Macdonald-Kelce Library Blog

Blanche Yurka

Recently, UTampa senior and museum studies major, Ava McGee finished her program’s capstone project here at the Macdonald-Kelce Library (MKL).  Her project consisted of three components all focused on the collection of materials in MKL’s Special Collections & Archives called the Blanche Yurka Papers. 

Blanche Yurka was one of the foremost American stage actresses of the 20^th century. During the 1960s, she visited the University of Tampa as an artist-in-residence, teaching classes and performing on campus and in the city. She started the Blanche Yurka Awards here at UTampa that annually awarded two students for excellence in speech and theater.  In 1967, the university awarded her with an honorary degree.  So taken, was she with the university that her relationship with it culminated in the gifting of her personal papers to it in 1968. 

The Blanche Yurka Papers are a trove of American theater history with not only photographs, scrapbooks, writings and correspondence of Blanche Yurka, but also a chronicle of other American theater notables of the day, including David Belasco, Bertha Kalich, Brooks Atkinson, John Barrymore, et al. 

A large portion of the Blanche Yurka Papers consist of scrapbooks assembled by the artist herself. Time has treated them poorly, as old scrapbooks are notoriously acidic and the pages, and anything pasted on them, degrades over time.  For that reason, one of Ava’s jobs was to preserve, and in some instances restore five of the many scrapbooks in the collection. The books contained photos, news clippings, theatre programs, notes from admirers, etc. 

Working with Albana Stavro the library’s paper preservationist, Ava cleaned the books with preservation tools like soot erasers and paper and book cleaner.  In other instances, she humidified the pages until the clippings, photographs, etc., could be removed, and then remounted them on acid-free paper thereby recreating the book page-for-page, only this time on acid-free paper.  The work was remarkable as evidenced in some of Ava's before and after images (below).

Next, Ava researched the life and career of Blanche Yurka; chose images, objects, and other documents, and created text all for a library exhibit that will be up through spring semester, 2025.

Thank you Ava for the tremendous work!  And we encourage everyone to stop in on the MKL first floor and take a look at the exhibit. In addition, though the Blanche Yurka Papers are not physically arranged or completely inventoried yet, they can be accessed under the supervision of the Special Collections & Archives Librarian. Just call 813.257.3737or email gpasi@ut.edu to make an appointment.