Delia May Mattison Papers

Collection

Identifier: MC 1066

Staff Only
Select files to request

Scope and Content Note

The papers contain family correspondence; greeting cards; a diary by Mary Amelia Pengra of Green County, Wisconsin, that documents her life on a farm from 1873-1874 and 1881; handwritten poem; Civil War discharge certificate, 1865; marriage and teaching licenses; school records and diplomas; a commencement program; childhood biography book; travelogue; two family picture albums; tintypes; publications; and genealogy material and other papers pertaining to the Pengra, Fessenden, and Mattison families of Wisconsin. The collection also contains Delia May Mattison's World War II memoir describing her experiences while working at Douglas Aircraft in California.

The picture collection consists of two picture albums with thirty-two photographs and ten tintypes; a travelogue and a baby book with forty-four pictures; and twenty numbered pictures and eleven unnumbered tintypes in separate folders. All photographs are black and white.

Dates

ca 1860-1940

Creator

Mattison, Delia May, 1913-1993 (Person)

Language of Materials

Materials are in English.

Access Information

Please call (479) 575-8444 or email specoll@uark.edu at least two weeks in advance of your arrival to ensure availability of the materials.

Use Information

No Use Restrictions Apply

No Interlibrary Loan

Standard Federal Copyright Laws Apply (U.S. Title 17)

Biographical Note

Delia May Mattison, the daughter of William Norman and Mary Fessenden Mattison, was born on April 25, 1913 in Clyde, Kansas. By 1914, her family moved to Prairie Grove, Arkansas, where Mattison finished her primary and secondary education in 1930. She proceeded to study at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, Arkansas, and graduated with Bachelor's Degree in Education in 1937. While teaching high school English in Decatur and Springdale, Arkansas, she had applied to study at library school. Her plans to become a librarian had to be postponed until well after the end of the Second World War. Mattison moved to Los Angeles, California, in the Fall of 1942 and began work as a general assembler at Douglas Aircraft in El Segundo, California. She earned the Master's Degree in Library Science from the University of Southern California in 1948 and became a librarian at the Mullins Library, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, Arkansas, the same year. By 1964, Mattison headed the Cataloging Department until her retirement in 1980. Delia May Mattison died on May 5, 1993.

Extent

1.5 Linear Feet (3 boxes)

Additional Description

Acquisition Information

The Delia May Mattison Papers were donated to the Special Collection Department by Delia May Mattison of Fayetteville, Arkansas on July 25, 1990.

Separated Materials

Two volumes of The Fessenden Family in America by Edwin Allan Fessenden were removed from the collection and donated to the Fayetteville Public Library. Two publications, The Token of Friendship: Or Home, 1844 and The Language of Flowers, 1847, were cataloged and placed in the rare books collection of the Special Collections Division.