PCL MS 026 Susy Smith Collection

In 1969, Susy Smith first began transferring her manuscripts to the Browne Popular Culture Library, Bowling Green State University. This collection is open for research, but the photocopying of manuscripts must comply with applicable copyright laws. This register was compiled by Nancy White Lee, Popular Culture Library Associate II, in June 1986, revised in July 1992, and updated in August 2009 by Patricia Falk.

Addendum completed December 1991 by Susan Irwin, Graduate Library Assistant, Browne Popular Culture Library.

Susy Smith was born on June 2, 1911, in Washington, D.C. She attended the University of Texas, 1929-1932, 1933-1934, and the University of Arizona, 1932-1933 where she majored in journalism. She was married to M.L. Smith in 1934, they later divorced. While living in Salt Lake City, Utah, she worked as a columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune and as a free-lance writer for the Desert News. In 1955, Smith successfully "contacted" her mother with a Ouija board and henceforth her interest flourished in the field. Gripped by the challenge of ESP and its related areas, she gave up all other endeavors to concentrate her interest in the study of psychic phenomena. She worked at Dr. J. B. Rhine's Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. She received numerous grants from the Parapsychology Foundation in New

In her earlier writing, Smith showed particular talent for taking the scientific material from the records of psychical research and putting it into an entertaining form that turned documented facts into fascinating reading. Her last three books, however, were of a more philosophical nature, because gradually over the years she became convinced of the possibility of spirit communication and recorded the information she received via this technique. In publicizing her works, she appeared on the "Today Show," Jack Paar's Tonight Show," the "David Susskind Show," "To Tell the Truth," "What's My Line," "Not for Women Only," and numerous radio programs. Seven of her books were translated into foreign languages, and one was put into Braille. She was listed in Who's Who in American Women, Contemporary Authors, Prominent Women in Communications, Two Thousand Women of Achievement, Who's Who In Parapsychology and others.

Smith was the founder and first president of the Survival Research Foundation, established in 1971 in Tucson, Arizona. This foundation conducts experiments and subsidizes and assists in the procuring of scientific evidence for conscious survival of the human spirit after death.

Over the years, Smith had been a member of the American Association of University Women, The National League of American Pen Women, The Business and Professional Women's Club, The Pilot Club, The American Society for Psychical Research, Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship, The Society for Psychical Research, Association for Research and Enlightenment, Author's Guild, and Chi Omega. Additionally, she was a past president of the 125-member Society of Southwestern Authors. Smith died on February 11, 2001.

The Susy Smith Collection houses the literary manuscripts for some of her books. This collection includes printer's manuscripts and original edited typewritten manuscripts for Smith's 1971 book Confessions of a Psychic, as well as typewritten manuscripts with handwritten corrections for five other works relating to psychic phenomena including her latest donation Ghost Writers in the Sky.

Those interested in psychic research will find this collection of research value.

Literary Productions

Series

Manuscripts, Literary

1966-1967; 1970-1974, 1990

Arranged alphabetically by title of-the work

This series includes manuscripts for books.

The following books have been transferred from the collection to the Browne Popular Culture Library main stack area. Call numbers for these books maybe found in the BGSU Libraries catalog or by clicking on the titles below.

• ESP for the Millions
• Ghosts Around the House
• Life is Forever: Evidence for Survival
• Out-of-Body Experiences for the Millions