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Description
Typed manuscript of “Children of Lead,” published in 1939 as South of Joplin: Story of a Tri-State Diggin’s (W.W. Norton). This manuscript was donated by Lallah Davidson Blanpied to Pittsburg State University in 1975. This copy belonged to famous literary agent, Marion Saunders, who was also Margaret Mitchell’s agent for Gone With the Wind. This copy does show some changes from the published version, notably in the Introduction, and the original title.
Lallah Sherman Davidson Blanpied was born in 1897and grew up in Southeast Kansas and Southwest Missouri. She attended the Kansas State Teachers’ College in Pittsburg, Kansas (today’s Pittsburg State University). She graduated in 1925, and with a master’s degree in 1927 from Columbia University (New York). In 1921 she married Merle Lee Gustin, who died in 1923. In 1924 she married her classmate in Pittsburg, Cecil Cline Blanpied (1897-1976). After they graduated they moved to New Rochelle, New York, where Cecil worked as an educator. Lallah studied anarchist philosophy and met anarchist Harry Kelly, who set her up as the director in the Mohegan Modern School in 1935, which he had founded. This position only lasted one year. In 1939 she published a “non-fiction novel,” South of Joplin: Story of a Tri-State Diggin’s” (W.W. Norton & Co., NY) a social-protest work based on her knowledge and observations of the mining fields and communities in Southeast Kansas, Northeast Oklahoma, and Southwest Missouri growing up. It was published under her maiden name, L. S. Davidson. Lallah also worked as a teacher, and as a writer, writing articles for magazines and for television. She retired from teaching in 1964. Lallah Blanpied passed away in New Rochelle in 1982. There is more material related to Lallah Blanpied in the Gene DeGruson Collection.
Publication Date
1-2023
Keywords
Mining, Social Life and Customs, Social Movements and Services
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | Education
Size of Collection
.4 linear feet
Dates of Collection
1939
Manuscript Number
SpC MS 0404
Recommended Citation
Special Collections, Leonard H. Axe Library, "Davidson, Lallah S., manuscript, 1939" (2023). Finding Aids. 434.
https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/fa/434