The following information on recent archival processing work at Manuscripts and Archives (MSSA) was written by Alison Clemens, Head of Processing.
Since my last post in October, MSSA staff have made available the several collections and additions to existing collections, including:
New collections
Environmental Action Group, Yale University, Records (RU 1183)
The records, totaling .44 linear feet, consist of letters, statements, flyers, and other records of Environmental Action Group at Yale University, clippings documenting the group’s activities, and photographic slides (with digital scans on CD) of Earth Day 1970 events in New Haven.
Lloyd G. Reynolds Papers (MS 1943)
The Lloyd G. Reynolds Papers (previously minimally described by Manuscripts and Archives staff) received a fuller level of processing. The papers, totaling 17.5 linear feet, consist of personal and professional files of Lloyd G. Reynolds, economist, educator, and author. Personal files include correspondence and subject files concerning family, friends, and local New Haven businesses and organizations. Professional files include correspondence and subject files concerning Reynolds’s time at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, and Yale University, as well as other organizations and institutions concerning the study of economics. The professional files also include travel files and diaries and material related to professional conferences around the globe attended by Reynolds, in particular the American Economic Association’s joint United States-Soviet symposiums of the 1970s and 1980s. Also included are articles, essays, and outlines and drafts from textbooks authored by Reynolds, and publisher correspondence.
National Institute of Social Sciences Records (MS 2110)
The National Institute of Social Sciences Records, totaling 10.5 linear feet, comprises institutional records of the National Institute for Social Science (NISS) dating from 1870 through 2016. The history of the National Institute for Social Science dates to 1912, when the Institute was created as a department of the American Social Science Association (ASSA). Any material that predates 1912 was created under the auspices of the American Social Science Association, and any material that postdates 1926 was created by the NISS, as that is the year in which the NISS assumed the ASSA’s charter. Early material is primarily correspondence, with some annual dinner records from the mid-20th century. The bulk of the material is from 1990-2008 and consists primarily of administrative materials, such as meeting minutes, financial records, member lists, and annual meeting planning materials. Also included are LPs of speeches given at award dinners.
Mary Dillman Papers (MS 2119)
The Mary Dillman Papers, totaling 8.5 linear feet, contain research files, interview materials, correspondence, class materials, presentations, conference papers, and photographs related to Jane Roberts, a spiritualist who claimed to channel a spirit known as Seth. This material details Dillman’s research into Jane Roberts and Seth and documents Dillman’s relationships with the larger network of Seth researchers. Also included are materials created by members of the community that surrounded Roberts, Seth, and Roberts’ husband, Robert Butts.
Additions or significant revisions to existing collections
Accession 2004-M-060 of the Robin William Winks Papers (MS 336)
This accession, totaling 54.58 linear feet, contains Winks’s professional correspondence from his time as a professor, student work, teaching files, conference presentations, and research files. The bulk of the accession consists of drafts, research, and notes for Winks’s book, Cloak and Gown: Scholars in America’s Secret War, which explored the relationship between universities, particularly Yale, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and its predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Also included are Winks’s undergraduate papers; his teaching files from his time as a professor at Yale; papers written by Yale students in Winks’s classes; and research materials for Winks’s unpublished biography of William Francis Drummond. The research materials for the unpublished Drummond biography consist primarily of reproductions of documents that Winks used in his research.
Accession 2018-M-0037 of the Robert A. M. Stern Architects Records (MS 1859)
This accession, totaling 1.75 linear feet, contains a New Residential Colleges Design Development Detail Precedents of Yale’s Existing Buildings booklet, 2010; stone ornamentation guides, 2017; and a Yale University Residential College Commemorative and Informational Ornament Study booklet, 2012.
Accession 2019-M-0022 of the Technoserve Records (MS 2083)
This accession, totaling 17.67 linear feet, consists of photographs, negatives, and slides documenting Technoserve’s work of combating poverty in Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe. Materials document the work and projects undertaken in specific countries, as well as Technoserve’s operations, events, and staff in the United States.
Accession 2019-M-0056 of the Centerbrook Architects and Planners Records (MS 1844)
This accession, totaling 2.17 linear feet, contains project records for the Floyd House, along with Chad Floyd’s master thesis, “Reinvigorating the Ninth Square,” (New Haven, CT), 1973.
