The Loren Eiseley Society donates Robert G. Franke's Eiseley Research Collection to the Heritage Room

Robert Franke had a strong interest in religious themes found in the essays and books of anthropologist and naturalist Loren Eiseley. Franke was an early and enthusiastic supporter of the Friends of Loren Eiseley, reorganized recently as The Loren Eiseley Society. The collection includes Franke’s publications, and his notes, proposals, and unpublished manuscripts for sermons, papers and books about Eiseley. Franke's research included numerous interviews and correspondence with Eiseley’s friends and colleagues. Of special interest are a seven page typescript by author Ray Bradbury, giving answers to Franke’s questions, correspondence with writer Annie Dillard and poet Howard Nemerov, and an extensive correspondence with Caroline Werkley, Eiseley’s secretary at the University of Pennsylvania.

Most of the documents in the research files were collected in 1981-1983, but there are later additions and documents overall date from 1959 to 1987. The collection is now in processing, and will be available soon.

The Franke Collection joins the Heritage Room's substantial collection of Eiseley materials, which, anchored by the Gale E. Christianson Collection of Eiseley Research Materials, also includes books owned by Eiseley as a boy, the Nebraska Academy of Science Eiseley Donation, a Library Collection, and the Lazlo Kubinyi Collection of Eiseley Book Illustration.