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Call No.: MC 374
Repository: Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute
Creator: Catherine Bly Cox, 1949-
Title: Papers, 1962-1967
Quantity: 1/2 file box
Abstract: Diaries, letters, biographical information, etc., of Catherine Bly Cox, teacher.

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BIOGRAPHY

Catherine Bly Cox was born in March 1949, in Newton, Iowa. Her parents, June Slocum Cox and John Donovan Cox (a Maytag Company executive), lived in Iowa all of their lives except for her father's World War II military service. CBC attended the local high school, graduating in 1967, and the University of Iowa, 1967-1969, majoring in English. She transferred to the College of William and Mary and graduated in 1971. She also earned an M.Phil. at Oxford in 1974 and a Ph.D. in English literature at Yale in 1980. CBC was a visiting lecturer in English at Oberlin College in 1979 and since then has taught at Rutgers University. She married David L. Wessel in 1972; they were divorced in 1979. CBC is now married to Charles A. Murray, a writer, political scientist, and statistician.

SCOPE AND CONTENT

The collection consists of three diaries (1962, 1963, and 1966-1967?), three letters from CBC to herself, and biographical material by CBC. The diaries reflect the social mores of the Midwest and life in a town dominated by one employer, the Maytag Company. In the first two volumes, CBC records life at school, church attendance, and participation in such activities as hayrides and sleigh rides, but in the main the diaries comment on the various young men to whom CBC was, or would like to have been, attracted. The third volume is partly a diary, but mainly a journal of observations and quotations kept as a school assignment; it includes comments by teachers.

INVENTORY

• 1. Photograph of CBC, 1962.
  FILED IN PHOTOGRAPH DRAWER.

• 2. Letters from CBC to herself, 1962, n.d., and autobiographical information

• 3v-5v: Diaries
  • 3v. 1962
  • 4v. 1963
  • 5v. 1966-1967?

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