Pitt Library System acquires August Wilson archive

An adage taken from the title of a Thomas Wolfe novel states, “You can’t go home again.” However, August Wilson is doing just that. Or at least his archive is.

The University of Pittsburgh Library System (ULS) has acquired the August Wilson archive with the help of Wilson’s widow, Constanza Romero, executor of the playwright’s estate.

Wilson, a prolific playwright who left his native Pittsburgh in 1978, achieved worldwide acclaim for his American Century Cycle — 10 plays that convey the Black experience in each decade of the 20th century. All 10 have been produced on Broadway and two earned Wilson the Pulitzer Prize for Drama — “Fences” and “The Piano Lesson.”

“This acquisition is about more than bringing August Wilson back home to Pittsburgh,” said Pitt Chancellor Patrick Gallagher. “This archive deftly puts the experiences of Black Americans beneath an intimate magnifying glass and unpacks themes of injustice and inequity that are just as relevant today as when Wilson’s first play debuted.

“The University of Pittsburgh is proud to do our part in keeping August Wilson’s brilliance – for those in Pittsburgh and far beyond – alive, and we are deeply grateful to Constanza for entrusting us with this task.”

Wilson is said to have walked the streets of his Hill District neighborhood as a young man, observing and immersing himself in Black street life and listening to old-timers talk about their daily lives. Those experiences served as inspiration for his plays and gave them the authentic feel that has drawn audiences to his work.

Romero said that as the young Wilson experienced and observed racial injustice, the civil rights movement, and the Black power movement, he grew to be an activist, a poet and an artist producing political theater to bring consciousness to his community.

“The origin of August’s connection with the city of Pittsburgh began with his grandmother Zonia Wilson, who in 1932 came from Spear, North Carolina,” Romero said. “She and her family settled down in the Hill District, which in 1945, the year August was born, was a booming, diverse community.

“He left Pittsburgh in 1978, but he took The Hill, the three rivers, the streets, the steel mills, the fish sandwich shops, and the cadence of the language he heard in cigar stores and barber shops with him.”

Kornelia Tancheva, Hillman University Librarian and director of the ULS, said the August Wilson Archive is the most significant archival collection the University of Pittsburgh has acquired so far.

“It is an immense asset for researchers at Pitt, as well as nationally and internationally,” Tancheva said. “It presents unprecedented opportunities for engagement for our students and the local community, including the local schools. The August Wilson Archive supports our mission of preserving and making accessible the cultural heritage of the region, the country and the world.”

The August Wilson Archive will be housed in a state-of-the-art home in Hillman Library’s renovated Archives & Special Collections, according to Pitt officials.

Processing of the collection, which includes more than 450 boxes of materials, will begin in early 2021

The items include scripts and production materials of Wilson’s American Century Cycle of plays, Wilson’s personal library and music collection, artwork, poetry and unpublished work including non-Cycle plays, speeches, essays and interviews. Other items of interest include his Pulitzer Prize certificates as well as his Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh diploma, given to Wilson in 1989 for using the Carnegie Libraries to educate himself after dropping out of high school.

The ULS plans to make the August Wilson Archive available for research, programming, and engagement to local, national, and international audiences.