carbons of his replies, drafts of articles and radio broadcasts, newsclippings and other source material he used, and much more. Housed in four file boxes neatly organized with manila folders; 20 three-ring binders containing letters and related material in plastic sleeves; and two boxes of loose, unorganized material.
Remarkable archive of personal and professional correspondence and other material from the files of Walter Winchell, journalist, radio commentator, and gossip columnist supreme. Walter Winchell knew everybody, had an opinion on everything, and was arguably the most influential personality of his day. Born to impoverished immigrants in New York City in 1897, Winchell left school at age 13 to join a vaudeville troupe, and ten years later became a reporter on the New York Graphic. Credited with inventing the gossip column and “three-dot journalism,” Winchell soon moved to William Randolph Hearst’s New York Mirror. At the Mirror he produced six fast-paced syndicated columns a week, printed in some 2000 newspapers, and shortly added Sunday radio programs. Combined, they reached nearly 50 million people. Politically as well as socially influential, Winchell was an early foe of Nazism, and attacked Nazi activities in the U.S., and the American Bund. He counted J. Edgar Hoover among his friends, and often supplied him with information. He moved towards the right in the 1950’s, and was a strong supporter of Senator Joseph McCarthy. As McCarthy grew more extreme, Winchell lost his credibility along with the senator, and his circulation and influence waned. He was a flamboyant personality, always on the prowl for a story or scandalous tidbit, and invariably hung out at the Stork Club in New York City, always at table 50, and there was even a Winchellburger on the menu. When Winchell passed away in 1972, a front-page obituary in the New York Times eulogized Walter Winchell as "the country’s best-known, widely read journalist as well as its most influential."
The most important portion of the archive is the countless letters to Winchell from politicians, journalists, writers, actors, bureaucrats, common folk with “hot tips,” and many others. On many of these Winchell has written comments, and instructions to his long-time “Girl Friday,” Rose Bigman, on how to answer; often carbons of the replies are present. Among the letters from politicians are a Feb. 29, 1932 letter to Winchell from N.Y. Representative William I. Sirovich, Chairman of the Committee on Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks, asking him to appear before the committee; from South Dakota Senator Karl Mundt in 1954, inviting him to Washington, noting Winchell had “managed to escape by the margin of a frog’s eyelash being brought as a witness before our committee”; also, Congressman A.L. Miller of Nebraska; Mayor Val. Cleary of Miami Beach; Congressman Sol Bloom of New York; Mayor Jim Jordan of Fort Smith, Arkansas; Senator Lister Hill of Alabama; Judge Thurmond Clarke of California; Senator Arthur Cappler of Kansas; Congressman John McDowell of Pennsylvania; Senator Albert B. Chandler of Kentucky; Congressman Leland M. Ford of California; and many others. Among the other letters are one from Columbia Pictures Corporation executive vice president Jack Cohn in 1940, thanking Winchell for his cooperation in permitting the use of the title His Girl Friday, and offering a private screening of the film for Winchell; a letter from F. Logan Thomasson, declaring Winchell’s assertion that Greta Garbo and Dr. Gaylord Hauser were married was quite amusing, because “Dr. Hauser is a homosexualist, therefore it would be highly improbable that a homosexualist (fairy to you) will be apt to marry even Greta Garbo…”; a letter from the secretary of Colosima’s restaurant in Chicago, protesting Winchell’s assertion in a column that Colosimo’s was “a `joint’ over which is a hide-away for Nazi leader conferences”; Letter from Raymond Joseph Healey, informing Winchell about Nazi activities in Chicago and the “American Bund,” on which Winchell has typed, “ROSE YOU NOTIFY HIM OF RECEIPT OF THIS, HE’S THE FORMER IRISH HITLER NOW REFORMED. TELL HIM AM SENDING TO PROPER AUTHORITIES. SEND TO HOOVER BUT KEEP COPY FOR JERGENS AND BLUE LAWYERS.” There are also many letters from the Office of Censorship during World War II, questioning Winchell’s judgment in stating lapses in defense. The file boxes, in addition to letters, contain information on a tremendous variety of subjects, from tobacco companies to Senator Fulbright to S.I. Hayakawa to the Ku Klux Klan. A truly monumental archive, which cannot in any way be adequately described, truly a mirror of American culture during the heart of the 20th century.