© The contents of this finding aid are the copyright of the University of Chicago Library
© 2006 University of Chicago Library
The Everett Cherrington Hughes Papers were processed as part of the HEA Title II-C project, "Preserving and Improving Access to Social Science Manuscript Collections at the University of Chicago Library."
The Everett Cherrington Hughes Papers are unrestricted and open to use by researchers with the exception of three portions of the collection:
1) Carnegie Corporation Project, interview by Isabel S. Grossner, Oral History Research Office, Columbia University, transcript, with annotations by Hughes (located in Series I Box 1, Folder 10). Researchers may consult the oral history interview, but must secure permission to cite or quote its contents from Columbia University, Oral History Research Office, New York, NY 10027.
2) Series VIII, Audio-Visual Materials, is currently restricted due to its fragile condition or need for special equipment.
3) Series IX, Letters of Reference, Grant Evaluations, and Referee Reports, is restricted and will not be open to researchers until the year 2030.
When quoting material from this collection, the preferred citation is: Hughes, Everett Cherrington. Papers, [Box #, Folder #], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library
Everett Cherrington Hughes was born on November 30, 1897. He was the son of a Methodist Episcopal minister who believed firmly in the equality of Black and white people, advocated for education, and disapproved of drinking, card playing and dancing. Many members of the Hughes family had attended college at Ohio Wesleyan, and Everett did as well beginning at the age of 16. Hughes received his B.A. from Ohio Wesleyan in 1918.
After graduation Hughes taught English to the workers of the Wisconsin Steel Works at Chicago. It was here as Hughes worked with immigrant factory workers that he was made aware of the importance of ethnic identity. From there he worked for Upper Peninsula Industrial Relations Association in Escanaba, Michigan from 1920-1922. Hughes then was awarded a Centenary Fund grant from the Methodist Church with which he studied the community of Pullman, Illinois, under the guidance of Garrett Theological Seminary.
In the fall of 1923 Everett Hughes enrolled at the University of Chicago as a graduate student in sociology and anthropology. Hughes studied under Robert E. Park, Ernest W. Burgess, Ellsworth Faris, Robert Redfield, Ruth Shonle Cavan, Nels Anderson, and other noted scholars. He maintained his residence in Pullman and found a job as the director of Mark White Square Park for the South Park Commission. This job provided Hughes with a rich location to do sociological research. He took students there to do field work and produced a study on the police for Ernest W. Burgess.
In 1925 he met Helen Gregory MacGill and they were married in August of 1927. Helen became an active partner in many of Hughes's projects.
Just before completing his dissertation in 1927 Hughes was offered a position at McGill University in Montreal with Carl A. Dawson, another University of Chicago graduate. At this time McGill University was the only university in Canada to offer a program in sociology, and Dawson and Hughes became the first two members of that department. Hughes received his Ph.D. degree in 1928. His dissertation, The Growth of an Institution: The Chicago Real Estate Board was first published in 1931 by the Society of Social Research of the University of Chicago.
Hughes established his research interests in the fields of race and ethnic relations, industrialization, and occupations. In 1931-1932 Hughes was the recipient of a Social Science Research Council Fellowship to Germany to study the Catholic labor movement in the Rhineland. He planned his research in Germany to complement his work on French Canada. In the late 1930s he and Helen did a study of the change in a French Canadian town as it industrialized under English Canadian management. Just as the research on this project was completed, Everett Hughes was offered an assistant professorship at the University of Chicago in 1938. Hughes accepted the job and French Canada in Transition was eventually published in 1943.
Hughes remained at the University of Chicago until 1961. He was promoted to associate professor in 1943, and professor in 1949. He served as chairman of the Department of Sociology between1952 and 1956. During World War II he became a member of the Committee on Human Relations in Industry along with George Brown, Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, Frederick Harbison, Robert J. Havighurst, Neil Jacoby, W. Lloyd Warner, and William Foote Whyte. The Committee was a business and academic partnership to study industrial society. A few corporations supported the Committee to achieve its research. Industry and Society was published in 1946 and Hughes's contribution was chapter 6, "Race Relations in Industry." Hughes published other books and articles in the 1940s and 1950s reflecting his continuing work in the areas of race relations, professions, and occupations. Some of these publications includes: Where Peoples Meet: Racial and Ethnic Frontiers, (1952) by Everett C. Hughes and Helen M. Hughes; Men and Their Work, (1958); and Twenty Thousand Nurses Tell Their Story: A Report on Studies of Nursing Functions Sponsored by the American Nurses' Association by Everett C. Hughes, Helen M. Hughes, and Irwin Deutscher, (1958).
