Oral Histories

Interview of Frances Clarke Sayers

Children's librarian, author of children's books, and senior lecturer in the UCLA Department of English.
Subtitle:
Small Felicities of Life
Series:
Z: Orphan Interviews pre 1999
Topic:
UCLA and University of California History
UCLA Librarians
Biographical Note:
Children's librarian, author of children's books, and senior lecturer in the UCLA Department of English.
Interviewer:
Horovitz, Carolyn
Interviewee:
Sayers, Frances Clarke
Supporting Documents:
Records relating to the interview are located in the office of the UCLA Library's Center for Oral History Research.
Language:
English
Copyright:
Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.
Abstract:
Early family influences; Galveston, Texas; Carnegie Library School at Carnegie Institute of Technology; Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen; move to New York City; Anne Carroll Moore; Central Children's Room, New York Public Library; life and work in New York; developing storytelling techniques; storytelling in New York; gathering of children's literature people in San Francisco; Thorne-Thomsen records stories; criticisms of Walt Disney; lectures for F. E. Compton Co.; work at Library of Congress; New York Public Library; teaching at the University of California, Berkeley; years in Chicago; move to Sausalito; writing Bluebonnets for Lucinda; replacing Anne Carroll Moore; tensions; members of the staff; children's artists and writers of the era; editors of children's books; administrative work at the New York Public Library; offer to teach at UCLA; the Department of English; influence of Stith Thompson; retiring from teaching; Ernestine Rose; Miriam Busby Clarke, Sayers's mother; portrait of mother; portrait of father, Oscar Clarke; consultant to Library of Congress; reasons for leaving New York Public Library; planning lectures; trip to Trinidad; planning UCLA's library school; library service versus library science; teaching children's literature; letter to Los Angeles Times on Disney; Bruno Bettelheim and fairy tales; relationship with sister, Marie Virginia Clarke; Miriam Clarke's last years; Miriam Clarke's personality; mother's teaching in Marion, Kansas; meeting Oscar Clarke; Frances Sayers's writing; Anthology of Children's Literature; lecturing and writing; an age of mediocrity; poets at the American Library Association's meeting; changes in children's libraries and publishing; current interests and activities.