Researching 1959

Fred Kaplan worked in the Ransom Center’s Reading and Viewing Rooms while researching his book 1959: The Year Everything Changed, which was released last month. He describes his work at the Center:

I came down to the Harry Ransom Center for a few days in the summer of 2008 as part of my research for a book that wound up being titled 1959: The Year Everything Changed (Wiley, 2009). I focused mainly on the papers of Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsberg. Without the materials that I found there, my book would have been less rich and complete than it is. Certain letters and diary entries in the Mailer papers forced me to revise my concept and chronology of where and when Mailer acquired or devised some of his most original and influential ideas. Poring through the Ginsberg papers, I was hoping to find connections between his poetry and two excitements of the era: jazz and space exploration. I found both.