African American Studies: Selected Modern Manuscript and Archival Collections

Print versions of finding aids for the following collections are available in the Special Collections Research Center.
Finding aids that have been converted to digital form can be searched in the online finding aids database.

For more detailed information on holdings, please contact the Special Collections Research Center.

• Edith and Grace Abbott. Papers. Finding Aid
  50 linear feet
  Papers of Edith Abbott (1876-1957), Dean and Professor of Public Welfare in the School of Social Service Administration (SSA) at the University of Chicago, and her sister, Grace Abbott (1878-1939), Chief of the U.S. Children's Bureau and Professor of Public Welfare at SSA. Correspondence, teaching materials, and research files on the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, Immigrants' Protective League, SSA, U.S. Children's Bureau, social reform, social work, child welfare, mothers' aid, child welfare, juvenile courts, and public relief.

• American Civil Liberties Union, Illinois Division. Records.
  272 linear feet
  Documentation of cases related to civil rights, discrimination, and legal justice. Issues include civil rights demonstrations, public accommodations, union discrimination, the Fair Employment Practices Commission, housing conditions in communities such as Trumbull Park and Deerfield, school segregation, prisoners' rights, the Black Panthers, and the Ghetto Project, among others.

• Archival Biographical Files. HTML Guide
  25 linear feet
  Biographical information on University of Chicago faculty members, officers, trustees, staff members, and other individuals related to the University. Materials include biographical data sheets, curriculum vitae, obituaries, press releases, articles, and news clippings.

• Archival Photographic Files. HTML Guide
  More than 70,000 photographs related to the University of Chicago, its faculty, trustees, students, alumni, and staff. The photographs are arranged in five series visually documenting different aspects of the University's history: Individuals and Groups; Buildings and Grounds; Events; Student Activities; and Sports.

• Archival Serials. HTML Guide
  Guide to more than 600 serial and periodical titles published at the University and documenting the activities of administrative units, academic departments and committees, faculty clubs, alumni organizations, Hyde Park neighborhood associations, and student groups and extracurricular organizations. Includes bulletins, newspapers, newsletters, circulars, literary and political journals, and magazines.

• Trevor Arnett. Papers.
  1 linear foot
  Trevor Arnett (1870-1955) was secretary and president of the General Education Board. Papers include three letters and an autographed photograph of Booker T. Washington and memorial tributes to Arnett from Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and Spelman College.
  

• William E. Barton Collection of Lincolniana
  170 linear feet
  Rev. William Eleazar Barton (1861-1930), one of the early twentieth century's most prominent writers and lecturers on the life of Abraham Lincoln, was also a collector of historical materials related to Lincoln and the Civil War era. Acquired by the Library in 1932, the Barton collection includes correspondence, briefs, pardons, and commissions in Lincoln's hand; letters written by notable political and military figures of the time; and a large amount of ephemeral material concerning Lincoln and his family, Lincoln homes and sites, and the Civil War.
  

• Ernest W. Burgess. Papers. Finding Aid
  Ernest W. Burgess. Addenda.
  261 linear feet
  Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, Ernest W. Burgess (1886-1936) was a key figure in the development of the Chicago school of sociology. Papers include Burgess' correspondence, manuscripts, and research materials, as well as the research papers and field studies of his students. Among the topics documented are urban development, Chicago neighborhoods, crime and parole, marriage, the family, old age, and ethnicity. Materials on African Americans include files on housing, child development and personality, youth and delinquency, population patterns, social life, social and political attitudes, industrial labor, social welfare, and churches.
  

• Butler-Gunsaulus Collection.
  2 linear feet
  Autograph manuscript collection. Includes 1851 letter in hand of John Brown related to Perkins and Brown wool company; 1857 letter of John Brown to S. G. Hubbard seeking funds promised by New Haven friends; and 1876 letter of Frederick Douglass to Charles E. Crain concerning a lecture in Milwaukee.

