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Edmon Low Library
image of Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel

Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel

Special Project – 2019

The Oklahoma State University Library initiated a special project for Oklahoma public, academic and tribal libraries. While supplies last, free posters and books will be available to these libraries at the Oklahoma Library Association conference, March 13–15. The posters highlight Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel’s life and writing, show an award honoring her, list resources and provide information about Oklahoma State Poets Laureate and Oklahoma Book Award Winners for Poetry.

Video titled: Video excerpt from Down an Old Road: The Poetic Life of Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel

Video excerpt from Down an Old Road: The Poetic Life of Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel

About the Collection

Born December 22, 1918, in Lincoln County, Oklahoma, Wilma was the fourth child of Benjamin and Anna McDaniel. She spent her formative years in Creek County, attending schools at Green Ridge and Depew. Around 1936 her sharecropper father moved the family to California. Although McDaniel began writing as a child, she waited until midlife to seek publication. Subsequently, she published over 50 books of poetry and stories. McDaniel deeply loved Oklahoma and her adopted state of California. She continued to write about Oklahoma places and people throughout her lifetime, and she corresponded regularly with many Oklahomans. In California, she was dubbed "The Okie Poet" and was named Tulare Poet Laureate. She passed away April 13, 2007, and was laid to rest in Tulare, California.

This website is created to honor and preserve the legacy of Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel and facilitate research over her life and writing.

In 2007, the Oklahoma State University Library's Oral History Research Program began an oral history research project titled, "Remembering Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel: Poet and Oklahoma Dust Bowl Emigrant." Karen Neurohr, librarian at OSU is the principal investigator. To date, over 26 interviews with family and friends of Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel have been conducted for the library.

In addition to the website, the "Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel" Literary Archive in the OSU Library’s Women's Archives has been created. One focus of the Women's Archives is on collecting materials about Oklahoma women and the Dust Bowl. The library is accepting correspondence, publications, articles, and other items by or about Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel. The items will be preserved and made available for researchers. Gifts about Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel may include correspondence, photographs, diaries, school mementos, scrapbooks, publications, manuscripts and poetry, and reminiscences.

The project has also led to collaborations with other sites that hold literary archives of Wilma, and public programming to help communities learn about her life and legacy. The Oklahoma Humanities Council funded a grant for the OSU Library in the spring of 2009 to help support this project. Librarians from the OSU Library Archives provided assistance for the Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel collections in Oklahoma at the Stroud Public Library and the Lincoln County Museum of Pioneer History. Both of those collections are located at sites with limited funding and staffing. The collections needed preservation activities and supplies, organization, and a finding aid. The funding from the OHC and the work of OSU librarians made the collaboration possible. The Digital Library Services Department of the OSU Library also assisted with preservation and created the website.

In addition to the preservation supplies, the OHC grant helped support three successful public programs over Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel. The programs were coordinated by the OSU Library and held in April 2009. Program locations were the OSU Library in Stillwater, OK; the First Christian Church in Stroud, OK; and the Lincoln County Museum of Pioneer History in Chandler, OK. The programs included keynote speaker Dr. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, a historian and personal friend of McDaniel; film screening of “Down an Old Road: The Poetic Life of Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel,” written and produced by Chris Simon of Sageland Media; and music by The Red Dirt Rangers, a Red Dirt Oklahoma band beloved by McDaniel.

Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel's early life in Oklahoma, her Dust Bowl experience, and her subsequent life in California shaped her writing and help define her. She is a unique and unparalleled voice for the Dust Bowl experience. Even after her death on April 13, 2007, her style and subjects continue to positively influence other writers and readers.

If you have any items about Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel that you would like to donate to the Women's Archives at Oklahoma State University please contact Karen Neurohr at the Oklahoma State University Library. Phone: 405-744-2376. Items will be preserved and made available for researchers.

Oklahoma Oral History Research Program
207 Edmon Low Library
Oklahoma State University
Stillwater, OK 74078
Phone: 405-744-7685
liboh@okstate.edu

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