RIAMCO

Rhode Island Archival and Manuscript Collections Online

For Participating Institutions

Nancy Luce papers (Ms.Luce)

Brown University Library

Box A
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
Tel: 401-863-2146


Scope & content

The Nancy Luce papers include a manuscript journal, homemade manuscript booklets of verse (some done in artistic penmanship), account books, bills, receipts, prescriptions, letters and graphic images (photographs, cutouts and a wood-block engraving of Luce holding two pet hens) created by Nancy Luce. The collection also includes various family papers dating from 1725, as well as additional materials (newspaper clippings, notes, correspondence and articles) that were later added to the collection by Benjamin C. Clough, Professor of English and Classics at Brown, who donated the collection to the University in 1964.

Nancy Luce died impoverished and was buried at the expense of the town of West Tisbury. To recover their costs, the town's Overseers of the Poor sold off Luce's personal belongings, including the old trunk in which she kept her papers and writings. The latter was purchased by Goodspeed's Bookshop in Boston, where it remained until Prof. Clough, himself a native of the Vineyard, purchased them in 1941. Clough did some research on Luce, culminating in an article he wrote for The Colophon and several public talks, including one for the Friends of the Library at Brown in April 1950.