Erroll's longtime manager, Martha Glaser, collected what would become the Erroll Garner Archive beginning in 1950 and continuing long after Erroll's death in 1977. Martha's collecting documented Erroll's career through the years, keeping everything from sheet music and photographs to legal proceedings and correspondence with celebrities and politicians. In the process, Martha amassed a large amount of material related to her own career as well.

The Archive was acquired by the University of Pittsburgh in 2015, where it is managed by and housed in Pitt's Archives & Special Collections (A&SC).The collection is complex, made up of a variety of materials, including handwritten letters, recorded disks of varying ages, awards and plaques, photographs, and odds and ends related to Erroll's life, even down to the phone book he used to better reach the piano keys (Erroll was only 5'2"). Part of the job of the archivists at the A&SC is to arrange and describe the material so that it is easily findable, to keep the material preserved for future use so that it doesn't degrade over time, and to help researchers access the material they need.

There are eight main sections of the Erroll Garner Archive, which archivists refer to as "series." In this section of the guide, we'll take a closer look at the contents of each series. A more detailed list of the contents of the collection is available, and you can always contact us for more information on anything you see here or may be curious about.