Conditions Governing Use

Copyright restrictions may apply. Unpublished manuscripts are protected by copyright. Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository and the copyright holder.

Custodial History

These materials are from the estate of Debbie Marchand, granddaughter of Hazel Paris Cederborg. They were acquired at auction by Wellesley College, and later this portion was transferred to the University of Richmond in 2016. Materials about Wellesley College were retained by their archives.

Preferred Citation

[Box Number, Folder Number], MS- 33, Hazel V. Paris Cederborg Collection, Book Arts, Archives, & Rare Books, Boatwright Memorial Library, University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Materials in this collection were transferred from Wellesley College in 2016.

Processing Information

Processed by Maelyn Cable.

Biographical / Historical

Hazel Paris Cederborg was born in 1892 to Charlotte G. Paris and Raphael D. Paris. Throughout her life she worked in education in various forms from elementary to collegiate level. She earned a B.A. (1915) and M.A. in Education from Wellesley College. She taught in New England, Virginia, and Illinois. Hazel is most famously known from authoring Bunny Polka Dot and The Little Red Wagon. She was also an assistant professor of English at Westhampton College in the 1920s.

Her interest in writing first began when her son was a young boy and she discovered she was having a hard time locating interesting educational material for him to read. At the time she was friends with an established author who agreed she had a talent for writing and encouraged her to pursue it. When she first started out she struggled getting her stories published. One of her rejections was from McLoughlin Bros. Inc. in 1940, in which they stated they already had too many animal stories for this year and maybe she should submit her material in the following year. In 1942 she was rejected by Farm Journal and Farmer's Wife because her material was too similar to what they were already publishing. This process would repeat itself all the way into 1949 when she was rejected by Grosset and Dunlap. During this time, she was careful to take notes and learn from her mistakes. She did publish a few stories during this time to The American Home for example, however she was still learning the times that were best to submit. Many times she was simply rejected because she submitted her material at the wrong time of year for the publications. Eventually, she came to understand the publication process and was publishing multiple stories a year. Early on in the process she did get an article published in Writer's Monthly in 1941 entitled, "What the Editor Wants." This article discussed her process when planning to submit an article for publication and what an editor expects to see.

Throughout her life, she wrote numerous articles, informal essays, short stories, articles on family life, and articles for both adults and children. When developing a story, Hazel didn't like to waste paper, so she would use scrap material from her education position to plan out the story before typing. She was a large advocate for immersing children in day to day activities. In Christian Home in 1940 she discussed bringing children into the kitchen and allowing them to participate in meal preparation. She stressed the importance of patience in the parent and allowing the child to learn and use their creativity to solve the problem in front of them. In her later articles she focused on how parents can better understand their teenage children.

After working in higher education, she realized she missed working with young children and took a job in elementary education in District 109 in Deerfield, Illinois. She retired in 1962 but kept working on stories for different organizations well into 1974, such as a biography for Joseph Laurent. She passed away in Feb. 1975 in Highland Park, Illinois.

Scope and Contents

The collection is divided into 2 series, and 7 subseries.

Series I, Short Stories, contains stories written by Hazel Paris Cederborg for young children focusing around life lessons.

Subseries IA, Unpublished Drafts and Notes, includes stories that were in the planning process or ideas that had yet to be put in some order. These particular stories have topics focusing around family life and many use animals to teach life lessons. A large part of this section contains materials on the Prince of Whales and the planning materials for a story.

Subseries IB, Published Short Stories, contains stories that were published into newspapers, story collections, or books. The first part of this section is large children's storybooks where Hazel Paris Cederborg has one to seven short stories published in each one. In the front of the folders are copies of the stories specifically published by Cederborg. Following the storybooks are published articles to smaller collections or newspapers. The main items in this section are The Little Red Wagon and Bunny Polka Dot.

Subseries IC, Historical and Factual Short Stories, includes short stories based with historically accurate information and focused around living or deceased individuals. These stories were requested by another party to be written by Hazel Paris Cederborg and mainly focus around Somerville, Massachusetts where Cederborg lived for a short time growing up.

Series II, Personal Papers and Family Information, includes information in the collection that was collected by Hazel or other family members pertaining to research or family information including Hazel's retirement.

Subseries IIA, Research, includes items that contain research ideas for unnamed stories.

Subseries IIB, Personal Papers and Items, includes items such as files pertaining to the Westhampton Anniversary Party in 1964, articles containing information about Emil W. Cederborg and Hazel Paris Cederborg, and items held in the procession of the Cederborgs. Towards the end of this section are items that Hazel used for aids in the classroom and items from her desk.

Subseries IIC, Family Information and Photographs, contains items relating to family history. This section is largely comprised of family photographs.

Subseries IID, Scrapbooks, includes scrapbooks created by Hazel Paris Cederborg that contain clippings of articles and stories she published to various sources. At the end of the section are two photo albums; one has the childhood of Hazel and the other of her children.

Arrangement

This collection is arranged into 2 series, with 7 total subseries:

Series I: Short Stories Subseries IA: Unpublished Drafts and Notes Subseries IB: Published Short Stories Subseries IC: Historical and Factual Short Stories Series II: Personal Papers and Family Information Subseries IIA: Research Subseries IIB: Personal Papers and Items Subseries IIC: Family information and Photographs Subseries IID: Scrapbooks

Related Material

Wellesley College featured material from their collection of Hazel Paris Cederborg materials in their 2016 spring newsletter .

Separated Material

Copies of The Little Red Wagon and Bunny Polka Dot , both by Hazel Cederborg, have been added to the Historical Children's Literature Collection in the Galvin Rare Book Room.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Cederborg, Hazel Paris, 1892-1975
• Ephemera
• Marchand, Debbie
• Nonbook Materials
• Photograph albums
• Photographs
• Publications
• Scrapbooks
• Short story
• Wellesley College
• Westhampton College (Richmond, Va.)