P. J. Capelotti Papers


University Archives and Special Collections
15 Lippitt Road
Kingston, RI 02881-2011
Tel: 401-874-4632

email: archives@etal.uri.edu

Published in 2009

Collection Overview

Title: P. J. Capelotti Papers
Date range: 1941-2000, (bulk 1960-1984)
Creator: Capelotti, P. J. (Peter Joseph), 1960-
Extent: 6 linear feet
7 box(es)
Abstract: P. J. Capelotti was a student, writer, and naturalist. Of particular interest in this collection is Capelotti's correspondence with author Norman Mailer. Also included are family records, manuscripts of articles by Capelotti, and research materials for Capelotti's books.
Language of materials: English
Repository: University Archives and Special Collections
Collection number: Mss. Gr. 45

Scope & content

This collection is arranged in four series. The first series, Personal Papers, contains Capelotti's family records and personal correspondence. The second series contains manuscripts of articles, essays, and four unpublished books, The Panacea Papers (1979), The Desert (1980), Coming of Age on the Third Planet (1981), and A Riff in Empire (1982). The third series contains Capelotti's notes and notebooks, and the final series, Correspondence, contains Capelotti's correspondence with novelist Norman Mailer, oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, archaeologist Thor Heyerdahl, U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Mailer researcher J. Michael Lennon, and hiker/explorer Eric Ryback, among others.

The papers were given as a restricted gift to the University of Rhode Island by Mr. Capelotti.

In November 2000 Dr. Capelloti sent draft copies and research materials for the book, The Svalbard Archipelago: American Military and Political Geographies of Spitsbergen and Other Norwegian Polar Territories, 1941-1950, edited and with an introduction by P.J. Capelotti, Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., c2000. There is a copy of the book in Dinstinctive Collections Rare Books (call number G778 S83 2000). The materials were processed and added to the original collection in March 2001.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged in four series:

  • 1. Personal
  • 2. Manuscripts
  • 3. Notes and Notebooks
  • 4. Correspondence

Biographical note

Peter Joseph Capelotti, freelance writer and director of The Great Northeast Expedition Company, Inc., attended the University of Rhode Island from September of 1978 to May of 1989, earning a B.A. in history (1983) and an M.A. in history (1989). During this time he wrote over eighty articles, 36 of them for the student magazine/newspaper The Great Swamp Gazette, 25 for The Providence Journal-Bulletin, 8 feature pieces (four of them cover stories) for The Rhode Island Alumni Quarterly, roughly a half dozen for the daily student newspaper The Good 5 Cent Cigar, one feature piece for The Narragansett Times, one political essay for The Boston Globe, and one for the Providence-based publication East Side-West Side. From the spring of 1981 to April of 1982 he was Managing Editor of The Great Swamp Gazette, which won Best Student Magazine in the Northeast Award from the Society of Professional Journalists in both of those years. In 1978 he chartered the non-profit organization, The Earth Research Organization, which subsequently became The Earth Research Group and, on October 1, 1984, The Great Northeast Expedition Company, Inc. It was under the umbrella of this group that he produced, wrote, and directed the 1984 documentary for television, The American Lieutenant and the War in the Air, in which he planned to combine the subject matter of his master's thesis on the history of five twentieth-century explorers with a cross-country flight in an FP-303 ultralight aeroplane. This expedition, from Calais, Maine to Key West, Florida, was planned for June of 1985.

In 1976 Capelotti became the youngest person ever to have hiked alone the 2,000-mile Georgia-to-Maine Appalachian Trail in a single season. Another trek, retracing the route of Lewis and Clark, scheduled for the summer of 1979 and featured on the cover of the Rhode Island Alumni Quarterly, was subsequently aborted for lack of funds.

