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The journalist and advertising executive Frances Milliken Hooper was born in Chicago, Illinois, on September 18, 1892 to James K. and Mary E. Milliken Hooper. Her father was a grain merchant. The family resided on Greenwood Avenue in Evanston, Illinois.
After studying American literature at the University of Chicago for a year, Hooper attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and graduated in 1914 with a bachelor's degree in English. Mary Augusta Jordan, one of her most influential English professors, instilled in Hooper a lifelong appreciation of good writing. Hooper published six prose pieces and two poems in the Smith College Monthly between October 1912 and June 1914. Another mentor was Smith College librarian Josephine A. Clark who inspired Hooper to collect books. Book collecting remained a lifelong passion. An illustrated edition of Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor (New York, 1910), which was given to Hooper by Clark, is in the rare book collection at Smith College. Hooper's correspondence with her parents from 1912 to 1919 and her college photograph album are in the Smith College Archives.
After graduating from Smith College, Hooper pursued a career in journalism. She became a feature writer for the Sunday supplement of the Chicago Herald. In 1920, she was invited by Marshall Field and Company to join their advertising staff. Hooper became head of their promotion department. In the mid-1920s, Hooper founded the Frances Hooper Advertising Agency and was its president until 1961. She was one of the first women in the country to manage her own national advertising agency. Located in the Wrigley Building of Chicago, her agency handled many major accounts, including Smyth Furniture Company and the magazine advertising of the William Wrigley Jr. Company.
As an idea person in the world of advertising, Hooper was attracted to the creative genius of British book illustrator George Cruikshank. Under the tutelage of the great bookseller Walter M. Hill, Hooper began collecting Cruikshank and later built an important collection of work by another British illustrator Kate Greenaway. The author collections of note that she assembled included the work of Lewis Carroll, Virginia Woolf, and Selma Lagerlöf. Hooper also collected manuscripts, including the diaries of Emily and Anne Brontë. In 1990, the Grolier Club featured Hooper in an exhibition of fifteen important women book collectors from the past five centuries.
Hooper began donating her collections to various institutions in 1979, including a few works by Carl Linnaeus to Wellesley College. The following year, Hooper donated her extensive Kate Greenaway collection to the Hunt Institute and wrote an essay about her collection for their exhibition catalogue Kate Greenaway (Pittsburgh: Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie-Mellon University, 1980). She gave the rest of her collection of works in English by and about Linnaeus to the Chicago Horticultural Society in 1982. Hooper presented Smith College with the correspondence between Virginia Woolf and Lytton Strachey in 1985. The rest of Hooper's extensive Virginia Woolf collection came to Smith College after her death. Hooper was primarily interested in Woolf's style as an essayist. As a result, her collection contains manuscript drafts and proof copies of a few of Woolf's essays in addition to British and American editions of most of Woolf's publications. Hooper also collected the books that Virginia Woolf reviewed or discussed in her essays and letters; however, these books were not part of the Frances Hooper Collection of Virginia Woolf Books and Manuscripts received by Smith College. First editions by other authors in Hooper's collection were donated to the University of Chicago after her death.
In addition to being an avid book collector, Hooper owned The Chihuahua Press of Kenilworth, Illinois. A number of books written by Hooper were published under her imprint in the 1970s, including Penny Candy (1970); The Bonnet (1972); A Collector in Being (1973); A Pilgrimage to Gösta Berling's Värmland (1976); Wanted-Housekeeper; Cookie, Cookie, Who Made the Cookie; The Botanist Linnaeus; and Helen Hayes: First Lady of the Theater (1977). Many of the books were illustrated by Eleanor Tobin and composed in Caledonia and Optima types by Bertsch and Cooper and printed by Collins, Miller & Hutchings of Chicago. Hooper favored small formats for her publications which she often gave as gifts to her family and friends.
In addition to books, Hooper was interested in education, women's rights, botany, animals, and music, particularly the opera. Hooper was a major benefactor of Northwestern University in Chicago. She was a fellow of the Pierpont Morgan Library, a member of the Hroswitha Club (an exclusive group of American women book collectors), and a member of the Limited Editions Club. The Linnaeus Society of London, an international organization named after the Swedish botanist, elected Hooper as their first female member. At home, she served on the board of directors of the Woman's Athletic Club of Chicago and organized many of their programs over the years. She was also on the executive board and a founding member of the women's board of the Field Museum of Natural History and a member of the Fortnightly Club of Chicago, a literary discussion group for women. In addition, she was co-founder of Kay's Animal Shelter and the founder and director of the Good Teeth Council for Children.
Frances Hooper died on April 30, 1986, survived by many nieces and nephews. She was a longtime resident of Kenilworth, Illinois.
Sources: Obituary by Kenan Heise in the Chicago Tribune, 3 May 1986 and A Smith Spectrum (Northampton: Smith College, 1986.)