During his tenure at the University of Chicago Hughes's activities show evidence of his commitment to Robert Park as a mentor and his training at the University of Chicago as a sociologist. He revived Robert Parks's course on race relations and transformed it into a course on the African novel that he began to teach at Brandeis University in 1961. Hughes was also a member of the Committee on Education, Training, and Research in Race Relations with Louis Wirth, Robert Redfield, Fred Eggan, Sol Tax, Allison Davis, Ralph W. Tyler, and Frederick Harbison. He participated in the efforts to aid German universities after the war through the University of Chicago's Committee for Aid to German and Austrian Scholars. He held visiting professorships at Frankfurt University through the exchange program in the years 1948, 1953, and 1958. His article "Good People and Dirty Work" came from his first tour there in 1948. Hughes also continued to develop courses in field training for sociologists.
In the 1950s Hughes became a member of the Committee on Human Development and began to take a more active interest in the sociology of education. Through this committee he established ties to Kansas City, where the committee had been doing research. Hughes began working with professors at the University of Kansas Medical School in 1952. The study of the Medical School developed into a study of the undergraduate college with the encouragement of Dean George R. Waggoner. The two monographs that resulted from these studies were Boys in White by Howard S. Becker, Blanche Geer, Everett Hughes, and Anselm Strauss, (1961), and Making the Grade by Howard S, Becker, Blanche Geer, and Everett Hughes, (1968). Hughes carried on his involvement with medical education when he joined the American Medical Association's Citizens Commission on Graduate Medical Education from 1963 to 1967.
As the studies at the University of Kansas were underway, Hughes moved to Boston and began teaching at Brandeis University in 1961. During this same academic year he served as president of the American Sociological Association.
Still in contact with many colleagues in Canada, Hughes received an invitation to propose a study to the Canadian Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in 1963. This commission was appointed by the Canadian Government to study ways in which to cauterize the crises between French and English Canadians. By this time his book French Canada in Transition had long been a classic text in Canadian sociology. In 1965 he took leave from Brandeis University for a year and accepted a joint visiting professorship at McGill University and the Université de Montréal. During this year he taught and pursued a project approved by the Royal Commission using students from both universities to assist in the fieldwork. His final report "Career Patterns of Young Montrealers in Certain White Collar Occupations," was completed but never published.
In 1968, Hughes moved his activities to Boston College after becoming an emeritus at Brandeis. He taught at Boston College until he gained emeritus status there in 1976. During the 1970s Hughes enjoyed advising students from both Brandeis University and Boston College. He also participated in another study funded by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, Education for the Professions of Medicine, Law, Theology, and Social Welfare, by Everett C. Hughes, Barrie Thorne, and Agostino M. De Baggis, (1973).
Everett Cherrington Hughes died in Boston on January 4, 1983, at the age of 86.
The Everett Cherrington Hughes Papers have been divided into nine series: (1) Personal, (2) Professional Correspondence, (3) Course Work, (4) Writings and Research Material, (5) French Canada Studies, (6) University of Kansas Studies on Medical and General Education, (7) Helen MacGill Hughes, (8) Audio-Visual Materials, and (9) Letters of Reference, Grant Evaluations, and Referee Reports.
The concentration of material covers the period of the 1960s and 1970s. Two heavily documented projects from the late 50s and 60s are projects done at the University of Kansas on general undergraduate and medical education (1952-1964) located in Series VI, and the study for Canada's Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963-1965) located in Series V.
The collection includes Hughes's diaries that included field notes, memoranda, and diary entries along with personal and professional observations. Hughes dictated the memos with an audiograph, and a secretary transcribed them in duplicate or triplicate. The transcriptions and tapes are located in Series VIII. The memoranda are found in a concentrated group now found in Series IV. We have maintained Hughes's filing system. The travel diaries have been grouped together in Series IV.
Series I, Personal, consists of curriculum vitae, bibliographies, awards received, interviews, and biographical and autobiographical essays. In particular, there is an annotated bibliography of works by Hughes that was probably compiled by Helen Hughes around 1967. The series includes essays by other authors on the Chicago school of sociology. Also included are Hughesís reminiscences of student days in Chicago, written in memoranda form in the late 1970s. The memos recall course work, attitudes, and interests of both graduate students and professors, as well as stories of Robert Park, Nels Anderson, Robert Redfield, Helen MacGill, and Ruth Shonle Cavan.
