Ernst Kris

A Register of His Papers in the Library of Congress

Prepared by Michael Spangler

Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

Washington, D.C.

2003

Contact information: http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/mss/address.html

Finding aid encoded by Library of Congress Manuscript Division, 2005

Finding aid URL: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms006003

Table of Contents

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

Names:

Subjects:

Occupations:

Administrative Information

Provenance:

Processing History:

Transfers:

Copyright Status:

Restrictions:

Preferred Citation:

Biographical Note

Scope and Content Note

Organization of the Papers

Description of Series

Container List

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Library's online catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically therein.

Administrative Information

The papers of Ernst Kris, psychoanalyst, educator, and art historian, were given to the Library of Congress by his children Anton O. Kris and Anna Kris Wolff in 2001.

The papers of Ernst Kris were arranged and described in 2003.

Two books have been transferred to the Library's Rare Book and Special Collections Division where they are identified as part of these papers.

Copyright in the unpublished writings of Ernst Kris in these papers and in other collections in the custody of the Library of Congress is reserved. Consult a reference librarian in the Manuscript Division for further information.

Restrictions apply governing the use, photoduplication, or publication of items in this collection. Consult a reference librarian in the Manuscript Division for information concerning these restrictions.

Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container number, Ernst Kris Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Biographical Note

Scope and Content Note

The papers of Walther Ernst Kris (1900-1957) span the years 1893-1999 with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1940-1956. The collection reflects Kris's activities as educator, psychoanalyst, and author of psychoanalytic theory and focuses primarily on the years following his move to New York in 1940 after emigrating from Austria. The papers include no patient case files except for one case history that is closed, and very little relates to his early career in art history in Vienna. The material is in English and German and is organized in the following series: Family Correspondence, General Correspondence, Speeches and Writings File, and Miscellany.

The General Correspondence includes letters exchanged with professional colleagues, students, institutional organizations, and friends that document Kris's role in the organization of group research projects, academic work, research, and publications. Originally trained in art history, Kris developed an interest in psychoanalysis through his wife, Marianne Kris, a psychoanalyst and friend of Sigmund Freud. He served as a training analyst at the Institute of Psychoanalysis in Vienna and published works on psychoanalytic theory, the creative mind, and art by the insane. In 1938, Kris left Austria with Freud and other associates for London where he organized a program for the British Broadcasting Corporation to monitor and analyze Nazi propaganda broadcasts. After briefly working on a similar task at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Montreal, he settled permanently in New York City, where he served as codirector of the analogous Research Project on Totalitarian Communication. Correspondence with Mark A. Abrams, John Scarlett Alexander Salt, and others in the British Broadcasting files pertains to events in England and Kris's work in Montreal and New York during World War II and includes many personal war stories.

Letters exchanged with Anna Freud and Princess Marie Bonaparte relate mostly to the publication of Sigmund Freud's letters to Wilhelm Fliess in The Origins of Psychoanalysis in 1954. Other widely dispersed members of the Viennese psychoanalytic community are also represented in the correspondence. Letters exchanged with art historian Ernst H. Gombrich, with whom Kris worked on several occasions, reflect his continuing interest in art and the creative process. Organization and planning of projects for the study of infant development and gifted adolescents are documented in the Arthur Davison Ficke Foundation file, and Kris's teaching career is related in files for the College of the City of New York and the New School for Social Research. Correspondents include Siegfried Bernfeld and Suzanne Cassirer Bernfeld, Gertrud Bing, Felix Deutsch and Helene Deutsch, K. R. Eissler and Ruth Selke Eissler, Otto Fenichel, Gladys Ficke, Edward Glover, Phyllis Greenacre, Heinz Hartmann, Willi Hoffer, Ernest Jones, Lawrence S. Kubie, Nathan Constantin Leites, Sándor Lorand, Thomas Mann (1875-1955), Enid McLeod, Margaret Mead (1901-1978), David Rapaport, Hanns Sachs, Raymond de Saussure, Milton J. E. Senn, Hans Speier, René A. Spitz, Lionel Trilling, and Sir John Wheeler Wheeler-Bennett.

The Speeches and Writings File contains reprints of articles and reviews together with typed and handwritten drafts, lecture notes, transcripts of discussion groups, and ancillary material documenting most of Kris's professional career. Articles and reviews pertain to his early career as associate curator at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna in the 1920s and 1930s, and many of the writings reflect the intersection of Kris's two areas of study. The books file includes a typed draft of an unpublished work “Caricature: an Essay on Its History and Meaning,” which Kris co-authored with art historian Ernst H. Gombrich and material related to The Origins of Psychoanalysis which complements the correspondence of Anna Freud and Princess Marie Bonaparte. Research papers issued by the Research Project on Totalitarian Communication relating to psychological analysis of Nazi broadcast propaganda during World War II were funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. A collaborative effort with numerous members, the project was codirected by Kris and Hans Speier and resulted in the publication of German Radio Propaganda in 1944.

The Miscellany series contains awards, biographical material, clippings, immigration and citizenship records, printed matter, and material related to professional appointments and memberships.

Organization of the Papers

The collection is arranged in six series:

• Family Correspondence, 1940-1967, n.d.
• General Correspondence, 1893-1975, n.d.
• Speeches and Writings File, 1900-1996, n.d.
• Miscellany, 1900-1999, n.d.
• Closed, 1940-1967, n.d.
• Oversize, 1937

Description of Series

Container List