LETTERS: Correspondence with Valerie Solanas.
Ti-Grace Atkinson - Valerie Solanas
Correspondence 1969-76
Related Material 1969-91
Archive of 11 letters (9 ALS and 2 APS) from radical feminist Valerie Solanas to second-wave feminist writer and former NOW president Ti-Grace Atkinson; 1969-1976. Atkinson initiated this series of correspondence with her first letter on June 8, 1969 – five days after Solanas shot Andy Warhol.
Together with letters to Atkinson from others regarding Solanas and the SCUM Manifesto, with Atksinon’s draft letters and carbon replies (June, 1968 – November, 1991).
Atkinson carbons and drafts
9 draft letters to Solanas (5 TLS, 3 ALS and 1 telegram).
15 draft letters to others (11 TLS and 4 ALS), including editor Maurice Girodias, lawyer Mary Eastman, Nancy Homer, Marilyn Bender, and others.
Letters from others
18 letters (15 TLS, 2 ALS and 1 APS) from others to Atkinson regarding Solanas. Correspondents include Roxanne Dunbar, Nancy Homer, Mary Eastman, and Erin Cramer, among others.
1 typed carbon memo, from Mary Eastwood to Betty Friedan, regarding Solanas; June 29, 1968.
1 typed letter carbon from attorney Florynce Kennedy to Solanas (Atkinson is the “cc”); September 29, 1968.
Other
Autograph list of names to whom Atkinson sent copies of the SCUM Manifesto; 8 pp., five leaves, plus an additional scrap leaf; n.d.
Atkinson’s autograph driving directions, to visit Solanas in prison; 1p., undated.
Receipt marked, “memorandum of money received for inmate”; ca. Oct. 1968; 1 p., one half-leaf grey paper. Notes that Atkinson gave Solanas $43.00.
Envelope and receipt for train fare to Beacon, New York.
Envelope labeled “Valeries Solanas Spending Money Fund”; initiated by Atkinson during Solanas’s incarceration.
Newspaper clippings.
All of Solanas’s letters are written in pencil, on a single leaf of paper, and often have the word “Censored” stamped on them (as decreed by the prison administrators). Atkinson’s letters are lengthy and typed, and, as evidenced by the items included here, were often drafted first by hand.
The letters begin with Atkinson’s offer to help Solanas:
I was so happy to hear you had called Florynce Kennedy. I have been trying to find out if you wanted any assistance since I had heard about your case, and just after I traced you to Elmhurst, I spoke with Florynce and she was just leaving to see you. I would like to help you and give you any support I can. Would you like me to come visit you? (June 8, 1968; draft)
Solanas’s polite reply came three days later: “I’d be delighted to see you. Please come up as soon as possible.”
Atkinson, apparently, wrote a press release in defense of Solanas, but had not, by this point, been able to visit her. Solanas’s next letter expresses a sense of betrayal and anger:
It was obvious from your press release, which I read in court, that you don’t understand SCUM. Florynce told me that you hasn’t read it (the Manifesto). That being so, you really have no business writing or publicly speaking about it. It’s also obvious that, not only do you not understand SCUM, but that SCUM is not for you. SCUM is for whores, dykes, criminals, homicidal maniacs. Therefore, please refrain from commenting on SCUM & from ‘defending’ me. I already have an excess of ‘friends’ but these who are suffocating me. (June 16, 1968)
The original envelope that Solanas sent this letter in was issued by the prison and has the phrase, “Good Correction Reduces Crime,” printed on the verso; Solanas has crossed out the words “Good Correction,” and written above them: “Eliminating men.”
Atkinson’s three-page reply offers a history into her involvement with Solanas’s case and an explanation of her decision to make a public statement about Solanas and SCUM. She begins by saying that she had not, in fact, actually read the Manifesto before issuing a press release, but her attempts to acquire a copy had been fruitless. She explains s
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