Eleanor Gould Packard Papers, 1920-1981, undated
| Oberlin College Archives
Arrangement
SERIES DESCRIPTIONS
Series 1. Correspondence, 1941-1981
The correspondence series consists of letters received by Eleanor Gould Packard from four individuals: Andrew Bongiorno, Professor of English at Oberlin College; Josef Marais, South African folk singer; Howard Haycraft, mystery novelist; and most notably, Oliver St. John Gogarty, Irish poet and author. The correspondence received from Gogarty consists of notes and edits of writings to be published in The New Yorker.
Series 2. Primary and Secondary Education, 1920-1934, undated
The materials in this series document the years Eleanor Gould was in primary and secondary school. Gould’s early academic distinction is documented in this series by clippings announcing various honors she received and scholastic awards from numerous academic competitions. Also included are class projects, essays, and papers, and other materials documenting Gould’s hobbies outside of school.
Series 3. Oberlin College Education, 1933-1938
This series contains academic materials covering the years Eleanor Gould attended Oberlin College, including exams, notes, and papers. These course materials cover a variety of different subjects, including art, French, history, life sciences, and psychology. The series also documents Gould’s high academic standing with honors listings and Phi Beta Kappa announcements. Also included in this series are photographs of Gould during her time at Oberlin College. The photographs picture Gould and friends at the Oberlin College campus, as well as a class photograph of Gould from her first year at Oberlin College.
Administrative/Biographical History
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Eleanor Lois Antonia Gould was born on October 3, 1917 in Newark, New York to William Mosher Gould and Eleanor (Loveland) Gould. She attended Utica Country Day School in New Hartford, New York for one year until her family moved to Ohio. Gould graduated from East Palestine High School in East Palestine, Ohio in 1934. She graduated with highest honors and was the class valedictorian.
Gould won a $225 scholarship (tuition for one year) from Oberlin College in French in 1933, and she entered for the 1934-35 academic year. She originally planned to major in Chemistry, but changed her major to English, and was involved in writing for The Oberlin Review student newspaper. Gould received academic honors in the four years that she attended Oberlin College, including the Freshman Highest Honor in 1935, and consistently stayed in the top 10 percent of her class. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1937, and graduated summa cum laude with the A.B. degree in 1938.
After graduating from Oberlin, Gould held a few editing positions at several book and magazine publishing companies in New York City. On her 28th birthday, Gould was interviewed at The New Yorker, where she was ultimately hired and began her work as the prose editor (later Grammarian, a title created for her) on November 5, 1945. Gould met Frederick A. Packard, a researcher and editor at The New Yorker, and they married on December 7, 1946. They moved to the Upper West Side in Manhattan in 1952 and lived there during their tenures at The New Yorker.
Eleanor Packard enjoyed a career of 54 years with The New Yorker, editing prose for the magazine for notable authors such as Philip Hamburger, Ved Mehta, Lillian Ross, and E.B. White. One of her favorite achievements was receiving a separate credit in the second edition of E.B. White’s expanded and modernized version of The Elements of Style in 1972. Packard stayed at The New Yorker until she suffered a stroke in 1999.
Packard was very active outside of her career life. She was an avid traveler, having visited Antarctica, and was a member of Mensa. Music and dance were some of Packard’s favorite hobbies, but after becoming deaf in 1990, she focused her interests on the New York Mets. Packard was awarded the honorary L.H.D. from Oberlin College in 2000, but she was unable to receive it in person for health reasons.
Eleanor Gould Packard died on February 13, 2005 in Manhattan. She was predeceased by her husband, Frederick A. Packard, in 1974. She was survived by one daughter, Susan Hathaway Packard, who also attended Oberlin College.
Sources Consulted
Eleanor Gould Packard’s former student file (Oberlin College Archives RG 28/2).
Author: Louisa C. Hoffman Subjects (links to similar collections) Forms of Material (links to similar genres) Administrative InformationOne donation from Susan H. Packard, Eleanor Gould Packard's daughter.
The Eleanor Gould Packard papers document her early childhood and college academic achievements and experiences. The materials demonstrate Packard’s early aptitude for writing and research, which eventually lead to her lifelong career in editing.
The majority of the collection is made up of primary and secondary academic materials, such as academic awards and honors, class assignments and notes, essays, school projects, and yearbooks. An example of Packard’s early grasp of the English language is highlighted in a prize-winning essay written for the What to Do magazine when she was fifteen in 1932. Packard’s attention to detail is showcased in various class notes and assignments written while at Oberlin College.
Packard’s fifty-four-year career with The New Yorker is not represented in the collection, except for one small series of letters in the correspondence series. These letters were written to Packard by Oliver St. John Gogarty (1878-1957) while working on a piece for The New Yorker. Three of the five letters are signed by Gogarty under a pen name, “Sinjin.”
The Eleanor Gould Packard papers are organized into three series: Correspondence, Primary and Secondary Education, and Oberlin College Education.