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Jack Pfefer Wrestling Collection

The Jack Pfefer Wrestling Collection comprises more than 120 cubic feet of materials accumulated by Pfefer over a 45-year promotional and managerial career in professional wrestling, 1924-1969. Types of materials especially well represented include business and financial records; letters and telegrams; photographs; posters, handbills, and other publicity graphics; newspaper and magazine clippings; and wrestling programs and periodicals. Pfefer himself referred to these items, with characteristic hyperbole, as his "Museum Collection," though he was less a collector in the accepted sense than the seemingly exhaustive preserver of all the records and other documentation—personal papers, printed accounts, and images—relating to his business, and indeed to professional wrestling as a whole. The resulting collection provides both an extensive printed account of American professional wrestling from the 1920s to the 1960s, and an inside look at how the wrestling business was conducted over the same period. Of particular interest are Pfefer's financial records of thousands of bookings and promotions, and his extensive business correspondence (which is almost entirely incoming). Also significant is an accumulation of more than 13,000 photographic prints, mainly publicity portraits, representing most pro wrestlers of note from the late nineteenth to the mid twentieth centuries.

Metadata

Creator
Pfefer, Jack (Jacob), 1894-1974
Date
1913-1974, 1999-2000, 2018
Material Type
Mixed Materials
Genre/Physical Characteristic
Wood blocks (printing blocks)
Dimensions
122.79 Cubic Feet
Identifier
/repositories/3/resources/1548
Campus Location
Rare Books & Special Collections, Hesburgh Libraries
Conditions Governing Access
Folders 3383, 5098-5101, 5105-5111 are restricted
Copyright Status
Copyright
Conditions Governing Use

Copyright status for collection materials is unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user

Immediate Source of Acquisition
Most of the present Jack Pfefer Wrestling Collection was donated to the University of Notre Dame by Eddie M. Einhorn in 1977. Einhorn had purchased the materials from Boston promoter Tony Santos, who had inherited the property at Pfefer's death in 1974. A much smaller collection of miscellaneous Pfefer materials was purchased by Notre Dame from the Santos family in 2010. Other Pfefer materials have appeared on the market over the years; these may or may not have been among the items inherited by Santos
Subject
Wrestling -- History -- 20th century -- Sources
Wrestling matches
Wrestling -- Law and legislation
Pfefer, Jack (Jacob), 1894-1974 -- Archives
Link to Finding Aid
https://archivesspace.library.nd.edu/repositories/3/resources/1548
This digital collection may not include all items or all of the information available about the source collection. See the finding aid for more information.
Contact Us

Our collection information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. If you have spotted an error, please contact Rare Books & Special Collections, Hesburgh Libraries at rarebook@nd.edu.

Dataset not complete. — This content may be only partially digitized.

Related Items

I. Biographical Materials

I. Biographical Materials

II. Promotional Materials

II. Promotional Materials

III. Photographs

III. Photographs

IV. Scrapbooks

IV. Scrapbooks

V. Subject Files

V. Subject Files

VI. Business Records

VI. Business Records

VII. Correspondence

VII. Correspondence

VIII. Graphics

VIII. Graphics

IX. Realia

IX. Realia

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