Antonina Hansell Looker was an author, teacher, and psychiatric worker of Atlanta and Lakemont, Rabun County, Ga., and New York City. Antonina worked as an assistant to various psychiatrists in New York in the late 1930s, and, with her second husband, published a novel, in 1967. Her first husband was John Elwood Macdonald of Frogmore, with whom she had a son James Ross Macdonald. Revolt, Correspondence, writings, financial and legal papers, clippings, diaries, genealogical materials, pictures, and other items documenting Antonina's work as a writer, her work in psychology, her personal and family relationships, her financial and legal affairs, her medical history, and her interests in genealogy. Much material relates to the effects of aging on Antonina and other members of her family. Correspondents include author Leo Buscaglia, poet Howard Nemerov, English professor Howard Mumford Jones, and historian C. Vann Woodward. Psychology materials include papers relating to Antonina's work with servicemen in a Red Cross hospital in Hawaii during World War II and with disturbed children in the 1930s and 1940s, including letters documenting her association with Benjamin Spock and items about her use of music therapy. Antonina's interest in dream therapy is shown in her 1934 dream journal and in her collection of the dreams of others. Also included are materials relating to Antonina's exploration of meditation and psychic power. Family history materials include 19th-century family correspondence of the Looker, Austin, Hansell, and related families, including several letters from William Hansell written during his service in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama in the Civil War. Also included are some papers of Antonina's cousin Atlanta lawyer and writer Edward R. Austin and second husband Reginald Earle Looker.
