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Dave Kindred Collection to Open at The Ames Library

Sept. 13, 2019

Dave Kindred
Dave Kindred '63 poses with an item from The Dave Kindred Papers collection in the Tate Archives and Special Collections.

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — National Hall of Fame sportswriter Dave Kindred ’63 will return to Illinois Wesleyan University for the opening of the The Dave Kindred Papers collection in The Tate Archives and Special Collections.

The formal collection opening will take place on Friday, Oct. 4 from 1 p.m. until 2 p.m. on The Ames Library’s fourth floor, in conjunction with Homecoming. The event is free and open to the public.

“Dave Kindred witnessed significant moments in American and world history during his 60-year career as a sportswriter,” said University Archivist & Special Collections Librarian Meg Miner. “We're honored he chose his alma mater to preserve and provide access to his body of work. A descriptive catalog for his collection is available online to anyone. We welcome researchers as well as the general public to explore this material.”

The Kindred Papers span the mid-1960s to mid-2000s. The collection includes correspondence, columns, and reporter’s notebooks from Kindred’s 60-year career. The largest series consist of reader correspondence, reporter’s notebooks, research materials related to Kindred’s two most popular books, Sound and Fury (2006) and Morning Miracle (2010), and clippings of Kindred’s columns. The special formats series contains scrapbooks on the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich and 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal created for Kindred by his wife Cheryl.

Special formats also includes sports memorabilia such as Kindred’s press passes from the Super Bowl, World Series, PGA Tour, Kentucky Derby, Democratic National Convention, etc. and a pair of Muhammad Ali’s boxing trunks. The research files are primarily made up of articles, clippings, and notes on various people and topics, which Kindred frequently annotated. Most of this research made its way into his books and columns.

Miner and Processing Archivist Sarah Lindenbaum organized the material with assistance from Illinois Wesleyan students Kelsey Browning ’20, Giovanni Garcia ’20 and Lili Moldovanska ’21.

The Kindred Papers collection is available for public viewing by contacting Meg Miner: mminer@iwu.edu. Read more about The Dave Kindred Papers collection in a blog post written by Miner.

By Samira Kassem ’21