Dean’s three-ring binder from 5th grade, 6.75 x 10, with five sheets of lined loose leaf paper written on by Dean, featuring a total of 12 practice signatures in various forms, personal information, schoolwork and doodles. Dean first filled out his personal information inside the back cover, writing his name, school, class, and address: “Jimmie Dean, West Ward, 5, Jonesboro R #1, Fairmount.” The first sheet bears an amazing eight practice signatures, including: four neatly signed “Jimmie Dean”; two apparently signed in his left hand in the same manner, “Jimmie Dean”; two signed “Jimmie,” arranged so that they overlap in the form of an ‘X’; two signed “Jim”; one signed “Jimmie”; and one signed with just an initial, “J.” On the reverse of this sheet, Dean penned some geography schoolwork consisting of two lists of the New England States, their capitals, and their abbreviations. The first contains numerous spelling errors, including “Mane,” “Virmount,” “Masstucukes,” “Rode,” and “Connnicut”; the second list is a corrected version of the same.
The second sheet with the most writing is a list of 35 words, probably a spelling exercise dictated by his teacher. Among the 35 words Dean writes are "arrived," "awful," "color," "guest," "straight," "struck," "dreadful," "breath," "space," "dream," and "clearly." The words he had the most difficulty with seem to be 'secret' and 'describe,' writing the series "serer," "serc," "secret," and "describle," "desc," "descrebe," "descreb," "describe." On the reverse is a brief geography quiz penned in pencil by one of his classmates, Eddie Van Ness, who dated it December 22, 1941.
A third page contains a chart drawn in pencil by Dean and six of his doodles at the bottom. The chart is headed with the days of the week, and lists a series of hygienic details, with Dean filling in or checking off boxes corresponding with his daily routine. The categories read: "Teeth, W Hair, Bath, H & face, Milk, Arise, Retire, Break, No Coffee, Weigh, C Hair." Under "Arise" he notes that he woke up at 6:25 on Monday and Tuesday, and 5:45 on Wednesday; under "Retire" he lists bedtimes of 8:45 on Monday and 9:30 on Tuesday. He also maintained a weight of 79 pounds throughout the week and rarely bathed. Below the chart are Dean's sketches and doodles, including: three ghosts in pencil; two dotted amoeba-shaped subjects in pencil, one filled in with ink; and a detailed bust portrait in pencil of an eerie figure with large oval eyes, short hair, and dotted open collared shirt.
The remaining three pages are less substantial: on one, Dean outlined a similar chart listing the days of the week, but did not fill it out; the reverse bears another student's schoolwork about Lewis and Clark. On another, Dean has written in ink “Bab / Baffer / Babbler / babbler,” and in pencil, “babbler / baffle"; another spelling test in the hand of Eddie Van Ness is on the reverse of this sheet. The final page is a smaller printed weekly to-do list on which Dean drew vertical lines to create a chart, filling out one row in ink with “Milk,” “Bcts,” “No coffee tea,” “CH,” and “WH.”
Some sheets have various creases and small tears from general use, otherwise overall fine condition. Dean's binder also holds an additional 11 loose leaf sheets with schoolwork by classmates Virginia Payne and Eddie Van Ness, but none are written on by Dean.
After Dean's mother died in 1940, his father, unable to care for the nine-year-old alone, sent him to be raised by his sister and her husband, Ortense and Marcus Winslow, in Fairmount, Indiana. Here Jimmy Dean was overcome by loneliness from the loss of his mother and felt abandoned by his father—a distance that grew when the elder Dean was drafted into the Army Medical Corps at the outset of World War II, during the same period that this schoolwork is from. The distress Dean experienced as he struggled to find himself is palpable, signing his name over and over as he seeks an identity—is he "Jimmie Dean," "Jim," "Jimmie," or "J"? Is he lefty or righty? What is his daily routine? As time progressed, he began to call the Winslows 'Mom and Dad,' and emulated much of his uncle's style and mannerisms—he began wearing a t-shirt and blue jeans, and slouched a bit when he walked. In addition to the general interest as very early material from the Hollywood icon's life, it comes from a pivotal moment during Dean's formative years as he began to grow into the man he would become. In 1941, the ten-year-old James Dean performed in his very first play, entitled 'To Them That Sleep in Darkness.'
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