• Jean Marie Cahusac. Letterbook.
  Codex Ms. 798
  1 vol.
  Group of 94 letters written by Jean Marie Cahusac (b. 1779 or 1780), a minor French official. Cahusac lived for a time on Guadeloupe in the French West Indies, where he was forced to take up arms to suppress the slave revolt of 1802. After later travel across the Alleghenies and downriver to New Orleans, he returned to France and wrote a narrative of his American experience that described the "despotism" and "anarchy" of the West Indies.

• William Henry Campbell. Correspondence.
  Crerar Ms. 238
  0.5 linear feet
  Collection of more than 100 letters of William Henry Cambell, Union military surgeon aboard the U.S.S. Commodore McDonough, written from 1862 to 1864 to his wife in Massachusetts. Stationed principally in South Carolina during the later years of the Civil War, Campbell related his observations on plantation and military life.

• Carnegie Council on Children. Records.
  25 linear feet
  Funded by the Carnegie Corporation from 1972 to 1977, the Council examined all aspects of child development, with a focus on lives of children at risk. Topics spanned child care, family services, minority education, day care, income maintenance, child health, living conditions, and socialization. Collection includes working papers, unpublished manuscripts, reports, and publicity materials.

• George Nathan Christy. Dialogue Book and Playbills.
  Codex Ms. 200
  1 vol.
  George N. Christy (1827-1868) and E. P. Christy (1815-1862) managed the blackface troupe known successively as "Virginia Minstrels," "Christy's Original Band of Virginia Minstrels," and "Christy's Ethiopian Minstrels." Includes conundrums, dialogues, sayings, jokes, riddles, songs, reviews and notices, and portraits and cartoons.
  Rare Book Collection: The Special Collections Research Center Rare Book holdings include the Atkinson Collection of Ethiopian Drama, a related group of more than 350 published minstrel or blackface plays and burlesques of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Call number PN6120.N4A8.

• Commission on Race and Housing. Records.
  1.5 linear feet
  Formed in 1955 as an independent citizens' group, the Commission investigated problems of housing for African American and other minorities. Members included publisher Henry Luce, housing developer Philip Klutznick, educators Charles S. Johnson and Clark Kerr, and psychologist Gordon Allport. Collection includes research reports, maps, and text of final comprehensive report with findings.

• Orator F. Cook. Papers.
  2.5 linear feet
  Orator Fuller Cook (1867-1949) served as special agent of the New York State Colonization Society, president of Liberia College, and principal botanist of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Papers include correspondence with colleagues and family; reports and offprints on botanical fieldwork, especially in Liberia; issues of Liberian newspapers; material on the New York State Colonization Society and Liberia College; photographs; and clippings on lynchings and racial conflicts in the United States.

• Allison Davis. Papers. Finding Aid
  43.5 linear feet
  African American scholar Allison Davis (1902-1983) was a Professor Education at the University of Chicago and a specialist in the study of race, class, socialization, human development, and discriminatory practices in education. Papers include files on child-rearing, acculturation, intelligence testing, the American Council on Education, and the Carnegie-Myrdal study, as well as materials from published works, among them Children of Bondage: The Personality Development of Negro Youth in the Urban South (1940), written with John Dollard; Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class (1941), written with Burleigh B. Gardner, Mary R. Gardner, and W. Lloyd Warner; and Leadership, Love, and Aggression (1983).
  

• Stephen A. Douglas. Papers.
  56.5 linear feet
  More than 21,000 manuscripts, letters, and empeheral items documenting the life and political career of Stephen A. Douglas (1813-1861), U.S. Senator from Illinois and Democratic Party presidential candidate in 1860. Topics include electorial politics, political patrongage, slavery in the Western territories, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Popular Sovereignty, the Lincoln-Douglas senatorial campaign of 1858, and the presidential election campaign of 1860. Papers also document two Mississippi plantations managed by Douglas and held in the name of his sons, one in Lawrence County and the other in Washington County, including overseers' reports on the work force of more than 140 slaves.
  

