The papers of George Edward Woodberry reflect Woodberry’s position as a poet, critic and educator. The 46 documents in the collection are letters written by Woodberry to George H. Danton, Oberlin College faculty member who, while working on his doctorate at Columbia University, had been Woodberry’s research assistant. The letters range in date from June 30, 1903 to October 29, 1927 and are largely personal in nature. Woodberry was a charming and indefatigable letter-writer, his correspondence illustrating his literary prose style.

Woodberry’s letters to Danton from 1903-1907 touch on Danton’s relationship to Woodberry as a research assistant and later as a colleague and friend. The later letters are personal, relating to Woodberry’s own and Danton’s life experiences. The correspondence in the Oberlin College Archives Woodberry Papers ends just as Danton takes up his position on the Oberlin College faculty as a professor of German in 1927. Woodberry’s October 29, 1927 letter to Danton speaks favorably of Oberlin, and of Woodberry’s friendship with Dr. Ernest Hatch Wilkins, President of Oberlin College from 1927 to 1945.