John Crowe Ransom, noted poet, critic, educator and editor, was born April 30, 1888 in Pulaski, Tennessee. He graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1909, was a Rhodes Scholar at Christ Church, Oxford, 1910-1913, and joined the faculty of Vanderbilt in 1914, where he taught English until 1937. While at Vanderbilt, Ransom was a major figure in the Fugitive and Agrarian Groups and their publications, The Fugitive (1922-1925) and I'll Take My Stand (1930). In 1937, Ransom accepted a position at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio as professor of poetry and later founded and edited an important literary quarterly, The Kenyon Review (1939-1959). Ransom retired in 1959, but remained active in literary pursuits until his death in 1974 at the age of eighty-six. His works of poetry include Poems About God (1919), Chills and Fever (1924), and Selected Poems (1945, 1963, 1969).

The collection consists primarily of correspondence and manuscripts produced during Ransom's retirement (1959-1974), although important earlier materials are included, such as Ransom's letters to his wife, Robb Reavill Ransom, dated 1920-1938. Also included are class rolls, clippings, family records, financial records, Kenyon College items, lecture notes, memorabilia, photographs, programs, publications, recommendations, and school catalogs. There are also a few scattered older pieces of incoming correspondence, such as a 1917 letter from Macmillan rejecting the manuscript which was eventually published as Poems About God. Transcripts of telegrams from various notable persons honoring Ransom on the occasion of his departure from Vanderbilt in 1937 are also preserved here.