• Reuben T. Durrett Collection on Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley
  Louisville attorney and newspaper editor Reuben T. Durrett (1824-1913) was an amateur historian, collector of historical materials on Kentucky, and a founder of the Filson Club (now Filson Historical Society). The Durrett collection acquired by the Library in 1913 includes books, pamphlets, and periodicals, as well as a wide array of letters, journals, military reports, business records, legal documents, speeches, sermons, and maps spanning the period from the mid-eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century.

• Durrett Broadsides, Broadsheets, and Circulars Collection.
  [Forms part of the Durrett Collection on Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley]
  0.75 linear feet
  Collection includes more than 100 printed items dating from 1788 to 1894, primarily Kentucky broadsides relating to political issues, national and local elections, and meetings. Includes announcements of the sale of land and slaves and expressing opposition to slavery.

• Durrett Codex Manuscript Collection.
  [Forms part of the Durrett Collection on Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley]
  14 linear feet
  Collection includes transcribed copy of 1787 article from the American Museum describing hardships of Virginia slaves and their musical traditions (Durrett Codex Ms. 140); 1805 vouchers of F. R. Slaughter for slaves, horses, and land (Durrett Codex Ms. 168); undated description of African American troops and drummer boy in the Battle of New Orleans, 1815 (Durrett Codex Ms. 26); and transcription of 1862 editorial in the Louisville Daily Journal on the Emancipation Proclamation (Durrett Codex Ms. 122).

• Durrett Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection.
  [Forms part of the Durrett Collection on Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley]
  7 linear feet
  Chronologicaly arranged collection of manuscripts, principally from 1776 to 1829, documenting military, legal, governmental, political, and other aspects of the trans-Appalachian West. Includes land indentures, deeds, warrants, military orders and records, state and local government documents, wills, inventories, receipts, and correspondence. Topics include the Shelby family, early Kentucky politics, early history of Jefferson County and Louisville, and attitudes toward slavery and abolition.

• Emancipation Proclamation.
  Call number: alc ff E453.U558 1864
  [Forms part of the Barton Collection of Lincolniana]
  Printed document bearing the autograph signatures of Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward, and John G. Nicolay. One of an edition of 48 produced by Charles Godfrey Leland and George Henry Boker and sold at the Great Central Fair in Philadelphia, June 7-29, 1864, to raise funds for the U.S. Sanitary Commission. President Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, and signed the final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.

• William Hayden English. Collection.
  3.75 linear feet
  Papers and historical materials of William H. English (1822-1896), Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives and U. S. Congressman from Indiana. Includes personal and political correspondence, legal and judicial records, and manuscripts and research materials on the early history of Indiana, covering topics such as slavery, relations with Native Americans, the capture of Kaskaskia in 1778, and the War of 1812.

• The First American West: The Ohio River Valley, 1750-1820
  (Digital collection accessible via Library of Congress American Memory)
  15,000 digitized pages of original historical material documenting the land, peoples, exploration, and transformation of the trans-Appalachian West from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century. The collection is drawn from the holdings of the University of Chicago Library and the Filson Historical Society of Louisville, Kentucky. Among the sources included are books, periodicals, newspapers, pamphlets, scientific publications, broadsides, letters, journals, legal documents, ledgers and other financial records, maps, physical artifacts, and pictorial images.

• Robert W. Fogel. Papers.
  278 linear feet
  Robert W. Fogel (b. 1926) is a Professor in the Graduate School of Business, Department of Economics, and Committee on Social Thought of the University of Chicago. Papers contain correspondence, lectures, and teaching materials on economic history as well as manuscripts, research data, and transcripts related to Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Nego Slavery (2 vols., 1974), written with Stanley R. Engerman, and Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery (4 vols., 1989-1992). Collection restricted; access requires permission of Robert W. Fogel.
  

