Abstract: Transcriptions of interviews in the Oral Histories of Low Income and Minority Women project of the Southwest Institute for Research on Women at the University of Arizona in collaboration with the Schlesinger Library on the History of American Women at Radcliffe College with funding from the Ford Foundation. The fifty-six interviews, with transcriptions ranging in length from 17 to over 2,000 pages, were conducted by Fran Leeper Buss during the 1970s and 1980s. Interviewees, some of whom chose to remain anonymous, include three Asian-Americans, twelve African-Americans, and six Native-Americans. The women resided in fourteen states: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas in the South; Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Wyoming in the West; Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin in the Midwest. Appalachia is represented by women from Kentucky and Tennessee. The subjects covered document all aspects of these women’s lives–their personal lives, their attitudes and interactions with members of their families and others in their communities, and their feelings about their status at the time of the interview and about their prospects for the future. An extensive subject index is provided. The Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is one of seven depositories for this material; the original tapes and other materials are housed at the Schlesinger Library.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Abstract: Morris Randolph Mitchell was a pacifist and educator who, 1919-1924 and 1926-1929, farmed in Marston and Ellerbe, N.C., and served as principal and/or teacher in Ellerbe schools; founded Macedonia Cooperative Community in Clarkesville, Ga., in the 1940s; served as director of the Putney Graduate School in Putney, Vt., 1950-1964; and was president of Friends World College in Glen Head, N.Y., 1964-1972. Personal and business correspondence and a few other papers of Morris R. Mitchell. Included are scattered financial records and letters to and from members of his family, colleagues, friends, and students, primarily concerning Putney Graduate School, Friends World College, and Macedonia Cooperative Community. Early correspondence describes Mitchell’s experiences with the American Expeditionary Forces in France and Belgium in 1918; his graduate education at George Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville, Tenn.; his work as headmaster of Park School in Buffalo, N.Y.; his work with the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration during the New Deal; and his later work with the Southeastern Cooperative League. Correspondence for the 1940s provides an overview of activities at Macedonia Cooperative Community during that decade and a glimpse into Mitchell’s teaching at Rochdale Institute in Wisconsin and at Walhalla Public Service Camp No. 30 (Mich.), a camp for conscientious objectors. Also included is information about related ventures in education, various cooperative communities, study tours that Mitchell either organized or directed, and the Cold War academic environment.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Correspondence, writings, pictures, and other materials of Mitchell, pacifist and educator who founded Macedonia Cooperative Community (Clarkesville, Georgia) in the 1940s; served as director of the Putney Grange Graduate School (Putney, Vermont); and was president of Friends World College (Glen Head, New York). Letters discuss a black revival meeting in Ellerbe, North Carolina (9 Aug 1920); a black school in Ellerbe (1927, 1937); incidents of racial discrimination at Putney Graduate School (1951); and executive action in desegregation (1956).  In Subeseries 1.9: Putney Graduate School for Teachers, the collection includes a dedication of program for the Ellerbe Colored High School (1952) and  review of Harry S. Ashmore’s book The Negro and the Schools (7 Jul 1954); information concerning the possibility of opening an interracial camp near Green Bay, Wisconsin (1956); and references to a recording of Uncle Remus stories that Morris was planning to make (1959 ;see folder 385). Partially restricted.

Abstract: Reminiscences, written about 1910, of the children of Charles Howard of Springfield, Mass., and edited by Elizabeth H. Andrews in 1956. Represented are Thomas Dwight Howard (1826-1910), who wrote of his youth and education in Masschusetts and attendance at Harvard University Divinity School; service as a Unitarian minister at Perry, Me.; experiences as a teacher and minister among Sea Island blacks in South Carolina, 1860-1864, and with black U.S. Army troops in Louisiana, 1864-1866, and in Wisconsin, 1866-1869; preaching in Petersham, Mass, 1870-1874; work as secretary to the Commissioner of Prisons in Masachusetts, 1874-1879; ministry at Charleston, N.H., 1880-1891; and of making a return visit to Hilton Head, S.C., twenty-five years after his Civil War experiences. Also included are the reminiscences of his sisters, Sophia Worthington Howard (1836-1920), of her childhood and education in Massachusetts, and work as a teacher at Fort Laramie, Wyo., in the 1860s; and Sarah (“Sally”) Bancroft Howard Haywood (1838-1922) of her childhood. In addition, the volume contains genealogical information relating to the Howard, Worthington, Haywood, and Andrews families.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: This single volume includes accounts of Thomas Dwight Howard (1826-1910), white chaplain to blacks in the Sea Islands of South Carolina (1860-1864) and to black army troops in Louisiana (1864-1866), Wisconsin (1866-1869), and Massachusetts (1870-1874).