This series contains all of Breig's pre-1975 manuscripts, offprints and clippings as well as clippings of many of his later writings. The rest of the clippings and manuscripts for the 1975-1981 period are found in the CHRONOLOGICAL FILE.
The manuscripts of five books (The Devil You Say, A Halo For The Father, Life With My Mary, The Family And The Cross, and Mysteries Of Marriage) can be found in BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS. Included with the manuscripts are disassembled scrapbooks (now in folders) and other related materials like promotion portfolios, reviews, correspondence, and clippings. For God In Our House and My Pants When I Die the manuscripts have not survived, but there are scrapbooks, promotion portfolios, etc. As a matter of form those have been filed in this sub-series. A folder of pamphlets by Breig concludes this sub-series. Some of these pamphlets are reprints of magazine articles and some of them have been written with the support of these magazines and newspapers.
The UNPUBLISHED BOOKS AND ABANDONED WRITINGS sub-series consists of five manuscripts of unpublished books and three unfinished book manuscripts. Most of these manuscripts are undated. For the unpublished books Breig couldn't find a publishing house. He abandoned the other manuscripts because he found out that mystery novels weren't his strength or because he didn't get anywhere with his topic. Most of these manuscripts are annotated by Breig.
PLAYS contains three manuscripts (The Pump, The New Sin, Stars In The Earth). Breig wrote The Pump while he still was at Notre Dame. It was put on stage there also. His play The New Sin appeared on the stage in Pittsburgh. There are several articles about this play in the PERSONAL MATERIAL series in the Clippings about Joseph Breig folder (box 10, folder 32). The remaining play Stars In The Earth was, according to Breig, never produced.
The SHORT STORIES sub-series consists of several manuscripts and two printed short stories. In his annotation to "The End Of The Old Women" Breig wrote that among all his writings this is his favorite. The two printed stories were published while he was still a student at Notre Dame. One appeared in the Notre Dame Anthology (1927) the other one in Stepping Stones to Catholic Classics (1926). The last folder contains several undated short stories, some of which are also untitled.
The most extensive sub-series is ARTICLES, BOOK REVIEWS, AND COLUMNS IN NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES. It is divided between newspapers and magazines. Newspapers manuscripts, carbons, and clippings come first and are followed by their magazine counterparts. The newspaper part has been further divided into articles, book reviews, and columns sections. This distinction has not been made for the magazines.
The carbons of newspaper articles (3") are mostly undated. The exception is a folder with unpublished articles from the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph which is dated from around 1942. Clippings of newspaper articles embrace the years 1945-1974. Some articles can also be found in a scrapbook that likewise contains book reviews and another folder with articles and book reviews. Those two folders (box 5, folders 15 and 16) have been filed with the book reviews.
Breig wrote many book reviews which were for the most part, published by the NC News Service. There are therefore two folders (1.5") with NC News Service wire-service print-outs in this sub-series. Books he reviewed were about the Near East Crisis, the press and the media in general, religion, and politics.
Manuscripts and clippings of newspaper columns (2') account for the bulk of material in this sub-series. There are undated manuscripts of columns Breig wrote for the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, carbons of columns for the Cleveland Catholic Universe Bulletin for the years 1947-1948, mostly undated carbons of his syndicated weekly columns, and manuscripts of columns for 1974-1975. Following the carbons and manuscripts one can find an almost complete set of clippings of his columns in various newspapers from 1940 until 1981.
In the early years while he still worked at the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph the topics of his columns tended to be secular. With his move to the Universe Bulletin his columns concentrated more on religious topics, but he still commented on current political issues and other things that interested him. Otherwise the topics are not different from those described in the CHRONOLOGICAL FILE series, above.
There are some folders that contain only columns about special subjects. One is about an abandoned child (box 5, folder 35), one is about Joseph Breig's trip to Israel, 1968 (box 6, folder 51),and the last is about American Catholic intellectual inferiority (box 6, folder 71). At the end of the columns section there is a folder with clippings of readers' letters on Breig's columns (box 6, folder 72).
At the beginning of the magazine manuscripts and clippings section (1'7") one can find two small folders with clippings of Breig's articles in his high school and college papers (the Spectator and the Scholastic). He was editor of both papers. These are followed by a list of articles which Breig sent to various Catholic magazines. The list embraces the years 1943-1950. It is not clear that this a comprehensive list of his articles for the period. Breig wrote articles for a large number of Catholic magazines. In contrast to the order of the newspaper writings section, manuscripts and clippings of magazine articles are all filed together by magazine. Many of the manuscripts are undated and not all of the magazines have manuscripts or clippings accompanying them. Most of the articles are from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s and only some are from the 1970s and 1980s.
The end of this sub-series is formed by twelve folders of miscellaneous writings (3.75"). It is impossible to determine where these have been published, or even if they have been published, as many of them are untitled and undated. These writings are about the same subjects as his columns and range from 1939 to 1975.
SPEECHES is the last sub-series of this series. It contains two folders (1") with manuscripts of different speeches that Breig gave at various occasions. Most of the speeches are identified as to time and place of delivery. Sometimes Breig annotated them for explanation, as well. The time span ranges from 1951 until 1975.