• General Archival Files. HTML Guide
  160 linear feet
  General information and ephemeral materials related to the history of administrative units, organizations, and activities at the University of Chicago. Files include a wide variety of items such as printed documents, brochures, pamphlets, clippings, programs, invitations, press releases, advertisements, and recollections of the history of academic departments by former faculty members.

• Samuel Goldman. Papers.
  7.5 linear feet
  Vaudeville actor, producer, and writer Samuel Goldman (d. 1945) and his wife Allie Ellsmore formed the comic stage team of Goldman & Ellsmore. Among the vaudeville scripts constituting this collection are 102 full plays and one-act farces, 260 "bits," and 110 "scenes," many with characters based on racial and ethnic caricatures.

• Harold F. Gosnell. Papers.
  82.5 linear feet
  Harold F. Gosnell (1897-1997) was Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, analyst for the U.S. Bureau of the Budget, historian for the U.S. Department of State, and professor of political science at American University and Howard University. Collection contains the manuscript of Gosnell's autoboiography, with an account of the writing of his book, Negro Politicians: The Rise of Negro Politics in Chicago (1935). Other files contain research materials and lectures on racial factors in elections; African American voting patterns, especially in cities; African American politics, and African American leaders.
  

• John Gunther. Papers.
  202 linear feet
  John Gunther (1901-1970) was a jouralist, biographer, and author of the series of "Inside" books exploring political, economic, and social aspects of the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, Russia, Latin America, South America, and Australia. Papers document the writing of Inside U.S.A. (1947), including correspondence, research materials, and manuscripts related to African American life, especially in the South, and notes on interviews with R. E. Clement, Benjamin Mays, F. B. Patterson, Walter White, Oliver Harrington, Guy Johnson, Josephine Pinckney, and Lillian Smith, among others.
  

• Philip M. Hauser. Papers.
  26.5 linear feet
  Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, demographer Philip M. Hauser (1909-1994) was statistician and deputy director of the U.S. Census Bureau, where he helped improve methods for correcting census undercounts of African Americans. Files include material on Chicago urban policy; integration of Chicago Public Schools, especially 1964-1966; the Southeast Chicago Commission and housing in Hyde Park-Kenwood; and papers on differentials in fertility, mortality, housing, and socio-economic status as factors in urban racial segregation.

• Robert J. Havighurst. Papers.
  108 linear feet
  Professor of Education at the University of Chicago, Robert J. Havighurst (1900-1991) specialized in studies of community life and aging, including the Kansas City Studies of Adult Life and the "River City" study for the Quincy Youth Development Commission. Papers include materials on the 1964 report on the Chicago Public Schools, commissioned by the Chicago Board of Education and written largely by Havighurst, which urged the complete racial integration of the Chicago schools.
  

• George F. Hoar. Autobiography of Seventy Years (1903).
  Call number: alc E644.H6H6 Rare
  2 vols.
  Extra-illustrated copy of this book, containing tipped-in autograph manuscript letters. Includes an 1869 letter of Benjamin Helm Bristow to Ebenezer R. Hoar (Vol. 1, opposite p. 380) related to the trial and conviction of J. P. Price and G. W. Calvert for attacking an African American boy; and an 1881 letter of Frederick Doulgass to J. M. Dalzell (Vol. 2, opposite p. 62) offering support in securing a position in the James A. Garfield administration.

• Everett C. Hughes. Papers.
  73.5 linear feet
  Everett C. Hughes (1897-1983) was a sociologist whose research and teaching career took him to McGill University, the University of Chicago, Brandeis University, and Boston College. At the University of Chicago, Hughes was a member of the Committee on Education, Training, and Research in Race Relations and the Committee on Human Relations in Industry. Collection includes correspondence, lectures, teaching materials, and research papers on multi-racial and multi-ethnic societies, Hughes's personal experiences with race, African Americans in industry, professional sociology and its relationship to African Americans, and files on E. Franklin Frazier, St. Clair Drake, Horace Cayton, and Allison Davis, among others.
  

• Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference. Records.
  123 linear feet
  The Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference was formed in 1949 as a local citizens' organization to address problems of housing, crime, and race relations in the neighborhoods adjacent to the University of Chicago. The Conference played a key role in shaping public policy during the Hyde Park urban renwal period of the 1950s and 1960s. Collection documents topics including urban redevelopment, desegregation, zoning, block clubs, employment, schools, public safety, crime and delinquency, gun control, and legal services.

• Jenkin Lloyd Jones. Papers.
  6.5 linear feet
  Jenkin Lloyd Jones (1843-1918) was a Chicago Unitarian minister and pacificist, pastor of All Souls Church, founder of Unity magazine, and founder of the Abraham Lincoln Centre. Papers include correspondence with Jones's nephew, Frank Lloyd Wright, and with figures including Jane Addams, Susan B. Anthony, and Booker T. Washington.
  

• Philip M. Klutznick. Papers.
  150 linear feet
  Philip M. Klutznick (1907-1999) was an attorney, real estate developer, philanthropist, commissioner of the Federal Public Housing Authority, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, member of the American delegation to the United Nations, president of B'nai B'rith, and president of the World Jewish Congress. Papers include files concerning the transition team on which Klutznick served for incoming Chicago mayor Harold Washington (1922-1987).
  

• Edward H. Levi. Papers.
  190 linear feet
  Edward H. Levi (1911-2000) was Dean and Professor of Law in the University of Chicago Law School, Provost and President of the University of Chicago, and U.S. Attorney General. Papers include files on William R. Ming, Jr.; the Martin Luther King, Jr., Federal Holiday Commission; and busing for school integration in Boston.
  

• Fielding Lewis. Papers.
  1.25 linear feet
  Papers of Fielding Lewis (d. 1834), owner of a corn and wheat plantation on the James River in Virginia. Contains documents related to the management of the plantation, business and legal records, and receipts for daily expenses including sale of slaves.

• Lewis Family. Papers.
  [Forms part of the Durrett Collection on Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley]
  0.5 linear feet
  Collection concerned principally with Kentucky land dealings of John Lewis (1747-1825) and his sons Gabriel and Warner Washington Lewis. Includes land grants, contracts, land surveys, land indentures, travel journal, family correspondence, and household accounts, including an entry for the sale of slaves.

• Lincoln Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection.
  [Forms part of the Barton Collection of Lincolniana]
  6.5 linear feet
  Includes an 1849 American Colonization Society membership certificate for G. W. Norton signed by Henry Clay; 1861 letter of John W. Chickering to Abraham Lincoln concerning Nathaniel Gordon, who is sentenced to death for engaging in the slave trade; and three letters 1862-1864 from B. Gratz Brown to John L. Bittinger discussing Missouri elections and emancipation.

• Alice Lloyd. Diary
  0.5 linear feet
  Journal written by a University of Chicago student from Germantown, Kentucky. Includes corrections to a paper about Booker T. Washington's October 1901 White House dinner with President Roosevelt, and an entry from November 1901 expressing reactions to the presence of an African American student in one of her classes.

• Edmund Lyne. Papers.
  [Forms part of the Durrett Collection on Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley]
  0.5 linear feet
  Account books and documents regarding the estate of Colonel Edmund Lyne (d. 1792), operator of a Kentucky salt lick, whiskey still, and ferry service, whose will provided for the manumission of his slaves. Estate documents record expenditures in compliance with the will's requirement that the slaves receive clothing and medical care and that younger slaves be instructed in a trade.

• Charles E. Merriam. Papers.
  157 linear feet
  Papers of Charles E. Merriam (1874-1953), Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, Chicago alderman, and Republican mayoral candidate in 1911 and 1919. Includes several files of University of Chicago political scientist Harold F. Gosnell (1896-1997) with electoral data related to Gosnell's book Negro Politicians: The Rise of Negro Politics in Chicago (1935).
  

