Manuscript/Mixed Material Letter, Philip Avery Stone to John Sharp Williams requesting support for William Faulkner's appointment as postmaster at the University of Mississippi, 1 May 1922.

Title

• Letter, Philip Avery Stone to John Sharp Williams requesting support for William Faulkner's appointment as postmaster at the University of Mississippi, 1 May 1922.

Created / Published

• 1 May 1922

Headings

• -  Authors
• -  Congress
• -  Legislators
• -  Faulkner, William (1897-1962)
• -  Literature
• -  Mississippi
• -  Oxford (Miss.)
• -  Patronage, political
• -  Stone, Philip Avery (1893-1967)
• -  United States Postal Service
• -  Manuscripts

Genre

• Manuscripts

Notes

• -  Reproduction number: A86 (color slide; pages 1-2)
• -  In recent years, government support for arts and letters flows chiefly through formal programs and institutions such as the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. In an earlier era, however, government subsidies sometimes followed the channels of political patronage. In this 1922 letter, Philip Avery Stone (1893-1967), an Oxford, Mississippi, lawyer, urged his United States senator, John Sharp Williams (1854-1932), to proceed with Senate confirmation of William Faulkner (1897-1962) as United States postmaster at the University of Mississippi.
• -  Faulkner, later recognized as one of America's greatest literary figures, was then only twenty-four years old and unknown. Stone explained that those who supported Faulkner's appointment wanted him to "have some money and leisure to go ahead with his writing, for which he shows a rather unusual talent." At that time, a postmaster's position provided a decent full-time salary for duties that could usually be performed in just a few hours a day. Faulkner could devote most of his time to his writing while being assured of financial security.
• -  A political supporter of Williams, Stone assured the Democratic senator that although Faulkner's uncle was aligned with their political opponents, William Faulkner himself was indifferent to politics and followed Stone's guidance on voting. The United States Senate confirmed Faulkner's appointment soon after Williams received Stone's letter. Faulkner, however, found even the part-time duties of postmaster irksome. His performance was noticeably inept, and he resigned the position in 1924. Stone, however, continued to arrange financial support for his friend, confident that his literary talent would grow and be recognized, which it was, with the publication of such Faulkner classics as The Sound and the Fury (1929), Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom! (1936). Faulkner went on to win both a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize in literature.

Source Collection

• John Sharp Williams Papers

Repository

• Manuscript Division

Online Format

• image

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