Social Science Research Council

In the fall of 2002, the working group on Cuba undertook a collaborative project to preserve, conserve, and reformat the papers, books, and photographs of Ernest Hemingway housed at the Hemingway Museum at Finca Vigía, the Nobel Prize-winning author's former residence outside of Havana.

On November 11, 2002, Dr. Marta Arjona Perez, President of the National Council of the Cuban Cultural Patrimony, and Eric Hershberg of the SSRC, signed an agreement of cooperation, thereby launching the project at a ceremony held at Finca Vigía. Other partner institutions include the Hemingway Museum, the Cuban Ministry of Culture, the Northeast Document Conservation Center, the Center for Research Libraries, and the John F. Kennedy Library. A number of individuals have also played key roles in the initiative's development, including Congressman James McGovern (D-MA), Jenny and Frank Phillips (the Hemingway Preservation Foundation), Sandra Spanier (Hemingway scholar), and Deborah Leff (Director of the Kennedy Library).

The collection at Finca Vigía includes 3,000 of Hemingway's personal photographs, 2,000 letters, and several draft fragments of his novels and stories, including the beginning of a rejected epilogue to For Whom the Bell Tolls and handwritten pages of earlier versions of the novel. The letters are from a host of famous literary and other figures of the early and mid-20th century, including Ezra Pound, Max Perkins, and Ingrid Bergman. Also of great interest is Hemingway's 9,000-book library, significant because Hemingway often wrote his thoughts and even composed letters in the margins of his books. Some books contain inscriptions from authors such as Ezra Pound and Martha Gellhorn.

Climate and other factors have left many of these materials in a fragile state demanding emergency treatment to ensure the preservation of this key resource in American letters. Specialists from the Northeast Document Conservation Center and the Center for Research Libraries have assessed the collection of documents and constructed a detailed conservation and scanning workplan. In broad terms, the project will begin with the restoration and rehousing of the materials, after which specialists will create digital images by scanning most materials and using a digital camera to capture images of oversized or irregular materials. The digital images will then be transported to the US, where they will be converted to preservation-quality microfilm. A digital and/or microfilm copy will be housed at the Kennedy Library, as well as at the Hemingway Museum in Cuba. The materials themselves will be rehoused in acid-free archival envelopes and boxes, and stored at the Hemingway Museum in facilities being constructed for this purpose by the Museum.

The working group is pleased and honored to have the opportunity to undertake this effort in collaboration with our institutional partners, both in Cuba and in the United States. Funding for the project has been provided by the Hemingway Preservation Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Bay Foundation, the Peck Stacpoole Foundation, and private donors.