• Robert E. Merriam. Papers.
  57 linear feet
  Papers of Robert E. Merriam (1918-1988) Republican Chicago alderman from 1947 to 1955, chairman of the Housing Committee of the Chicago City Council, and Chicago mayoral candidate in 1955. Papers include files on political patronage and corruption in the Chicago public housing system, racial tensions in housing projects, land clearance and urban redevelopment, and the neighborhood conservation movement.
  

• Michigan Committee to Investigate the Detroit Race Riot, 1943. Records.
  0.5 linear feet
  Report of the Committee appointed by Michigan Governor Harry F. Kelly to study the Detroit race riot of June 1943, in which 34 were killed and 670 injured. Report includes riot narrative, statistics and maps of the event, summaries of property destruction and arrests, and background information on patterns of racial discrimination.
  

• Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection.
  24.5 linear feet
  Autograph manuscript collection. Includes an 1849 letter of Thomas Carlyle concerning his paper "Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question"; three letters of 1868-1885 by Frederick Douglass concerning lectures and other matters; 1872 autograph of William Lloyd Garrison with the inscription "Yours for the Abolition of Caste Distinctions"; and 1899 letter of Thomas Wenworth Higginson to Elbert Hubbard concerning Hubbard's biography of John Brown.

• Motion Picture Stills Collection. 1925-1935.
  87.5 linear feet
  More than 30,000 photographs documenting American films and film personalities from the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s; over 180 scrapbooks containing ca. 10,000 magazine clippings of actors and actresses; about 300 glass lantern slides of coming attractions; folders containing approximately 200 scenes from Vitaphone films, and approximately 150 marquee cards. Some of the stills appear to be unique; others provide documentation for films that have been lost.

• George Nicholas. Papers.
  [Forms part of the Durrett Collection on Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley]
  0.5 linear feet George Nicholas (1754?-1799) moved to Kentucky in 1790, where he became a prominent land speculator. Collection includes texts of arguments Nicholas made in favor of slavery as a delegate to the Kentucky Constitutional Convention of 1792.

• James E. O'Hara. Papers.
  1 linear foot
  African American attorney James E. O'Hara (1844-1905) of North Carolina held a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1883 to 1887. Collection includes scrapbooks, photographs, and a bound set of biographical cards published by Arthur J. Smith as The Negro in the Political Classics of the American Government (1937).

• Robert E. Park. Papers. Finding Aid
  13 linear feet
  Robert E. Park (1864-1944) was a journalist, public relations assistant to Booker T. Washington at the Tuskegee Institute, Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, and a principal figure in the formation of the Chicago school of sociology. Papers include correspondence, manuscripts, notes, speeches, interviews, student papers, newspaper clippings, offprints, and scrapbooks. Collection contains material related to Booker T. Washington and the Tuskegee Institute, the Congo Reform Association, Pacific Coast Survey, African Americans and race relations, Asian Americans, and urban and social psychology.

• W. Alvin Pitcher. Papers.
  51.0 linear feet
  W. Alvin Pitcher was Associate Professor in the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. Papers include files on Martin Luther King, Jr.; the civil rights movement; Operation Breadbasket; the Urban League; the Chicago Freedom Movement; African American churches; open housing; and Chicago neighborhood and community organization.
  

• Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. Records.
  85 linear feet
  Editorial files of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, founded in Chicago in 1912 by Harriet Monroe (1860-1936). Collection consists of editorial files, galleys, and clippings documenting the publication of Poetry from 1912 to 1961. Includes correspondence and manuscripts of the principal modern American poets of the period, among them Langston Hughes, Fenton Johnson, Countee Cullen, James Weldon Johnson, LeRoi Jones, and Gwendolyn Brooks.
  

• Robert Redfield. Papers.
  56.75 linear feet
  Robert Redfield (1897-1958) was Professor of Anthropology and Dean of the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. Papers include files on the American Council on Race Relations, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Institute on Race Relations, and Committee on Education, Training, and Research in Race Relations.
  