Access & Use

Access to the collection: Open for research.
Use of the materials: Terms governing use and reproduction: Photocopying and scanning of materials is a fee based service available in the repository and is allowed at the discretion of the Archivist when in compliance to the Unit's policy on copyright and publication.
Preferred citation: P. J. Capelotti Papers, Mss. Gr. 45, University of Rhode Island Library.
Contact information: University Archives and Special Collections
15 Lippitt Road
Kingston, RI 02881-2011
Tel: 401-874-4632

email: archives@etal.uri.edu

Administrative Information

ABOUT THE COLLECTION  
Acquisition: The papers were given as a restricted gift to the University of Rhode Island by Mr. Capelotti in the fall of 1984.
ABOUT THE FINDING AID  
Author: Finding aid prepared by P. J. Capelotti
Encoding: Finding aid encoded by Hailie D. Posey 2009 July 28, updated by Mark Dionne on 2020 April 13
Descriptive rules: Finding aid based on Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS)

Additional Information

Inventory


Inventory

Series 1. Personal
Series I, Personal, consists of records from Patricia McMillan's (Peter Capelotti's mother) family; birth records and service records; photographs from Capelotti's grandfather's retirement from The Brockton Enterprize newspaper after forty years of service; clips of music written by Capelotti in high school from 1974-78; and general personal correspondence and notes from the spring of 1980. Most of these notes concern drawings and plans from an underwater archaeology expedition that was undertaken on the Nemasket River, a tributary of the Taunton River in Massachusetts, in August of 1980. There is also a letter from Harry 'Red' Caughron, director of athletics at Woodberry Forest Prep School in Virginia, to Patricia McMillan concerning Capelotti's aborted Lewis and Clark voyage.

Container Description Date
Box 1, Folder 1 Birth and Service Records (mother's side of family)
1941, 1952
Box 1, Folder 2 Photos: Grandfather's retirement
1960
Box 1, Folder 3 Music: sheet and original
1974-1978
Box 1, Folder 4 Correspondence and Notes
1980

Series 2. Manuscripts
Series II, Manuscripts, consists of articles, essays, novels, and collections of essays in various stages of completion. The unpublished 1979 novel, The Panacea Papers, is perhaps most well documented, with four long-hand notebooks and the corrected manuscript mostly intact. Many of the early essays and articles were collected into a book, Coming of Age on the Third Planet, which was turned down by Bertha Klausner, the literary agent, in the summer of 1981.

Addendum
In November 2000, Dr. Capelloti sent draft copies and research materials for the book, The Svalbard Archipelago: American Military and Political Geographies of Spitsbergen and Other Norwegian Polar Territories, 1941-1950, edited and with an introduction by P.J. Capelotti, Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland & Co., c2000. There is a copy of the book in Distinctive Collections Rare Books, G778 S83 2000. The materials were processed and added to the original collection in March 2001.

Container Description Date
Box 4a, Folder 19 Spitsbergen: 1950 CIA Report
1950
Box 4a, Folder 20 Spitsbergen Report Original
1942
Box 4a, Folder 21 Svalbard Archipelago: Index Copy
undated
Box 4a, Folder 22 Svalbard Intel Report 1942, Final Copy
1942?
Box 4a, Folder 23 Svalbard Archipelago: Published Copy
2000
Box 4a, Folder 24 Svalbard Intel Report 1942, Outline
1996
Container Description Date
Box 2, Folder 1 Panacea Papers, four notebooks, Summer
1979
Box 2, Folder 2 Panacea Papers, original Mss., Summer
1979
Box 2, Folder 3 Corollaries and Dissonances, essay for Honors Colloquium, Spring
1980
Box 2, Folder 4 "Tears of Joy," published essay, Spring
1980
Box 2, Folder 5 The Desert, essays & poetry (copy of Mss.)
1980 Dec
Box 3, Folder 6 The Desert, unpublished collection of essays (original Mss.), Summer
1980
Box 3, Folder 7 Sailing Against; Aye, Calypso, Brockton St. of Mind, essays (copies of original Mss.), Fall
1979
Box 3, Folder 8 Between Freedom, essay (copy of Mss.)
1980 Oct 29
Box 3, Folder 9 Bond Issue #6, essays Providence Journal essay (published essays), Fall
1980
Box 3, Folder 10 "That Magnificent Man," published article (two copies), Summer
1981
Box 3, Folder 11 Coming of Age, collected essays (copy of Mss.), Summer
1981
Box 3, Folder 12 Coming of Age, collected essays (copy of Mss.), Summer
1981
Box 3, Folder 13 Coming of Age, collected essays (copy of Mss.), Summer
1981
Box 4, Folder 14 Mike Lennon; In Pursuit, published article (two copies), Fall
1981
Box 4, Folder 15 The Great Swamp Gazette: essay on whales, articles on Greenpeace, Black Studies
1981 Dec
Box 4, Folder 16 The Good 5 Cent Gazette, parody of Good Cent Cigar, 4 copies
1982 Apr
Box 4, Folder 17 A Riff in Empire, collected essays (original Mss.)
1982 Nov-1982 Dec
Box 4, Folder 18 A Riff in Empire, collected essays (copy of Mss.), reviewed by J. M. Lennon
1982 Nov-1982 Dec

