Visions of Kerouac: The John Sampas Collection

• Dates: 1922-2009
• Extent: 102 Banker boxes, Hollinger boxes, oversized items
• Repository: Center for Lowell History, Kerouac Room, 2nd Floor; U Mass. Lowell South Campus, Allen House, O’Leary Library
• Biographical Note: Following Stella Sampas Kerouac’s 1990 death, the Sampas family appointed her youngest brother John Sampas (1933-2017) as literary representative for the Estate of Jack and Stella Kerouac. Sampas continued promoting Kerouac’s legacy literary legacy until his own death.
• Provenance: Jack Kerouac Literary Estate, John Sampas (JS) and John Shen Sampas
Descriptive Summary
• Scope and Content: Donated by John Sampas’s estate to the University of Massachusetts Lowell in 2018, Visions of Kerouac is the most extensive collection in the Jack Kerouac Archives. Among the items and records are original artifacts, photographs, multimedia items, original and photostatic copies of Kerouac’s art, correspondence, journals, as well as books (English and international editions).
• Language: English, French, and other languages

Searching Visions of Kerouac: The John Sampas Collection

Visions of Kerouac Finding Aid  

Item-Level Inventory of Art Work and Posters

Note: the above inventories are still in progress, although they do offer significant collection views. These inventories are updated as of April 15, 2021. We may need to disable the links at times, as inventory is on-going. Questions about the archive? Contact us.

Access to this collection is funded in part by Mass Humanities, which receives support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and is an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Kerouac Center at UMass Lowell would like to thank Mass Humanities for helping make the collection available to the public through the below searchable documents.