Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941) was born in the small town of Camden, Ohio to Irwin McClain Anderson (d.1919) and Emma Jane Smith (d.1895). While Anderson excelled as a student, he quit school at the age of 14 to help support his family, taking on a wide variety of jobs. After his mother's death, he relocated to Chicago for the first time, working and taking a few night classes. He served briefly in Cuba during he Spanish-American War, but was sent there after combat had ended. A few months later, he returned to Clyde, then moved to Springfield, Ohio, in 1899, where he completed his senior year at Wittenburg Academy, a prep school. His graduation speech resulted in his being offered a job as an advertising solicitor and he moved to back to Chicago.

In 1903, work travels took him to Toledo, Ohio, where he met Cornelia Pratt Lane, his first wife. The couple married in 1904 and had three children: Robert Lane (1907-1951), John Sherwood (1908-1995) and Marion (Mimi) (1911-1996). In 1906, they relocated to Cleveland when Anderson became the president of the United Factories Company, a mail-order firm. The following year he departed the company, took his family to Elyria, Ohio, and started the Anderson Manufacturing Co., another mail order business.

In 1912, Anderson suffered a nervous breakdown. He returned to Chicago yet again and began work writing advertising copy and becoming part of the writer and artist scene of the city. In 1916, he divorced Cornelia Pratt and married Tennessee Mitchell, a sculptor. He also published his first novel, , the first of three books in a deal with publisher John Lane. It was beginning of his writing career. 1919 saw the publication of his short story collection, , one of his most well-know works. In 1924, he divorced Tennessee Mitchell and marred Elizabeth Prall. They lived in New York and New Orleans, and traveled in Europe, too. With profits from his novel 1925 Dark Laughter, Anderson bought Ripshin Farm, later just Ripshin, as a summer home, in 1926. He also acquired both local newspapers, the and the . His son, Robert, helped with, and eventually took over management of the newspapers in 1929. Around the same time, Anderson began a tour of the south and its factory towns with Eleanor Copenhaver, which shaped several of his later non-fiction publications.

In 1932, Anderson divorced Elizabeth Prall and the following year, married Eleanor Copenhaver (1896-1985). Southwest Virginia was a powerful influence on his later stories and novels. His life in around Marion and Troutdale, Virginia, was the focus of his writing for the newspapers, as well. At the same time, he was still writing novels and short stories for magazines. In 1941, Sherwood and Eleanor Anderson left for a trip to South America. During the trip, after ingesting a toothpick, Anderson developed peritonitis and was hospitalized in Panama, where he passed away on March 8, 1941. He is buried in Round Hill Cemetery in Marion, Virginia.

Over his lifetime, Anderson published 8 novels, 4 collections of short stories, 2 collections of poetry, 1 collection of plays, and 12 works of non-fiction. Following his death, publishers and scholars have produced memoirs, critical editions, and several volumes of his collected letters. During his life, he was influential on the careers of William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway, and maintained extensive correspondence and friendships with authors, artists, publishers, and critics (though he later wrote that he had given up reading reviews).

Eleanor Gladys Copenhaver (1896-1985) was born on June 15, 1896 in Marion, Virginia, to Bascom Eugene and Laura Lu Scherer Copenhaver. Laura Lu's father founded Marion Female College, which was located next door to the family home, "Rosemont." Laura Lu attended Marion College and later taught English there. Her husband, B.E. Copenhaver, first taught at Marion and then became Smyth County superintendent of schools. Eleanor Copenhaver attended Marion College, then Westhampton College in Richmond, completing a B. A. in English in 1917. After spending a year teaching and time as a camp director, she spent more than ten years working for the YWCA, specializing first in rural community organizing and later in industrial communities. During this time, she met and eventually married Sherwood Anderson in 1933.

From 1937 to 1947 Copenhaver Anderson was head of the National YWCA's Industrial Program, later accepting a 2 year assignment abroad. In 1950, she spent a brief time apart from the YWCA, after it ended programs for employed women, but she was re-hired in 1951 for another ten years for the YWCA and United Community Defense Services, until she retired in 1961.

She spent her later life in both New York City and at "Rosemont" and "Ripshin" in Virginia. As the collection suggests, she maintained an active role in scholarship surrounded Sherwood Anderson. She died on September 12, 1985, in Marion, Virginia.

A lengthier biographical note can be found in finding aid for the Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson Papers in the Sophia Smith Collection. The UNC Chapel Hill "Documenting the American South" Collection also includes an oral history interview with Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson from November 5, 1974.

Julius John (J. J.) Lankes was born in 1884 in Buffalo, NY. He began working as a draftsman in 1902, but spent the majority of his professional life known for his woodcuts. His career as an artist spanned decades, during which he created woodcuts and illustrations for authors, among others. In addition to Sherwood Anderson, he worked with Robert Frost and Beatrix Potter. Lankes wrote and illustrated , published by Henry Holt in 1932. In 2006, The University of Tampa published a new edition of this book with selected letters and other writings, edited by Welford Dunaway Taylor. (A copy of the 2006 edition is housed in Special Collections. A copy of the 1932 edition is available at the University Libraries' Art & Architecture Library.) In addition to his illustrations and work as an artist, Lankes taught at Wells College from 1933 to about 1940. From 1943 to 1950, Lankes worked for the reproduction section of the National Advisory Council for Aeronautics (NACA, later NASA). He retired in 1951 and died in April 1960.

The Rauner Special Collections Library of Dartmouth University contains a collection of J. J. Lankes papers. A finding aid for the collection is available online.

Welford D. Taylor is a retired English professor and scholar. Over the course of his career, he published edited volumes of Sherwood Anderson's work and his own research on Anderson, as well as on J. J. Lankes and other authors and topics. Highlights of his books include: , 2013 , 2009 , 1999 , with Charles E. Modlin, 1997 , 1991 , 1981 , 1977

This collection represents his research and accumulated materials pirmarily relating to Sherwood Anderson, J. J. Lankes, and Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson.