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Georgia Elizabeth Kauffman was born on October 6, 1902, in Mifflin, Pennsylvania. Her father, Allen R. Kauffman was a telephone operator for the Pennsylvania Railroad. She attended Mifflintown High School from 1915-1919 and the Dickinson Seminary in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, from 1919-1920, before enrolling in Mount Holyoke College in 1920. At Mount Holyoke, she majored in English Literature with a minor in English. After receiving her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1924, she taught French and English at the High School in Brattleboro, Vermont from 1924-1926. On June 11, 1926 she married Clayton L. Piggott, a printer. In 1927 she had a daughter, Eleanor Katharine (who later graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1948) and in 1928 had another daughter, Margaret Hilton. She began teaching again at a nursery school in Brattleboro in 1930. In 1932 she moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and became the nursery school director at the Seller School; she remained there until 1935. In 1934 she divorced Piggott, and on September 12, 1935, she married John Paul Selsam, an assistant professor of history at the State College of Pennsylvania. After her husband died in 1950, Selsam remained active in the affairs of the State College of Pennsylvania, acting as an assistant to the Music Department and chaperoning a choir tour of Europe. She died on October 16, 1997 in Newtown, Pennsylvania at the age of ninety-five.
The Georgia Kauffman Selsam Papers include correspondence, memorabilia, biographical information and photographs. Most of the material pertains to Kauffman's life at Mount Holyoke College from 1920-1924, especially her first semester of college in 1920. In her letters to family members she describes her everyday life at the College including food, clothing, sports, religious life, musical events, parties, balls, and her studies. She discusses events such as Mountain Day, trying out for the field hockey team, and the Junior Show. She also describes activities in her dormitory, Judson Hall, and her friends. The correspondence also includes a letter dated September 13, 1920, from Mildred Leona Batchelder, Mount Holyoke College Class of 1922 and "big sister to Selsam; a letter from Elizabeth S. Merriam, Mount Holyoke Class of 1921, dated September 19, 1920; and a letter dated December 23, 1920 from Miss Ruth S. Rafferty, Alumnae Secretary and resident of Judson Hall. Of special note is a letter about a visit with Robert Frost from the latter part of her life. The sixteen page letter dated in 1959 was written to family describing a forty-eight hour visit with poet Robert Frost who stayed with Mrs. Selsam while he was at Pennsylvania State University to give a talk and reading. Photographs include pictures of Judson Hall, her friends and family, costume parties, plays, Mountain Day, May Day, the fire damage to Rockefeller Hall, and Mount Holyoke College graduation 1924. Her memorabilia include a wedding notice, a calling card, and a Christmas card. Biographical information consists of a note, ca. 1926, and a death notice, 1997.
This collection is organized into four series:
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Please use the following format when citing materials from this collection:
Georgia Kauffman Selsam Papers, Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections, South Hadley, MA.
Arranged chronologically.
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The correspondence chiefly consists of letters written by Selsam between 1920-1924. The majority of the letters date from her first semester at Mount Holyoke College in 1920. The letters addressed to her family describe her activities at Mount Holyoke, concerts, social events, balls, Young Women's Christian Association meetings, religious services and events, food, clothing, weight gain, trying out for the freshman field hockey team, her dormitory Judson Hall, speech classes and debate, a feud between Smith College and Amherst College students, a visit by Norman Thomas of the League for Industrial Democracy, and encounters with Mary Woolley. The correspondence also includes a letter dated September 13, 1920, from Mildred Leona Batchelder, Mount Holyoke College Class of 1922 and "big sister" to Selsam; a letter from Elizabeth S. Merriam Mount Holyoke College class of 1921, dated September 19, 1920; and a letter dated December 23, 1920, from Miss Ruth S. Rafferty, Alumnae Secretary and resident of Judson Hall.
Of note is a November 2, 1959 letter, from Georgia Kauffman Selsam to her daughters Eleanor S. Webster and Margaret S. Holmquist, describing a 48 hour visit with Robert Frost in the fall of 1959. Frost, eighty-five years old at the time of the visit, was at Pennsylvania State University for a reading and English teachers event and stayed at Ms. Selsam's. Selsam's 16 page letter includes details about his visit including his appetite, conversation, poetry, as well as commentary about some of Frost's contemporaries, including: Rita Van Doren, Frost's family, Roswell Ham, Mr. [Alfred] Harcour, A.P. [Alan Patrick]Herbert, Stanley Kunitz, Orton Lowe, Robert Lowell, Archibald MacLeish, Jeanette Marks, John Marquand, Edgar Lee Master, Edward Murrow, the Proctor Family, Theodore Roethke, Bertrand Russell, Carl Sandberg, Dr. Eric A. Walker, Wendell Wilkie. Other topics include Harper's Magazine and a biography of Frost in progress by a Miss Sedgwick. The original handwritten letter was typed by the secretary of Selsam's brother's law firm, John A. R. Welsh, Attorney at Law
Arranged chronologically.
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The memorabilia consists of the wedding announcement of Georgia Kauffman Piggott and John Paul Selsam dated 1935, her calling card with a note dated August 22, 1940, and a Christmas card from Selsam dated 1940.
Arranged chronologically.
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The material consists of a biographical note about Selsam, ca. 1926, and a notice of her death in 1997.
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This series consists of a photograph of Selsam taken when she was a senior at Mount Holyoke College, 1924, a photograph of the Selsam family with the Keller family at Lake Erie in June of 1940, and a photograph album dating from ca. 1919-1924. The majority of the photographs in the album are pictures of Mount Holyoke, Mountain Day, Judson Hall, and Selsam and her friends and family. Pictures of May Day, plays, the fire damage of Rockefeller Hall, and Mount Holyoke College graduation 1924 are also present. A small portion of photographs include pictures of the Dickinson Seminary, 1919-1920. A few annotations written by her daughter, Eleanor Selsam Webster, Mount Holyoke College class of 1948, include a story about the fire in Rockefeller Hall.