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© 2007 University of Chicago Library
Boxes 11 through 13 contain cassette tapes which require audio equipment for access. The rest of the collection is unrestricted and open for research.
When quoting material from this collection, the preferred citation is: Stone, Ursula Batchelder. Papers, [Box #, Folder #], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library
Ursula Batchelder Stone was born June 26, 1900 in Faribault, Minnesota. As a girl, she attended Shattuck-St. Mary’s School; in 1918, she enrolled at Bryn Mawr College. In 1922, she graduated with a B.A., continuing with one year of graduate work in economics at Bryn Mawr. She enrolled in the School of Commerce and Administration at the University of Chicago in 1925. In 1929, she became the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in business from an American university with the acceptance of her dissertation, entitled “The Baking Industry with Special Reference to the Bread-Making Industry in Chicago.” While completing the dissertation, she married School of Business faculty member Raleigh Stone.
Throughout the 1930s, Stone worked with her close friend, Rachel Marshall Goetz, as the Batchelder and Marshall Research Service. Together, they conducted independent research and published detailed reports of their findings for a variety of Chicago companies. Stone also held the presidency of the Hyde Park League of Women Voters from 1939-1941. In 1939, she joined the faculty of George Williams College, lecturing in economics and social sciences. She remained on the faculty until the college moved from Hyde Park to suburban Downers Grove in 1965.
In 1952, Stone was elected as the only female on the Committee of Five, which then established the South East Chicago Commission. The SECC spearheaded the Hyde Park-Kenwood Urban Renewal Project of the 1950s and 60s, leading to massive commercial and residential redevelopment between 39th and 67th streets. Stone passed away in 1985.
The Ursula Batchelder Stone Collection consists of two series. Series I contains primary source material from Stone, including photographs, correspondence, and other writing. Series II houses Mary Alzina Stone Dale’s extensive research files on her mother’s life and career, used for the preparation of a book about Stone’s life and career, entitled Suffragette Daughter. Included here are Dale’s notes, clippings, correspondence, and interviews relating to Stone’s education and professional activities.
The following related resources are located in the Department of Special Collections:
Series I holds primary material relating to Stone’s life and work. Included here are photographs and correspondence from her years at Bryn Mawr College. Also contained in this series is correspondence and meeting minutes relating to the early days of the South East Chicago Commission. Personal material such as correspondence and documents relating to family affairs are also found in this series. Finally, the series contains much of Stone’s own writing, ranging from her early research work co-authored by Rachel Marshall Goetz to her last writings about retirement in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Series II holds Mary Alzina Stone Dale’s extensive research files on her mother’s life and work. Among the materials included here are clippings, correspondence, and pamphlets about Stone’s home town of Faribault, Minnesota, and its immediate vicinity. This series also holds clippings and correspondence regarding the institutional histories of Shattuck-Saint Mary’s Episcopal school and Bryn Mawr College. Dale mailed questionnaires to many of Stone’s classmates at Bryn Mawr, and the completed questionnaires are also held here. Series II includes further information relating to the formation of the South East Chicago Commission and Stone’s relationship with George Williams College. Additionally, this series contains audio recordings of many interviews conducted by Dale in preparation of Suffragette Daughter, a book about Stone, as well as drafts of the first three chapters of that manuscript.