Oakland University Archives and Special Collections

Table of Contents

Summary Information

Biographical note

Scope and Contents note

Administrative Information

Collection Inventory

Correspondence

Promotional

Events

Audiovisual

Summary Information

Repository

Oakland University Archives and Special Collections

Title

Charles Ferry Papers

ID

OU.SC.FERRY

Date

1975-2000

Extent

4.0 Linear feet

Language

English

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Biographical note

American author Charles Allen Ferry was born on October 8th, 1927 in Chicago, Illinois. Having lived in various cities and states over the course of his life, Ferry’s move in the early 1970s brought him and his wife Ruth to their home in Rochester Hills, Michigan, where he lived until his death on August 16, 2007.

Although known for his work as an author of children’s literature, Ferry’s career began with his service in the U.S. Navy from 1944 until 1949. Following this, Ferry became a student at the University of Illinois in 1952, and worked as a journalist from 1949 until 1971. It was in 1971 that Ferry began writing vignettes based on his childhood growing up in Wisconsin during World War II, a body of work that eventually became his first novel Up in Sister Bay, which was published in 1975.

Ferry’s addiction to alcohol during his younger years was something about which he was very outspoken, using his own experiences as a cautionary tale to adolescents and teenagers. This commitment to educating young people about the dangers of alcoholism culminated in his self-published novella Binge, the semi-autobiographical story of a young man whose excessive drinking causes irrevocable physical and psychological damage to himself and the people he loves. The novella was met with trepidation by more than sixty publishers, who were unnerved by the unflinching depiction of addiction and its consequences and therefore refused to publish it. However, the work was lauded by the American Library Association (ALA) and the National Council of Teachers of English, and Ferry received Best Book awards from both organizations.

Ferry published seven novels for young adults between 1975 and 1998. No stranger to accolades for his publications, Ferry’s books have been awarded honors by several organizations advocating for libraries, teachers, and young readers. His body of work includes the following novels:

Up in Sister Bay (1975); O Zebron Falls! (1977); Raspberry One (1983, Winner of the Best Children's Book award by the Friends of American Writers, Best Books of the Year award by School Library Journal, and Best Books for Young Adults award by the ALA ); One More Time! (1985); Binge (1992, Winner of Best Book for Young Adults award by the ALA, Books for the Teen Age award by the New York Public Library, and Best Book for High School Seniors award by the National Council of Teachers of English); A Fresh Start (1996); Love (1998).

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Scope and Contents note

The Charles Ferry papers contain materials related to the writing, editing, and publication processes for Ferry’s body of work, and his outreach efforts related to his previous struggles with alcoholism and eventual successful sobriety. Although much of the collection consists of paper-based documents (e.g., correspondence, typed drafts, news articles, and so on), other mixed media materials provide additional context into Ferry’s work and relationship with his community in Rochester Hills (e.g., AV materials containing interviews, speaking engagement at Oakland University, etc.).

Ferry donated his papers to the archives on April 16, 1987, meticulously documenting the contents of the collection according to his own inventory list and filing system. Although the following series have been created based on archival best practices, the majority of Ferry’s original notations and arrangement were respected during the collection’s processing.

Items within the records are arranged according to function and have been arranged in five series: Correspondence, Promotional, Publication, Workshop, and Audiovisual.

The Correspondence series contains items related to Ferry’s personal life and published works at various stages of their conception. Due to its volume and diversity of scope, this series has been further arranged into three subseries. Jane M. Bingham: Dr. Jane Bingham served as a professor of education in the department of reading and language arts within Oakland University’s School of Education and Human services. Her long-term correspondence with Ferry inspired a great amount of letters, several speaking engagements to undergraduate classes, and ultimately the donation of Ferry’s papers to the special collections. Publishing: Ferry worked with multiple editors and publishers during the course of his writing career. The documents within this subseries pertain to each of his published works, and are arranged chronologically and in accordance with Ferry’s original arrangement of each folder. Young Readers: Ferry’s novels were written for adolescent and teenage readers, many of whom reached out to him in response to his works. As is the case with all of his letters, Ferry kept careful arrangement of these materials and responded to many of them (although these responses are not contained in this collection). The Promotional series contains materials related to Ferry’s news and outreach activities. In addition to his novels, Ferry contributed to local newspapers in the Rochester Hills area, and was a frequent speaker in libraries, bookstores, and schools across the state. The Publications series contains materials related to each of Ferry’s published works, documenting each one from their conception and first drafts to their editing and eventual publication. The series is further arranged into subseries for each one of Ferry’s novels, which are ordered chronologically by publication date. The majority of these folders have been given the original nominal identification as written by Ferry during the time of its creation. The Events series contains materials related to his work on Writing for a Better You, a workshop for young writers Ferry developed and presented in 1987 and 1988. The Audiovisual series contains items related to Ferry’s various speaking engagements given in Rochester Hills and the surrounding areas during the 1980s and early 1990s.

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Administrative Information

Publication Information

Oakland University Archives and Special Collections

Access and Use note

The Charles Ferry papers are open for research.

Copyright

Copyright has not been transferred to Oakland University. Researchers are responsible for seeking copyright permissions before publishing items from the collection.

Processing

Processed by Emily Benoit, November 2019.

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Collection Inventory