Series II, Correspondence, is arranged alphabetically by name. The concentration of material dates from the 1960s and 1970s but includes letters as early as 1926 and as late as 1982. The correspondence is professional and includes other types of materials such as manuscripts, conference papers, and meeting minutes. There is an extensive exchange with David Riesman, Nels Anderson, Allison Davis, Meyer Fortes, Clifford Geertz, Erving Goffman, Andrew M. Greeley, Robert Havinghurst, Morris Janowitz, Margaret Mead, W. Lloyd Warner, and Leslie A. White. Hughesís work with the Social Science Research Council's Committee on Socio-linguistics and American Medical Association committee work are represented in this series.
Series III covers the period 1927 to 1977 and contains course materials. This series has been divided into seven subseries: (1) McGill University, (2) University of Chicago, (3) Brandeis University, (4) Boston College, (5) Visiting Seminars and Lectures, (6) Miscellaneous Lectures, and (7) Student Work.
The first four subseries correspond to the university teaching posts Hughes held, and the files are arranged by course number and title. The material in the folders includes lectures and lecture notes, syllabi, bibliographies, course outlines, exam questions, mimeographed handouts, course diaries, memoranda, manuscripts by other authors and students, reprints, and newspaper clippings. Prominent subjects of instruction represented in these forms are mass movements and collective behavior, social institutions, professions, race and ethnic relations, and field work. Much of the earlier material from McGill or the University of Chicago is found in the later files reflecting Hughes's continuity of interests.
Subseries 5 and 6 are lectures not tied specifically to a university or course. These files contain lecture notes and lectures with a few other course materials such as those outlined above. Both subseries are arranged chronologically within subject areas. Subseries 7 contains undergraduate and graduate papers and assignments arranged by students' last names. Titles, courses, or dates are not consistently identifiable.
Series IV, Research and Writings, covers the period 1922-1980 and has been arranged into eight subseries: (1) Travel Diaries and Memoranda, (2) Research Materials, (3) Note Cards, ca. 1920s-1930s, (4) Translations, (5) Book Reviews, (6) Manuscripts, (7) Publishing Correspondence, (8) Publications.
Subseries 1, Travel Diaries and Memoranda, has been arranged chronologically. Many of the memoranda are titled and concern places and topics including Japan and the bombing of Hiroshima, universities and education in the U.S. and abroad, professional meetings, and current social and political events.
Subseries 2, Research Materials, is a group of miscellaneous projects with which Hughes was involved. The general areas in the files reflect Hughes's areas of study: race relations, occupations, and professions. They are loosely arranged by date and subject. The first is a student study of Bridgeport, (Chicago, Illinois) done in 1925-1926. Also included in this subseries are his work on the German Catholic labor movement and his work with the Committee on Human Relations in Industry. During his stay in Germany, Hughes collected German newspapers following the rise of the Nazi party, which are housed in Oversize Boxes 145-147. A travel diary with notes from Frankfurt in 1948 is filed in subseries 2, because this travel diary served as a basis for a lecture and published essay entitled "Good People and Dirty Work." This subseries also contains material relating to a National Opinion Research Center study on American priests done in 1970-1971.
The note cards in subseries 3 were generated in his student days at the University of Chicago. In his memoranda entitled "On My Years in Graduate School at the University of Chicago, 29 January 1976," Hughes describes the system: note cards are in the "4 x 6" slips after the W. I. Thomas scheme. The manuscript being on white, bibliography being on blue and quotations being on orange colored slips.
There is a small group of translations by Hughes arranged alphabetically by author in subseries 4. Subseries 5, Book Reviews, is reviews written by Hughes. The reviews date from 1926 to 1979 and are arranged chronologically.
Subseries 6, Manuscripts, includes published and unpublished manuscripts, addresses, and magazine articles. These materials are arranged chronologically. Included with this subseries are some of the files generated by the project undertaken by Hughes, Winifred Raushenbush, and others to publish the papers of Robert Park. Hughes gave most of these files to the University of Chicago Library where they are now part of the Robert Park Papers in the Department of Special Collections.
Subseries 7, Publishing Correspondence, has been arranged chronologically and consists of reviews of his work, requests for reprints, publishing contracts, and correspondence regarding the publication of some of Hughesís older titles such as the Chicago Real Estate Board and French Canada in Transition. Similar letters can be found in Series II.
Subseries 8, Publications, is made up of reprints and smaller books, one of them a private publication done here at the University of Chicago entitled Cases on Field Work co-authored by Everett C. Hughes, Buford H. Junker, Ray L. Gold, and Dorothy Kittel. These are arranged chronologically.
Series V, French Canada Studies, has been arranged into two subseries: (1) General,and (2) Study of the Careers and Career Aspirations of Young Canadians, 1965. The first subseries consists of notes, memoranda, papers by and about others in Canada, as well as collections of Canadian newspaper clippings from the early 1930s to the 1970s documenting topics such as French Canada during World War II. The arrangement of the files is chronological. These files were generated during the many visits to Canada Hughes made after he left in 1938 to teach at the University of Chicago. As can be seen from the material, Hughes closely watched the many manifestations of ethnic conflict between French and English speakers in Canada.