• Wyndham Robertson. Family Papers.
  6 linear feet
  Papers of Wyndham Robertson (1803-1888), twentieth governor of Virginia, and his family. Collection includes 18th-century land records of the Loyal Company of Virginia; correspondence of Robertson's grandfather, Archibald Robertson, a factor on the James River; letters and accounts concerning Robertson's estate at Abingdon, Virginia, and his plantation at Bayou Black, Louisiana; and a plantation record and account book maintained by Robertson's overseers, 1849-1858.

• Julius Rosenwald. Papers. Finding Aid
  35 linear feet
  The papers of Chicago businessman and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald (1862-1932) document his commitment to reform in race relations and social services, in particular his support for rural African American education, higher education, Jewish charities, and medical care. The collection includes correspondence on progressive organizations and campaigns; reports and minutes of the Julius Rosenwald Fund (1928-1933); and sixteen scrapbooks containing letters, photographs, clippings, and memorabilia documenting Rosenwald's support for Booker T. Washington and the Tuskegee Institute, Howard University, World War I relief efforts, and early development of the NAACP.

• Emil Schwarzhaupt Foundation. Records.
  26 linear feet
  Established in 1936 by Emil Schwarzhaupt (d. 1950), a Chicago distiller, the Schwarzhaupt Foundation was dissolved in accordance with his wishes when its funds were exhausted in 1981. Collection includes correspondence and reports on grants to organizations such as the Comittee on Education for American Citizenship, Better Housing League of Cincinnati, Catholic Interracial Council of Chicago, the Industrial Areas Foundation lead by Saul Alinsky, and the Highlander Folk School, a pioneering initative in integration and voting rights that was later absorbed by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
  

• Slavery and Indentured Servitude. Documents.
  0.5 linear feet
  Group of 47 miscellaneous documents dated 1752-1864, predominately originating in Kentucky, South Carolina, and New Orleans. Items related to slavery include bills of sale; inventories and appraisals of estates listing slaves; and letters, deeds, bonds, and other documents regarding ownership, escaped slaves, and manumission.

• Robert W. Spike. Papers.
  2 linear feet
  Robert W. Spike (1923-1966) was Director of the Commission on Religion and Race of the National Council of Churches and Professor of Ministry and Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. A leader in mobilizing church involvement in the civil rights movement, Spike was murdered less than a year after assuming his post in Chicago. Papers include correspondence, writings, lectures, sermons, and files on integration, equal employment, the National Council of Churches, and the 1966 White House Conference on Civil Rights.
  

• Frederick Starr. Papers.
  Frederick Starr. Liberian Research Collection.
  48.5 linear feet
  Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago (1858-1933), Frederick Starr exemplified a 19th-century interest in physical anthropology and racial typologies. Papers document Starr's research, teaching, and public lectures; his support for Belgian colonial rule of the Congo; and his exchanges with W. E. B. DuBois, Ida B. Wells, and others about his book, Liberia: Description, History, Problems (1913). Research Collection includes transcribed documents of the American Colonization Society and its early supporters Bushrod Washington, Eli Ayres, and Francis Scott Key, among others; and original letters and documents on the status and international recognition of Liberia at the end of the 19th century.

• Sol Tax. Papers.
  145 linear feet
  Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, and Chairman of the Comittee on Education, Training, and Research in Race Relations, Sol Tax (1907-1995) was known for developing "action anthopology," a field-centered methodology emphasizing social problem solving in conjunction with research. Papers include files on the Race Relations Seminar of 1944-1949 and the Committee on Education, Training, and Research in Race Relations.
  

• Robert S. Todd. Estate Papers.
  [Forms part of the Barton Collection of Lincolniana]
  1 linear foot
  Collection of 280 documents related to the contested settlement of the estate of Robert S. Todd (1791-1849), Mary Todd Lincoln's father. Abraham Lincoln served as a legal adviser to one group of Todd heirs and was party to a lawsuit related to the settlement. Papers include an order for the valuation of Todd's slaves, a decree for the sale of land and slaves, and records of the amount owed for advertising the sale of slaves.
  