Series 3. Notes and Notebooks
Series III, Notes--Notebooks, consists of several 8 1/2-11" note pads, as well as many loose notes and memos, used by Dr. Capelotti during the years 1979-1982 for articles, essays, and interviews written in that period. The note pads also contain class notes, and random scribblings. One folder contains several "embargoed for delivery" speeches that were delivered at the 1980 Democratic Convention. These were given to Dr. Capelotti by his employer at that time, Richard Curtis of Curtis Liquors in Whitman, Massachusetts, who worked as a page for ABC News that summer. He got for Capelotti a note done in jest by ABC Correspondent Sam Donaldson, which reads "Good luck to a great novelist." There is also some correspondence from the Earth Research organization and letters from a brief time in the spring of 1980 when Capelotti served as coordinator of a Peace Studies program.

Container Description Date
Box 4, Folder 1 Aye, Calypso; Talisman; Armageddon; essay, short story and essay, six notebooks.
1979 Dec, 1980
Box 4, Folder 2 Raft notes, five notebooks
1980-1981
Box 5, Folder 3 Class notes, two notebooks, Spring
1980
Box 5, Folder 4 Underwater archaeology, one notebook, Spring
1980
Box 5, Folder 5 Peace Studies: Correspondence, Spring
1980
Box 5, Folder 6 Earth Research: Correspondence
1980 Apr, 1981 Dec
Box 5, Folder 7 Pied Piper newsletter, four issues
undated
Box 5, Folder 8 Speeches from Democratic National Convention
1980 Aug
Box 5, Folder 9 Third Planet Adventures (proposed radio series)
1980
Box 5, Folder 10 Spring notebooks
1980, 1981
Box 5, Folder 11 Alan Wells tenure case, Fall
1981
Box 5, Folder 12 Notebook
1981 Oct
Box 5, Folder 13 Test, The Great Gatsby
1982 Mar 2
Box 5, Folder 14 Old Man and the Sea, review
1982 Apr 20
Box 5, Folder 15 The Good 5 Cent Cigar with piece on The Great Swamp Gazette
1982 Apr 22
Box 5, Folder 16 New York Times, review of Mailer's Pieces and Pontifications
1982 Jun 6

Series 4. Correspondence
Series (IV), Correspondence, consists of 29 letters predominated by fifteen letters from novelist Norman Mailer. After authoring an article about Mailer researcher Michael Lennon, Capelotti began a correspondence with Mailer that continues to this day. Mailer helped the unsuccessful effort to get A Riff in Empire published in 1983, and since that time has helped interest publishers in financing Capelotti's cross-country Ultralight expedition. Also included are seven letters from Lennon, and letters from archaeologist Thor Heyerdahl, oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, and a letter written to Capelotti when he was thirteen by hiker/ explorer Eric Ryback. There is also a letter from Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy congratulating Capelotti on his trek on the Appalachian Trail. Box 6 contains the originals, and Box 7 a set of Xeroxed research copies.

