The Jack Schaefer Collection
Jack
Schaefer (1907-1991) was born in Lakewood, Ohio to a household of
avid readers. His childhood love of reading was put to good use when he
studied English, Classics, and creative writing at Oberlin College, where
he received his bachelor's degree in 1929. After that, Schaefer began
graduate studies at Columbia University intending to become a professor.
When the faculty at Columbia disapproved of Schaefer's master's thesis
proposal on the development of motion pictures, Schaefer left academia.
He moved to Connecticut, where he was the assistant director of the Connecticut
State Reformatory, and where he began a career in journalism, writing
for the United Press and editing for the New Haven Journal Courier, and
other newspapers. Schaefer also contributed many book reviews, specializing
in those to do with American history. He began writing fiction in the
1940s as an evening pass-time. In 1949, his first novel, Shane,
was published, and it remains his most famous work. The book was instantly
popular, and allowed Schaefer to quit journalism and devote all of his
time to fiction. In 1953, Shane was made into a landmark motion
picture by director George Stevens.
Although Shane is a Western, Schaefer had never actually visited the West. However, in the mid-1950s, Schaefer moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he stayed until his death in 1991. Schaefer continued to write novels set in the West, even though in 1961 he declared the Western genre dead, and wrote instead about the negative effects of man on the Western environment.
Special Collections houses nearly 200 volumes of Jack Schaefer's work, including first editions of all thirteen of his novels, his many short stories, and even some of his newspaper and magazine articles. Also included are editions of Schaefer's works in twenty-four different languages. Oberlin College Archives also maintains Schaefer's alumni file, which includes articles in student publications by and about Schaefer and other ephemera collected by the Alumni Association. Schaefer wrote extensively for a student publication "The Shaft" from 1926 to 1928.