• Thomas Trent. Plantation Account Book.
  Codex Ms. f399
  1 vol.
  Account book (1818-1841) of two plantations in Buckingham (now Appomattox) County, Virginia, owned by Thomas Trent, a Quaker. Account book entries document the cultivation of tobacco, wheat, oats, and corn by fourteen or more slaves, some hired out to neighboring plantations.

• University of Chicago. Committee on Education, Training, and Research in
  Race Relations. Records. Finding Aid
  18 linear feet
  Founded in 1944 with support from the Carnegie Corporation and the Rockefeller Foundation, and under the leadership of Professor Louis Wirth, the Committee evaluated current social science theories of race relations; designed and tested new models; and trained professionals, educators, and community leaders. Collection includes files on the Parent Teacher Association, Sigmund Livingston Fellowship, Chicago Commission on Human Relations, and Chicago Community Inventory, as well as records of two cooperating organizations, the American Council on Race Relations and the National Organization of Intergroup Relations Officials.

• University of Chicago. Presidents' Papers. 1889-1925. Finding Aid
  University of Chicago. Presidents' Papers. Sequential series, 1925-1968.
  Administrative records of the Office of the President of the University of Chicago. Files related to academic and budgetary policy, faculty research and teaching, professional schools and hospitals, student affairs, governmental relations, foundations and granting agencies, educational associations, academic freedom, and neighborhood and community relations.

• Carl Van Vechten. Photograph Collection.
  Call number: ff PS3543.A28Z8A4 Rare
  7 boxes
  Critic, novelist, and photographer Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) was born in Iowa and graduated from the University of Chicago (PhB, 1903). After working for a Chicago newspaper, he moved to New York, where he became a music and dance critic for the New York Times, published novels and essays, and promoted the arts, including African American authors and artists, through his writings and photographs. Dating from 1932 to 1939, this collection contains 237 portrait photographs of artists, actors, writers, and friends, along with 110 images of American cities and landscapes, including New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, Massachusetts, Maine, and New Mexico.

• John Morgan Walden. Papers.
  2 linear feet
  Methodist Episcopal bishop John Morgan Walden (1831-1914) was a journalist, anti-slavery activist, five-time delegate to Kansas free-soil state conventions, and corresponding secretary of the Western Freedmen's Aid Society and Methodist Freedmen's Aid Society. Collection includes correspondence and recollections concerning "Bleeding Kansas," Walden's establishment of the free-soil newspaper Quindaro Chindowan, and clippings and speeches on empancipation and the post-Civil War South.

• Charles Warren. The Supreme Court in United States History (1922).
  Call number: alc JK1561.W298 Rare
  3 vols.
  Extra-illustrated copy of this book, containing tipped-in autograph manuscript letters. Includes an 1842 letter of Daniel Webster, U.S. Secretary of State, to Philip R. Fendall (Vol. 2, opposite p. 10) conveying President John Tyler's decision in a case related to slaves in the District of Columbia.

• Ida B. Wells. Papers. Finding Aid
  6 linear feet
  African American activist Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) was a teacher, journalist, campaigner against lynching and racial discrimination, and founder of organizations for African American women. Papers include diaries, manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, and clippings and copies of newspaper and journal articles written and compiled by Wells. Collection also contains research correspondence, notes, and manuscripts of her daughter, Alfreda M. Duster, related to Duster's editing and publication of Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells (1970).

• Louis Wirth. Papers.
  34.5 linear feet
  Louis Wirth (1897-1952) was Professor of Sociology and head of the Committee for Education, Training, and Research in Race Relations at the University of Chicago. Papers contain files on topics including the American Council on Race Relations, Chicago Urban League, Metropolitan Housing Council, Public Housing Association, and Southern Regional Council. Manuscripts and book reviews address race and public policy, race and nationalism, race restrictive housing covenants, and the situation of minority groups in American society.
  

See also: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Civil War