Title and statement of responsibility area
Title proper
Howard O'Hagan fonds
General material designation
- Graphic material
- Textual record
Parallel title
Other title information
Title statements of responsibility
Title notes
- Source of title proper: Titled based on contents of fonds.
Level of description
Fonds
Reference code
Edition statement
Edition statement of responsibility
Class of material specific details area
Statement of scale (cartographic)
Statement of projection (cartographic)
Statement of coordinates (cartographic)
Statement of scale (architectural)
Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)
Dates of creation area
Date(s)
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1931 - 1981 (Creation)
Physical description area
Physical description
1.1 m of textual records
ca. 100 photographs
Title proper of publisher's series
Parallel titles of publisher's series
Other title information of publisher's series
Statement of responsibility relating to publisher's series
Numbering within publisher's series
Note on publisher's series
Archival description area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Howard O'Hagan was born in Lethbridge, Alberta, on 17 February 1902, the only son of Dr. Thomas O'Hagan and Mary McNabb. When he was eighteen he moved with his parents and sister to Jasper, where his father was the doctor at Jasper Park Lodge. Howard worked in Jasper for several years as a mountain guide. In the mid-1920's he attended McGill University in Montreal, first studying political science under Stephen Leacock and later working toward a law degree. After leaving McGill O'Hagan turned down promising jobs, preferring to travel. He worked as a reporter in Australia and a publicity man for a railroad company in Argentina, and came in contact with a wide variety of people, including native Indians and pioneers. In the early 1930's he attended the University of California at Berkeley and there met Margaret Peterson, "a tall blonde who became my destiny", whom he married a few years later. They had no children.
They lived at Berkeley where Margaret taught art for 22 years, but in the early 1950's she resigned in protest over the McCarthy controversies and never taught at Berkeley again. She and O'Hagan went to New York, where Margaret staged a successful one-person exhibition of her paintings. After a brief sojourn in Central America they moved to Vancouver Island, living for five years at Green Point near the Cowichan River and then moving to Victoria in 1958. In 1963 they went to Sao Paolo, where Margaret had been chosen as one of four Canadians represented at their Bienniale; in 1964 they went to Italy where Margaret studied mosaic techniques on a Canada Council grant, and lived at Lingua on the island of Salina for the next 11 years. They returned to Victoria in the mid-1970's. O'Hagan began writing in the 1930's; his novel, Tay John, was published in London in
1939 and remains one of his best-known works. He also published two collections of short stories, Wilderness Man (1958) and The Woman Who Got on at Jasper Station (1963). O'Hagan corresponded with many fellow writers (including Gary Geddes and George Woodcock) and was admired by his peers, but his work never achieved the wide recognition many people felt it deserved. O'Hagan received an honourary doctorate degree at McGill University in June 1982, and died in Victoria in the autumn of that year. O'Hagan's widow, Margaret Peterson, now lives in Sidney, B.C.
Custodial history
Scope and content
The fonds consists of personal, business and publishing correspondence (1953-1982), and also five handwritten letters to Arthur William Wallace (1931-1978); typescripts of O'Hagan's unpublished autobiography, proposed novels and unpublished short stories and articles; notes, variant drafts and page proofs of "The School-Marm Tree"; photographs of O'Hagan and other O'Hagan family members and friends; published articles about O'Hagan and his work, programmes of ceremonies, greeting cards, and bibliography of O'Hagan's works; audio tape interview with O'Hagan, conducted by E.J. Hart in Victoria. Also included is a small amount of Margaret Peterson (O'Hagan) material, consisting of a typescript of "My Life With Howard O'Hagan" and manuscript poetry drafts.
Notes area
Physical condition
Immediate source of acquisition
Arrangement
Language of material
Script of material
Location of originals
Availability of other formats
Restrictions on access
Terms governing use, reproduction, and publication
Finding aids
Finding aid available with series and file level control.
Generated finding aid
Associated materials
Accruals
Alternative identifier(s)
Standard number
Access points
Subject access points
Place access points
Name access points
- Peterson, Margaret, 1902-1997 (Subject)
- O'Hagan (family) (Subject)
Control area
Description record identifier
Institution identifier
Rules or conventions
Status
Final
Level of detail
Full
Dates of creation, revision and deletion
Revised by JF, July 10, 2013.
Language of description
- English
Script of description
Sources
Digital content metadata
Filename
o-hagan_inventory.pdf
Latitude
Longitude
Media type
Text
Mime-type
application/pdf