The Frances Hooper Papers on Virginia Woolf contain correspondence, notes, scholarly articles, reviews, and background material that Frances Hooper used to acquire her important collection of books and manuscripts by Virginia Woolf from 1943 to 1986. The papers span the dates 1915-1986. Early material includes printed articles by Virginia Woolf, catalog cards from the Library of Congress, and artifacts removed from the books in the collection. The papers were bequeathed to Smith College by Frances Hooper with the Frances Hooper Collection of Virginia Woolf Books and Manuscripts and received by the Rare Book Room in July 1986.
This collection is organized into eight series:
Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors of works or their legal representatives.
Please use the following format when citing materials from this collection:
Frances Hooper Papers on Virginia Woolf, Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College.
The papers were bequeathed to Smith College by Frances Hooper with the Frances Hooper Collection of Virginia Woolf Books and Manuscripts and received by the Rare Book Room in July 1986.
Hooper presented Smith College with the correspondence between Virginia Woolf and Lytton Strachey in 1985. The rest of Hooper's extensive Virginia Woolf collection came to Smith College after her death. The Frances Hooper Papers on Virginia Woolf are the physical property of the Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College.
Hooper's correspondence with her parents from 1912 to 1919 and her college photograph album are in the Smith College Archives. Hooper began donating her collections to various institutions in 1979, including a few works by Carl Linnaeus to Wellesley College. The following year, Hooper donated her extensive Kate Greenaway collection to the Hunt Institute and wrote an essay about her collection for their exhibition catalogue Kate Greenaway (Pittsburgh: Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie-Mellon University, 1980). She gave the rest of her collection of works in English by and about Linnaeus to the Chicago Horticultural Society in 1982. First editions by other authors in Hooper's collection were donated to the University of Chicago after her death.
Contains correspondence from rare book and manuscript dealers offering Frances Hooper material for her Virginia Woolf Collection. Box 1, folder 1 includes a copy of a letter from the Argus Book Shop to Leonard Woolf soliciting manuscript material. In his responses, Woolf offers the first draft of "The Searchlight" and "similar first drafts of short stories, essays published in The Common Reader and reviews of books." The correspondence from Margery Barker (Box 1, folder 12) also mentions Leonard Woolf, who sold her a number of manuscript essays from The Common Reader and a few original Virginia Woolf letters. There is also a copy of a letter from Leonard Woolf to Frances Hamill in the Hamill & Barker correspondence about Virginia Woolf's diaries. The diaries eventually went to the New York Public Library, as is stated in a newspaper article preserved in Box 1, folder 25a. An incomplete run of the Bulletin of the New York Public Library followed by the Bulletin of Research in the Humanities is filed in folders 25b-25e, including three copies of the winter 1977 Virginia Woolf issue (Box 1, folder 25c). Walter M. Hill apparently purchased another manuscript essay -- "The Patron and the Crocus" -- from Sotheby's for Hooper, according to the original packing envelopes preserved in Box 1, folder 14. Hooper purchased other original Virginia Woolf letters from J. Stephan Lawrence (Box 1, folder 17) and Laurence Gomme (Box 1, folder 11), who also offered her some Lewis Carroll and Kate Greenaway material. A 1930 letter from Frederick C. Joiner of William Jackson Books Limited to Mr. Holiday mentions an original Virginia Woolf letter in which The Voyage Out was discussed (Box 2, folder 37). Bennett Cerf, the president of Random House, discusses the green paper edition of Orlando (Box 1, folder 4a). In addition to letters, the series includes invoices, receipts and dealer catalogues describing specific items, such as Virginia Woolf's 1916 Italian notebook (Box 1, folder 9). Advertisements, invoices, and enclosures from publishers are also represented in the series. Many of these items were removed from books and manuscripts in Hooper's collection, including a 1935 playbill from The Group Theater (Box 1, folder 11b). There are also a few letters from academic institutions. Lilly librarian William R. Cagle's 29 January 1981 letter (Box 1, folder 20) expresses interest in acquiring Hooper's Virginia Woolf Collection for Indiana University. Special collection's curator R. Russell Maylone sent Hooper a poster of Northwestern University's 1982 centenary exhibition on Virginia Woolf (Box 4, folder 106). A formal invitation to Joan Bennett's 15 May 1952 lecture on Virginia Woolf at the University of Chicago is preserved in Box 2, folder 35. Hooper was a founding member of the Virginia Woolf Society, according to the official correspondence filed in Box 2, folder 36, along with an incomplete run of the Virginia Woolf Miscellany. The rest of the letters in this series are from family and friends about Virginia Woolf. An extract from Cecilia MacMinn's 12 July 1951 letter (Box 1, folder 21) describes a visit to the Hogarth Press during which Leonard Woolf's secretary confided that Mr. Woolf would never understand all this interest in Virginia Woolf's personality, "it's her books that are the important things he would say."