Accession 2020-M-0003 of the Thomas Collier Platt Papers (MS 727)
One letter book, 1890 March 20-1893 March 11, along with gatherings of letters, 1906-1910. The letter gatherings also include newspaper clippings documenting events related to Platt.
Accession 2020-M-0012 of the Bert Hansen Papers (MS 2042)
This accession, totaling 7.33 linear feet, documents the work and research interests of Bert Hansen, particularly his research on women in medicine, biology and sexual orientation, and medical history in advertising; his work with an academic center at the City University of New York (CUNY); and his compilation of organizational newsletters and publications pertaining to gay and feminist culture and history. The accession also includes Hansen’s personal medical files from 1994 through 2015.
Accession 2020-M-0022 of the Joseph Barrell Papers (MS 778)
This accession, totaling .42 linear feet, contains manuscript and typescript writings of Joseph Barrell, including the Genesis of the Earth, Circa 1917; Relations of Pleistocene Warping to Strength of Crust, 1914-1915; Significance of the Equatorial Acceleration in the Sun’s Rotation, 1916; and The Strength of the Earth’s Crust, Part IX, 1915-1919.
Accession 2020-M-0038 of the George Alexander Kubler Papers (MS 843)
Letters, housed in one envelope, between George and Betty Kubler to Barbara Anderson, 1989. Kubler was Anderson’s PhD adviser in Yale University’s Department of the History of Art in the 1970s. The letters pertain primarily to their personal lives and publications in art history.
Accession 2021-M-0003 and 2021-M-0018 of the David Benjamin Mixner Papers (MS 1862)
These accessions, totaling 1.75 linear feet together, primarily contain printed email messages between October 2019 and May 2020 (Accession 2021-M-0003) and June 2020 and February 2021 (Accession 2021-M-0018). Accession 2021-M-0003 also includes a proclamation by Philip D. Murphy, governor of New Jersey, recognizing Mixner for his work in support of LGBTQ+ and human rights, and a Blu-ray disc recording of an oral history with Mixner.
Accession 2021-M-0006 of the World War II Collection (MS 688)
A pamphlet, circa 1943, titled “Poland Fights the Nazi Dragon,” published by Polish War Relief, Chicago, Illinois.
Accession 2021-M-0007 of the Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects, LLC, Records (MS 1971)
This accession, totaling .33 linear feet, contains a Sedacca Residence construction drawing set, 1968.
Accession 2021-A-0010 of the May Day Rally and Yale Collection (RU 86)
Additional material documenting May Day and Yale, totaling .25 linear feet, and including ephemera, news clippings, newspapers, “Strike Newspaper,” and Yale publications, all dated 1970.
Accession 2021-M-0015 of the Katherine Mayo Papers (MS 345)
A letter, March 10, 1917, from Katherine Mayo to reader Lewis W. Robinson of Cresskill, New Jersey in response to his letter regarding Mayo’s book Justice to All: History of the Pennsylvania State Police. In the letter, Mayo encourages Robinson to “help along the movement to follow Pennsylvania’s example wherever you find it” and support the “state police movement.” Robinson’s March 6, 1917 letter can be found in Series I (box 2, folder 13).
Accession 2021-M-0024 of the Charles Augustus Lindbergh Gift Collection (MS 325A)
A 1977 statement written by Herman W. Liebert on his observations of Charles A. Lindbergh’s personality. Liebert says he observed Lindbergh playing mean-spirited practical jokes intended to embarrass others and observed he had a “need to command.”
Accession 2021-A-0028 of the Kingman Brewster, Jr., President of Yale University, Records (RU 11)
Additional material in the record, totaling 68.42 linear feet and dating 1959-1977. Includes administrative files, correspondence, and paper copies and audio recordings of speeches and addresses.
Accession 2022-A-0009 of the Whiffenpoofs, Yale University, Records (RU 156)
Original songbook, 1936.
Accession 2022-A-0013 of the Spizzwinks, Yale University, Records (RU 211)
50th anniversary album recorded by the Spizzwinks. Includes autographs from the members of the group.