Fonds F0600 - Virginia Rock fonds

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Title proper

Virginia Rock fonds

General material designation

  • Graphic material
  • Textual record
  • Philatelic record

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Fonds

Reference code

F0600

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Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)

Poland, Polish Zloty

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Physical description

2.96 m of textual records
283 photographs : col. slides ; 35 mm
75 photographs : b&w, col. and sepia ; 24 x 17.5 cm or smaller
3 posters
238 stamps
116 postcards

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Archival description area

Name of creator

Biographical history

Virginia Jeanne Rock, writer, advocate and educator, was born in Michigan in 1923. Rock received her bachelor's degree in English from the University of Michigan in 1944. After teaching for two years at a high school in Michigan, Rock returned to earn a master's degree in English, but changed her field to American Studies and began teaching university-level students. After receiving her degree, Rock accepted a full-time position at University of Louisville, where she taught English from 1948 to 1950. Requiring a doctoral degree to continue teaching, Rock studied English and American literature at Duke University for a year before deciding that University of Minnesota would be better suited for her doctoral research. Rock received an American Association of University Women scholarship for her studies at Minnesota, and started her doctoral degree in 1954. Rock was teaching an introductory American culture course when she first read the collection of essays titled, "I'll take my stand : the South and the Agrarian tradition," written by the Twelve Southerners in 1930. Having grown up on a farm, Rock connected with the Southern Agrarians on both a personal and academic level, choosing to write about all twelve for her doctoral dissertation, as no one had succeeded in writing about the entire group. Rock corresponded with Donald Davidson, a Southern Agrarian and "keeper" of the group's archives, and arranged to meet him in 1956 at the Fugitives' Reunion at Vanderbilt University. Davidson supplied Rock with materials he had collected that were not available elsewhere, providing the basis for Rock's primary research about the Southern Agrarians and their symposium. Rock corresponded with other Agrarians and traveled to Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Texas and Vanderbilt University to access letters, documents and other archival material. She studied the Agrarians' personal, family and regional histories, their ideas on social issues, and drew on their novels, essays, and literary and social criticisms, resulting in her dissertation, "The making and meaning of 'I'll take my stand' : a study in utopian conservatism, 1925-1939." At the time of its completion in 1961, Rock was teaching at Michigan State University but accepted an invitation to teach at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, for the following year as a Fulbright professor. She was invited to stay in Poland for another year, returning to Michigan State in 1964. She then moved to Toronto to teach at York University in 1965.

Rock helped found the Canadian Association for American Studies and planned its first conference in 1965. In 1969, she became the first woman to be appointed Master of Stong College, where she served until 1978. As both a professor and an advocate, Rock focused on the literature of the southern United States, but also introduced the work of female writers to a male-oriented curriculum, actively supported and promoted the Canadian Women's Studies Association, designed and instructed courses that helped define the Women's Studies program at York University and encouraged students to present their research in public -- some of the many factors that led to Rock receiving the Constance E. Hamilton Award from Toronto City Council in 2006.

Rock is the author of "The Twelve Southerners : biographical essays" in "I'll take my stand" (1962), "The fugitive-Agrarians in response to social change" (1967), "Agrarianism" in "A bibliographical guide to the study of southern literature" (1969), "They took their stand: the emergence of the Southern Agrarians" (1976), and other articles related to her research and work that took her across North America and Europe.

Rock died in Toronto on 17 November 2015 at the age of 92.

Custodial history

Scope and content

Fonds consists of material related to Virginia Rock's research for her doctoral dissertation and other academic writing pertaining to the Twelve Southern Agrarians. Records include research notes and index cards, photocopies of newspaper clippings, book reviews, literary criticism, journal articles, and photocopies of material written by or about the Southern Agrarians regarding their lives and work, as well as their correspondence with Rock. The fonds also contains Rock's personal and professional correspondence, drafts of Rock's final dissertation and articles, records concerning her involvement with the Canadian Women's Studies Association, as well as materials pertaining to Rock's work as a professor at York University, including information about Stong College, syllabi, course kits and reading lists, information about symposiums she attended, and items relating to her work as an instructor and advisor for the Graduate Women's Studies Programme. Also included in the fonds are records pertaining to Rock's experience teaching American literature as a Fulbright visiting professor at Jagiellonian University in Krakow between 1962 and 1964. These records, which include photographs, correspondence and memorabilia, document Rock's activities while in Poland as well as her return visits to Poland in later years and her general interest in the country. An issue of the Polish magazine "Ameryka," featuring an article about Virginia Rock, has been added to Special Collections; an English translation is available in the fonds.

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Physical condition

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Language of material

  • English
  • Polish

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No restrictions on access.

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Accruals

The fonds comprises the following accessions: 2011-021 and 2016-047. No further accruals are expected.

General note

Originals of the Southern Agrarians' correspondence can be found at the libraries, archives, and special collections of Vanderbilt University, Yale University, and Princeton University.

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Dates of creation, revision and deletion

2010/09/01 Awaiting review by the Data Collection Archivist
2011/09/15 Rachel Lebkovich. General revisions.
2011/09/26 Rachel Lebkovich.
2014/07/22 Migrated to AtoM.
2016/11/15 J. Grant. Addition of accession 2016-047

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Accession area