John (Jack) Ackerson and Katharine Bowen Ackerson, 1919

This collection contains correspondence, manuscripts, reviews, photographs, a lock of hair, and a scrapbook relating to the life and career of John Thaddeus "Jack" Ackerson, (1898-1975), who published radical antiwar poetry under the name George Jarrboe after his naval service during World War I and II. Ackerson wrote the chapbook "The Unknown Soldier Speaks" and many other pieces of writing under this pseudonym.

The bulk of the collection consists of 500 letters. Most of the correspondence is between Ackerson, his girlfriend and then-wife Katharine Bowen, and his immediate family; 137 are letters written by Ackerson himself. Other correspondents include Frank di Gioia, Agnes Inglis, Robert O. Erisman, James Neill Northe, Masaki Ikeda, F.V. Lamsin, Fernand Jouan, Howard Fast, Mary Minter Miles, Edith Barnard Delano and Harriet T. Hassell among others. Also included are a scrapbook and several letters about Ackerson's poetry and the release and reception of his chapbook, "The Unknown Soldier Speaks", twenty-four manuscripts, seven typescripts, and approximately twenty-five family documents. A 1929 copy of "Unrest" and a 1945 copy of "Anchor with a laurel wreath" were removed and are cataloged separately.