The Avis DeVoto Collection

Avis MacVicar DeVoto was born in Houghton, Michigan on May 22, 1904. At the end of her freshman year at Northwestern University, in June 1923, she married Bernard DeVoto who had been her English instructor. The DeVotos remained in Evanston for four years and then moved to Cambridge where Mr. DeVoto was a member of the English Department at Harvard until 1936. With the exception of four years in Lincoln, Massachusetts (1932-1936) and two years in New York City (1936-1938) where Mr. DeVoto was editor of the Saturday Review of Literature, the DeVotos lived in Cambridge. Bernard DeVoto was an historian, literary critic, editor and author of numerous books, including The Year of Decision, Across the Wide Missouri, The Course of Empire and several on Mark Twain (See Who Was Who, 1951-1960). He was the editor of "The Easy Chair" for Harper's Magazine from 1935 until his death in 1955. There are two DeVoto sons, Gordon and Mark. Mrs. DeVoto was an editor, specializing in cookbooks, for Alfred A. Knopf from 1956 to 1958. She held the post of House Secretary in Lowell House at Harvard for the next five years and then worked in the Deans' Office at Radcliffe until her retirement in June 1969.

Mrs. DeVoto handled much of her husband's correspondence during his lifetime, and it was her reply to a letter from Julia Child in Paris addressed to Bernard DeVoto that initiated the correspondence. An Easy Chair column decrying the ubiquitous, dull, stainless steel American paring knife had struck a sympathetic chord in Mrs. Child who decided to contribute a sharp, carbon steel French knife to the DeVoto menage. A close friendship bloomed across the Atlantic, but it was not until two years and some 120 letters later that the two met in Cambridge.

Paul Child was cultural attache with the U. S. Foreign Service until his retirement in 1962; he and his wife lived in Paris, Marseilles, West Germany, Norway and Washington, D. C. While one can follow the evolution of Mastering the Art of French Cooking in these letters, they cover a wide range of topics - McCarthyism, the reaction of Europeans to the Communist hysteria in the United States, the specter of security clearance, the pitfalls and successes of a career in the Foreign Service, as well as pungent comments about the national temperament and character of the French, the Germans, Norwegians, English, not to mention their food. The letters are written by literate and articulate observers, not only of the international scene but also of the local Cambridge community. It would be expected that the social historian of the future will find valuable material concerning attitudes and values in the decade of the 1950's.