Brenda Helt, in The Making and Managing of American Modernists: Norman Holmes Pearson and the Yale Collection of American Literature, based in part on Pearson's unpublished letters, examines his role in developing that collection. He used his personal connections with authors like H. D., Bryher, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein to acquire major collections of their work for Yale. Reciprocally, Pearson used his authoritative position to further interest in and obtain publishers for the work of these modernists, securing their reputations for posterity and facilitating the success of some of their best work. He states that Pearson worked tirelessly as H.D.'s tactful editor, as well as her literary advisor and (unpaid) agent, roles that had a significant positive effect on the quantity and quality of her late work. Pearson promoted Pound's work apart from his political involvements, helping to prevent it from being "disappeared" due to Pound's very unpopular World War II politics and consequent incarceration at St. Elizabeths Hospital (a psychiatric hospital operated by the District of Columbia Department of Mental Health).