Contains Frances Hooper's handwritten notes about Virginia Woolf. A series of note cards in Box 2, folder 38, describe some of Hooper's purchases from Walter M. Hill and the Argus Book Shop in 1943. Prices are included as well as a description of the bindings and contents of the books. In 1957, Hooper went to the Library of Congress to research Virginia Woolf. Library call slips and Hooper's reading notes about Virginia Woolf's writing style are preserved in Box 2, folder 39. Woolf's discussion of gender roles in A Room of One's Own was also of interest to Hooper, according to her notes filed in Box 2, folder 40. In addition, ten pages of notes on Woolf's essays focus on Lady Augusta Stanley, Emily Davies, Edward Gibbon, Madame de Sevigné, and Horace Walpole; there is also a side note about visiting Wilmarth S. Lewis's Horace Walpole Collection in Farmington, Connecticut, with the Hroswitha Club (Box 2, folder 42). Hooper was also interested in Sweden. In preparation for her book A Pilgrimage to Gösta Berling's Värmland, Hooper wrote a series of notes (on the back of paper from The Chihuahua Publishing Company) about an opera owned by Boris Goldovsky. The opera was based upon Selma Lagerlöf's writing (Box 2, folder 41). Notes about collecting egg cups (Box 2, folder 43), nomadic art (Box 2, folder 44), and She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith (Box 2, folder 45) complete the series. Finally there is a folder of miscellaneous personal items, such as Hooper's letterhead and addresses (Box 2, folder 46).
Library papers related to Hooper's Virginia Woolf Collection are contained in Series III. Catalog cards describing each book in the collection begin the series. Bindings are described and condition is often noted by Hooper's librarian Wilma M. Wierwill (Box 2, folders 47-49). In addition, there are dust jackets from The Common Reader (1925), A Writer's Diary (1953) and Much Entertainment by Virginia Maclean (1973) as well as a leather spine label from an edition of the Letters To and From the Late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (Box 2, folders 50-51).
Contains articles, essays, illustrations, and short stories by and about Virginia Woolf. Most are tear sheets from magazines and newspapers; a few are photostats of obituaries of Virginia Woolf written by David Garnett (Box 3, folder 52b) and Hugh Walpole (Box 3, folder 66) for The New Statesman and Nation. Hooper's friend Elizabeth Nielsen sent many of the articles, including a piece by V. S. Pritchett about the lost art of conversation (Box 3, folder 62). Virginia Woolf's essay "A Conversation About Art" is mentioned. Tear sheets of this essay from The Yale Review (September 1934) are preserved in Box 3, folder 68, along with two other printed essays by Virginia Woolf -- "Aurora Leigh" and "Letter To a Young Poet." In 1951, Netta Cooper of Main Street Books in Chicago gave these essays to Frances Hooper along with tear sheets of Woolf's short story "The New Dress," which appeared in a 1927 issue of Forum. An illustration of Woolf by Johan Bull is bound with the story (Box 3, folder 71). The only other illustration in the series is a reproduction of Vicky's cartoon of Woolf with the reviewers of Three Guineas (Box 3, folder 64). A few photostats of Virginia Woolf's articles on Ellen Terry and Mrs. Thrale from The New Statesman and Nation (Box 3, folders 69-70) complete the series.
Contains reviews of books by and about Virginia Woolf represented in Frances Hooper's collection. Most of the reviews were removed from the books under consideration. These printed reviews are from Book World, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Sunday Tribune, The Listener, London Times, National Observer, New York Herald Tribune, New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, Newsweek, and Saturday Review. Reviewers of note include Elizabeth Bowen and Eudora Welty.
Contains newspaper clippings and other printed material on a variety of subjects, including art, literature, music, travel, and collecting. Hooper annotated some pieces, such as a 1964 playbill for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee, which she thought was "a very offensive piece of writing" (Box 3, folder 86). She also circled comments, such as Woolf's assessment of Horace Walpole as "the strangest mixture of ape and cupid" in a 22 September 1951 article from the Saturday Review of Literature (Box 3, folder 103). In addition she annotated her 1914 yearbook with the names and addresses of her married classmates (Box 3, folder 100).
Contains three photographs of Frances Hooper and Virginia Woolf. A reproduction of the 1927 studio photograph of Virginia Woolf is filed in Box 3, folder 105. An engaging picture of Frances Hooper was taken by the Smith College photographer Gabriel Cooney in 1985 at her home in Kenilworth, Illinois (Box 4, folder 110). In this photograph, Hooper is seated in front of her Virginia Woolf Collection holding one of her cats.
See also: Box 4, folder 106
See also: Box 1, folder 9
See also: Box 4, folder 107
See also: Box 4, folder 110