Mark Sidney Steadman Jr. Papers
Collection
Identifier: Mss-0340
The Mark Sidney Steadman Jr. Papers include correspondence, newspaper clippings, gallies, photographs, sketches, and teacher evaluations. Over half the collection consists of manuscripts of essays, novels, poems, short stories, and other literary works by Steadman. The collection spans the years 1946-2002, with bulk years 1955-1990. This collection has been arranged into four series: correspondence, personal, works, and oversize.
Correspondents in the collection include a variety of editors amd publishers including Lois Wallace, Thomas Wallace, and Jane Hill; fellow writers and English professors Angela Elam, Charles Israel,John Yount and Hank Nuwer; and members of Steadman's family. They discuss their writting projects, work, family matters and in the case of Steadman life at Clemson. Steadman kept copies of some of the letters he wrote so this correspondence gives insight into his life as a writer and professor.
Personal materials include information about teaching at the American University in Cairo, clippings documenting his career, information about the Clemson Funeral Society, documentation about building his home, publisher's sales catalogs that featured his book, and information about the W. R. Smith Publishing Company at which Steadman worked writing advertising copy from 1953-1955. Student evaluations of Steadman’s classes and various student assignments in his creative writing classes are restricted during the lifetime of the students. Some financial papers documenting his life are restricted during his life.
The works series includes copies of Steadman’s thesis and dissertation, miscellaneous sketches, and a variety of drafts of his essays, poems, novels, screen plays, and short stories. During the course of his career, Steadman wrote a number of short stories that were incorporated into his novels McAfee County: A Chronicle (1971), A Lion's Share (1975), Angel Child: A Novel (1987), and Bang-Up Season: A Novel (1990). Many of the original manuscripts are on acidic paper and have been photocopied but the originals have been retained.
Mark Sidney Steadman Jr. was born July 2, 1930 in Statesboro, Georgia, the son of Mark Steadman Sr. and Marie Hopkins Steadman. His family moved to Savannah when he was ten. After graduating from the public high school, Steadman attended Emory University where in 1951 he earned a B.A. in English. While at Emory he began writing short stories and poetry. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1951-1953. After service, he worked at W.R. Smith Publishing Company in Atlanta for two years. In 1955 he enrolled in graduate school at Florida State University English Department where he focused upon American literature. His 1956 MA thesis studied “Ambrose Bierce: Epigram Maker” while his 1963 PhD dissertation examined American humor 1920-1955.
Steadman was hired in 1957 to teach English at Clemson Agricultural College. During the late 1950s he continued to write and began submitting short stories to popular magazines. Although rejected at the time, some of them served as the drafts for later published work. In 1962 -1963 he taught the first creative writing course at Clemson. He also served as advisor to the student literary magazine The Chronicle. Steadman won a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship in 1968 and taught English at the American University in Cairo.
In 1969, the short story “Annie’s Love Child” was published followed in 1971 by two other short stories “A Worker of Miracles” and “Anse Starkey at Rest”. They were then re-published as chapters in Steadman’s first novel length work: McAfee County: A Chronicle published in 1971 by Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Translated into French and German, they won critical acclaim as the work of a new Southern writer.
Steadman struggled during the early 1970s with a large novel located in his home town of Savannah during the 1950s that incorporated a picaresque cast of characters, a flawed Irish-American high school football hero, and a disjointed narrative. Originally titled Jack Curran, it was published in 1975 as A Lion’s Share by Holt, Rinehart & Winston. The final version of the novel eliminated some of the introductory history of Savannah which was later published as an article in Sandlapper magazine. Over a decade later, in 1990, an edited version of the high school football portion of the book was re-worked and published as Bang-Up Season: A Novel by Longstreet Press.
In 1983 Steadman received a Fulbright Fellowship to teach post World War II American literature at the Leningrad State University in the Soviet Union. Clemson University recognized Steadman’s long devoted career to teaching in 1990 by naming him Lucius Harvin Alumni Professor of English.
Steadman married Joan Anderson of Savannah on March 29, 1952. They have three sons: Clayton, Todd and Wade.
11.85 Cubic Feet (32 document boxes, 1 box of photographs and realia, 2 oversize boxes, 1 oversize folder)
English
The Mark Sidney Steadman Jr. Papers document his life and career as a writer and English professor at Clemson University. Over half the collection consists of manuscripts of essays, novels, poems, short stories, and other literary works by Steadman. The collection spans the years 1946-2002, with bulk years 1955-1990.
This collection has been arranged into five series: correspondence, personal,works, restricted and oversize.
Donated by Mark Steadman, accession 08-115.
Processing began in 2009 through 2011 with the help from student assistants Tracy LeBlanc, Sammy Dombrowsky, Alex McClure, and Marissa Kozma. Charis Chapman worked as a volunteer and Clemson Life student Jeff Schawe did much of the photocopying of acidic paper. Michael Kohl prepared the finding aid in 2011.
Part of the Clemson University Libraries Special Collections and Archives Repository