Collection Guide
This document describes a Manuscript Collection held by the
Special
Collections Department
University of Iowa
Libraries
e-mail: lib-spec@uiowa.edu
 |
From the dust jacket of The
Man Next Door, 1917 |
Guide Contents
Biographical and Historical Information
Scope and Contents of the Collection
Administrative Information
Access and
Restrictions:
Biographical Note
Emerson Hough was born in 1857 in Newton, Iowa where his parents, Joseph B. and Elizabeth Hough had moved from their native Virginia in 1852. After graduating from Newton high school in 1875 Hough taught in a rural school and then entered the State University of Iowa. He received a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1880 and pursued the study of law with a firm in Newton. Looking for a new start, Hough moved west to White Oaks, New Mexico where he opened a law firm and worked as a reporter for The Golden Era, the White Oaks newspaper. After returing to the midwest in 1886 Hough worked on newspapers in Iowa, Kansas, and Ohio as well as contributing freelance articles to hunting and fishing magazines. He was hired by Forest and Stream in 1889 and later worked for Field & Stream and the Saturday Evening Post. Hough became known as a avid outdoorsman and was dedicated to conserving Western wildlife. After spending time in Yellowstone in 1893 and seeing herds of buffalo decimated, Hough wrote several articles influencing Congress to take action. In 1897 Hough secured the reputation of being a Western author with the publication of The Story of the Cowboy. Hough would eventually become the author of more than twenty-one works focused on frontier life and the American west. Hough served as a captain in the Army Intelligence Division during World War I and became engaged in regular correspondence with President Roosevelt, a fellow conservationist and outdoorsman. Two of his novels, The Covered Wagon (1922) and North of Thirty-Six (1923), were turned into screenplays by Hough and became enormously popular silent films, making him one of the first Western authors to enter into the motion picture industry. Hough died in 1923 from heart failure following an operation. He is buried in Evanston, Illinois.
A. Neville, August 2005
Scope and
Contents
Related Materials
Acquisition and Processing
Information
Guide posted
to Internet:
Box 1
Advertisement materials for set of Emerson Hough books, McKinlay, Stone & Mackenzie.
Advertisement for The Covered Wagon motion picture at the Englert Theatre in Iowa City, Iowa.
Correspondence
List of correspondence names, pages, dates
To Mr. and Mrs. Fred Bigelow
12 February 1912
22 December 1914
10 December 1915
13 December 1915
11 January 1917
24 January 1917
6 February 1917
26 February 1917
13 July 1917
23 October 1917
20 December 1917
12 November 1918
22 January 1919
7 March 1919
30 April 1919 with enclosed letters from J. S. Phillips
1 November 1919
29 November 1919
25 December 1919
29 June 1920
21 September with enclosed letters from O. A. Byinton
18 October 1920
25 January 1921 with enclosed newpaper article The One Hundred Per Cent American
10 February 1921
6 May 1921
22 June 1921
3 August 1921
21 March 1922 small note with two newspaper clippings
1 May 1922 article American Misgivings by Cornelia James Cannon
4 May 1922
1 June 1922
2 September 1922
12 September 1922
6 November 1922
23 January 1923
3 March 1923
Christmas calling card reading "Emerson is spending his Christmas in the hospital."
To Edward H. Cave
4 January 1904
4 September 1908
22 November 1917
29 December 1917
2 December 1918
2 March 1919
28 June 1922
23 March 1923
To Conrad A. Goeth
13 June 1903
28 June 1903
4 August 1903 with enclosed Montgomery Ward & Co. House Sale Ticket
3 September 1903
10 March 1904
27 April 1904
11 June 1904
25 June 1904
14 July 1904
15 July 1904
18 July 1904
9 August 1904
10 August 1904
21 November 1904
18 February 1905
23 March 1905
13 April 1905 with enclosed United States Department of Agriculture document
2 May 1905
12 June 1905
19 July 1905
2 August 1905
7 August 1905
19 August 1905
5 September 1905
12 September 1905
18 September 1905
20 September 1905
2 November 1905
2 July 1906
18 July 1906
30 July 1906
7 November 1906
16 November 1906
23 November 1906
18 December 1906
23 July 1907
30 October 1907
4 December 1907
8 January 1908
20 January 1908
31 January 1908
4 March 1908 with two enclosed newspaper clippings
20 April 1909
4 May 1909
19 September 1909
8 October 1909
14 October 1909
16 December 1909
24 December 1909
27 December 1909 from E. Hough's lawyer, Graham H. Harris
24 December 1912
To O. C. Guessaz
9 March 1904
14 July 1904
To Robert Underwood Johnson
4 January 1901
18 January 1901
4 February 1901
8 March 1901
26 March 1901
28 September 1901
8 January 1902
To James B. Pinker
28 March 1905
19 July 1905
A Dedication to the Memory of Emerson Hough, by Richard Hopkins Gray. Arizona and the West, vol. 17, no. 1. Spring (1975).
Emerson Hough, by Delbert E. Wylder. Southwest Writers Series, no. 19. (1969).
Emerson Hough - Historian of the Far West, by Fred L. Holmes. The Dearborn Independent. August 19, 1922.
Emerson Hough's The Story of the Outlaw: A Critique and a Judgement, by Carole M. Johnson. Arizona and the West, (1975).
History and alumni register of Iriving Institute of the State University of Iowa with introductory essay by Emerson Hough. May, 1908.
Miscellaneous.
Obituary proofs, ran in The Saturday Evening Post [May 17], 1932.
Promotional booklets for The Covered Wagon, the Paramount motion picture, 1923. (2 copies)
She Do Move. Holograph and typescript
Time to Call a Halt, by Emerson Hough. Izaak Walton League Monthly, vol. 1, no. 1. August (1922).
Under the Ditch in Texas, by Emerson Hough. Outing, vol. 53, no. 5. February (1909).
Box 2
Emerson Hough in military uniform, undated
Emerson Hough, undated
Emerson Hough, negative
Man walking down road, inscribed on front and back
Man and woman sitting, inscribed on front and back, July 1918
Dog, inscribed on back
Letterpress books of C.A. Goeth
July 18, 1902 -- February 1, 1904
January 28, 1904 -- May 17, 1905
May 17, 1905 -- September 21, 1906
1903 -- 1912
1904 -- 1905