Subseries 2, "Study of the Careers and Career Aspirations of Young Canadians, Some of French and Some of Other Backgrounds," was a study initiated by Canada's Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism with the additional support of McGill University and the UniversitÈ de MontrÈal. Hughes carried out his study in 1965. Students from both universities were recruited to assist in the field. The subseries has been subdivided into: administration and research data. The administrative material consists of correspondence with both administrators of the project and researchers. Project proposals, reports, studies of a similar nature, and memoranda by Hughes and the research team are in this group. The final report to the Commission, " Career Patterns of Young Montrealers in Certain White-Collar Occupations," was never published. This research data subseries contains the interviews done in the field by the project. They include interviews with individuals working in various professions carried out in 1965. They are arranged by profession or by corporation that defined profession such as Bell Telephone.
The Kansas City and University of Chicago connection was already established through the Kansas City Study of Adult Life. This work was done under the direction of Robert J. Havighurst and the University of Chicago's Committee on Human Development. It was supported by the Carnegie Corporation and Community Studies, Inc., a research body financed by several local trusts of Kansas City. Everett Hughes had become affiliated with the Committee on Human Development in the 1950s and he began talking to Dr. Dimond of the University of Kansas Medical School about a study of specialization in medical schools in 1952. The pilot study was underway by the fall of 1955 and was conducted by Howard S. Becker. Most of this team, Becker, Geer, and Hughes, moved directly into another study of undergraduates at the University of Kansas, and the final publication for this study was Making the Grade, 1968. Because the completion of one study was taking place while the other study was getting underway, and because the records of the two studies were inter-filed, it seemed appropriate to keep these groups together.
Subseries VI has been divided into four subseries: (1) Administration, (2) Articles and Publications, (3) Research Data, and (4) Related Studies. All these subseries are arranged chronologically. Hughes supervised these studies for the most part long distance from both the University of Chicago and Brandeis University, so there is a wealth of reports and memoranda that fall into the category of correspondence. The correspondence with Community Studies Inc., which holds correspondence with both Howard S. Becker and Blanche Geer. Hughes did conduct interviews and manage the projects on site during some parts of 1959 and 1961. The rest of the field work on record in this collection was done by Howard S. Becker, Blanche Geer, Marsh Ray, and Rue Bucher.
Helen MacGill graduated with a double degree in Economics and German from the University of British Columbia. On hearing a lecture by Winifred Raushenbush on Chinatown in Vancouver and then speaking with Robert Park, who persuaded her to come to the University of Chicago and study sociology under a Laura Spelman Rockefeller Fellowship, Ms. MacGill came to the University in 1925. Here she met and married Everett Hughes in 1927. Helen was able to complete her Ph.D. in 1937 under the direction of Robert Park. The next year Helen and Everett came back to the University of Chicago when Everett received an assistant professorship.
World War II soon began and with the shortage of the usual male graduate students to fill the position of editorial assistant at the American Journal of Sociology, Herbert Blumer offered Helen Hughes the job. She worked as an editor for the American Journal of Sociology for 17 years from 1944 until 1961, when she and Everett moved to Boston for Everett to take a post at Brandeis University in 1961.
The only substantive files of her work are from her editorship of a study, The Status of Women in Sociology, 1968-1972: Report to the American Sociological Association of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession.
Please refer to the Audio-Visual series to find a microfilmed manuscript of The Fantastic Lodge: The Autobiography of a Girl Addict. This monograph was published in 1961. Helen MacGill edited this work and Howard S. Becker made the recordings on which the text is based.
Series VIII contains reel-to-reel and cassette tapes that consist of lectures, dictated letters, and memoranda. The single roll of microfilm was made in 1960 by Helen MacGill Hughes of the manuscript prepared for Fantastic Lodge: The Autobiography of a Girl Drug Addict (1961). Hughes dictated many of his letters and memoranda on to dictadisks for transcription by a secretary. The dictadisk subseries is divided into dictadisks without transcripts and dictadisks with transcripts. The arrangement of these sub subseries mirrors the organization of the entire collection.
The reel-to-reel and cassette tapes as well as the microfilm in this series are restricted due to their fragile condition or need for special equipment.
Arranged alphabetically, this series consists of recommendations for students and colleagues, a few grant proposal evaluations, and a few referee reports for papers in the field of sociology. Series IX is restricted and unavailable for research until 2030.