The Harley Hammerman Collection on Eugene O’Neill opened for research in 2019, thereby  making Washington University in St. Louis a major center for O’Neill studies in the world. The impressive collection of over 110 linear feet is the result of decades of collecting and cataloging by WashU alumnus Harley Hammerman, M.D. The collection includes key first editions and significant association copies of O’Neill’s published works, original correspondence, manuscripts and typescripts by O’Neill, documents related to productions of his plays, vintage photographs of O’Neill and his immediate family, ephemera and artifacts related to premiere productions, a website dedicated to the study of O’Neill, and much more.

HARLEY HAMMAERMAN'S STUDY

Inspired by his 10th grade English teacher at University City High School, Harley Hammerman became interested in Eugene O’Neill at a young age and has been studying and promoting the playwright’s life and work via “The Hammerman Collection,” which he built over fifty years and documented on eoneill.com. As he says on his site (now archived at Washington University): The Hammerman Collection is…an attempt to understand O'Neill. It undertakes to "collect" O'Neill -- to capture the man and, thereby, capture an appreciation of his work. 

Hammerman currently focuses his attention on his website, Lost Tables, which documents the culinary history of St. Louis via menus, photographs and other memorabilia from closed restaurants along with essays written by Harley about each one.