Abstract Correspondence from Baltimore journalist, critic, essayist and author H.L. Mencken, largely concerning supplements to his book The American Language. Eighty short letters are mainly addressed to Raven McDavid and several other linguists, while the last twenty, written after his stroke in November 1948, are written by his secretary.

Abstract University of Chicago professor and leading expert on American language, who updated H.L. Mencken's The American Language in 1963, and served as editor of The Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States and The Linguistic Atlas of the North Central States. McDavid's papers include correspondence, work files, manuscripts and page proofs for the Mencken work, the atlases, and McDavid's other projects. Also several files relating to Harold Allen's Linguistic Atlas of the Upper Midwest.