Container Description Date
Box 6, Folder 1 Cousteau, Jacques-Yves
1978 Sep 21
Box 6, Folder 2 Epstein, Jason
1984 Mar 20
Box 6, Folder 3 Heyerdahl, Thor
1978 May 8
Box 6, Folder 4 Horner, Linda (Paramount Studios)
1983 Nov 22
Box 6, Folder 5 Kennedy, Sen. Edward
1976
Box 6, Folder 6 Lennon, J. Michael
1982 Aug 25
Box 6, Folder 7 Lennon, J. Michael
1982 Sep 15
Box 6, Folder 8 Lennon, J. Michael
1983 Feb 11
Box 6, Folder 9 Lennon, J. Michael
1983 Mar 15
Box 6, Folder 10 Lennon, J. Michael
1983 Apr 28
Box 6, Folder 11 Lennon, J. Michael
1983 May 12
Box 6, Folder 12 Lennon, J. Michael
1983 Jun 2
Box 6, Folder 13 Mailer, Norman
1981 Aug 7
Box 6, Folder 14 Mailer, Norman (to J.M. Lennon)
1982 May 3
Box 6, Folder 15 Mailer, Norman
1982 Jun 15
Box 6, Folder 16 Mailer, Norman
1983 Jan 17
Box 6, Folder 17 Mailer, Norman
1983 Feb 8
Box 6, Folder 18 Mailer, Norman
1983 Mar 4
Box 6, Folder 19 Mailer, Norman
1983 Mar 15
Box 6, Folder 20 Mailer, Norman
1983 Apr 28
Box 6, Folder 21 Mailer, Norman
1983 Jul 25
Box 6, Folder 22 Mailer, Norman
1983 Nov 14
Box 6, Folder 23 Mailer, Norman
1983 Dec 21
Box 6, Folder 24 Mailer, Norman
1984 Feb 9
Box 6, Folder 25 Mailer, Norman
1984 Feb 27
Box 6, Folder 26 Mailer, Norman
1984 Mar 16
Box 6, Folder 27 Mailer, Norman
1984 Aug 7
Box 6, Folder 28 Ryback, Eric
1973 Feb 11
Box 6, Folder 29 Spencer-Richards, Susan
1980 Nov 12
Box 7 (xerox copies), Folder 30 Cousteau, Jacques-Yves
1978 Sep 21
Box 7, Folder 31 Epstein, Jason
1984 Mar 20
Box 7, Folder 32 Heyerdahl, Thor
1978 May 8
Box 7, Folder 33 Horner, Linda (Paramount Studios)
1983 Nov 22
Box 7, Folder 34 Kennedy, Sen. Edward
1976
Box 7, Folder 35 Lennon, J. Michael
1982 Aug 25
Box 7, Folder 36 Lennon, J. Michael
1982 Sep 15
Box 7, Folder 37 Lennon, J. Michael
1983 Feb 11
Box 7, Folder 38 Lennon, J. Michael
1983 Mar 15
Box 7, Folder 39 Lennon, J. Michael
1983 Apr 28
Box 7, Folder 40 Lennon, J. Michael
1983 May 12
Box 7, Folder 41 Lennon, J. Michael
1983 Jun 2
Box 7, Folder 42 Mailer, Norman
1981 Aug 7
Box 7, Folder 43 Mailer, Norman (to J.M. Lennon)
1982 May 3
Box 7, Folder 44 Mailer, Norman
1982 Jun 15
Box 7, Folder 45 Mailer, Norman
1983 Jan 17
Box 7, Folder 46 Mailer, Norman
1983 Feb 8
Box 7, Folder 47 Mailer, Norman
1983 Mar 4
Box 7, Folder 48 Mailer, Norman
1983 Mar 15
Box 7, Folder 49 Mailer, Norman
1983 Apr 28
Box 7, Folder 50 Mailer, Norman
1983 Jul 25
Box 7, Folder 51 Mailer, Norman
1983 Nov 14
Box 7, Folder 52 Mailer, Norman
1983 Dec 21
Box 7, Folder 53 Mailer, Norman
1984 Feb 9
Box 7, Folder 54 Mailer, Norman
1984 Feb 27
Box 7, Folder 55 Mailer, Norman
1984 Mar 16
Box 7, Folder 56 Mailer, Norman
1984 Aug 7
Box 7, Folder 57 Ryback, Eric
1973 Feb 11
Box 7, Folder 58 Spencer-Richards, Susan
1980 Nov 12