Elizabeth Townsend Gard writes:
January 1, 2006 brought a fresh new crop of unpublished works into the public domain. Now, the unpublished works of anyone dead since 1935 are in the public domain. 17 USC 303(a).Here a a few of the most noteable: Jane Addams, Alfred Dreyfus, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., T. E. Lawrence, Huey Long, Will Rogers, and Henri Barbusse.
More can be found at these websites: NNDB who died in 1935, Wikipedia’s death list of 1935, Who2, politicians who died in 1935, and baseball players who died in 1935.
We need more of these kinds of lists, couple with where the archival papers are kept. This is how to build upon the new unpublished public domain.
Also, we should also be looking to the coming years, as scholars, to see who else’s unpublished works soon enter the unpublished public domain. In 2007 (death date during 1936),this will include Rudyard Kipling, King George V of the United Kingdom, Maxim Gorky, John Heisman, Federico García Lorca, and Luigi Pirandello. In 2008 (death deat during 1937) this will include John D. Rockefeller,Edith Wharton, George Gershwin,and Elihu Root.
But we should also be looking towards spaces that will help us uncover the less well-known deceased for these years. For instance, Winifred Holtby (author; friend of Vera Brittain) died in 1935. How are we to know what other treasures are out there?
Remember that A.E. Housman’s works will also become public domain soon. He died in 1936.