Childers, James Saxon Papers, 1918-1965
Biography:
Writer and
publisher James Saxon Childers was born in Norwood, Alabama (now a neighborhood
of Birmingham) on April 19, 1899 to Hayden Prior and Pattie Undine (Goldwire)
Childers. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1920 and attended Oxford
University as a Rhodes Scholar (B.A., 1923; M.A., 1927). From 1925 to 1942 he
was a professor of literature and creative writing at Birmingham-Southern
College as well as a columnist and book reviewer for the Birmingham News.
In 1942
Childers married Maurine White and soon left Birmingham to serve as an Air Force
intelligence officer in World War II. Upon his return from the war he and
Maurine lived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1947-1951) and Atlanta, Georgia.
He was an editor at the Atlanta Journal (1951-1957); a lecturer for the
U.S. Department of State in the Far and Middle East (1958-1959); and president
of Tupper and Love book publishers after 1959. Childers authored more than
twenty books including A Novel About a White Man and a Black Man in the Deep
South (Farrar and Rinehart, 1936), the biography Erskine Ramsay, His Life
and Achievements (Cartwright and Ewing, 1942), the travel book Sailing
South American Skies (Farrar and Rinehart, 1936), and The Nation on the
Flying Trapeze: The United States as the People of the East See Us (David
McKay Company, 1960).
James
Saxon Childers died in Atlanta on July 17, 1965. He is buried at Elmwood
Cemetery in Birmingham.
Source:
Who Was
Who in America, Volume IV. Chicago: Marquis-Who’s Who, Inc, 1969.
Scope and Content:
James
Saxon Childers’ papers include family photographs, college memorabilia, articles
by and about Childers and articles of interest to him, personal and business
correspondence, financial records, copies of most of the books authored by
Childers, galley and page proofs for The Nation on the Flying Trapeeze,
and ephemera from Childers’ travels abroad. The correspondence includes letters
from Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry S. Truman, and Flannery O’Connor.
Guide to Collection:
File level
guide available in the Archives Department.
Subject Areas:
Authors –
Alabama – Birmingham.
Childers,
James Saxon, 1899-1965.
Journalists
-- Alabama -- Birmingham.
Collection Number: 1120
Size: 7 linear feet (7 boxes)
Source/Provenance: Gift of Maurine W. Childers (Mrs. James Saxon
Childers)
Restrictions: Standard preservation and copyright restrictions.
Do not photocopy bound volumes.
RA/1-3-02
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