[Irish Rebellion Ancestry] Playwright, Author, Roosevelt Speech Writer Thanks Knighted Editor

ROBERT EMMET SHERWOOD (April 4, 1896-November 14, 1955) was an American playwright, screenwriter and Franklin Roosevelt’s speechwriter.  He was the son of Arthur Murray Sherwood, a rich stockbroker, and his wife, the former Rosina Emmet, a highly accomplished illustrator and portrait painter. His paternal grandmother was Mary Elizabeth Wilson Sherwood, the author and social leader. He was a great-great-grandson of the former New York State Attorney General Thomas Addis Emmet and a great-grandnephew of the Irish nationalist Robert Emmet, who was executed for high treason after leading the Irish rebellion of 1803. Sherwood was educated at Milton Academy and Harvard University. Sherwood won four Pulitzer Prizes for his plays.  He was actively engaged with the advocacy for writers’ rights within the theatre world.  During World War II, Sherwood set aside his anti-war stance to support the fight against the Third Reich. As Roosevelt’s speech writer, Sherwood originated the phrase “arsenal of democracy,” a frequent catchphrase in Roosevelt’s wartime speeches.

One page, TLS, 8 ½ x 11, Sherwood sends a letter of gratitude to Knighted Editor Randolph E. Haugan, most frequently associated with the series “Christmas: An American Annual Christmas Literature and Art, initiated in 1931, and edited throughout his career, for sending a copy.  “Again, I am greatly in your debt for aiding so much brightness and beauty and warmth to our Christmas with the Augsburg Christmas Annual. I think the latest is perhaps the best of them all. I am particularly admired the superb Durer reproductions and ‘Canadian Winter’ by Garnet Hazard.”

Haugan was knighted by King Haakon VII of Norway during World War II for his service to the American Relief of Norway.

Light toning. Overall excellent and on The Playwrights’ Company letterhead.

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