“Help Us Make History” at the Yale University Archives

Through the Help Us Make History project, the University Archives has documented the stories of Yale undergraduates during the 2020 Spring Semester.  The first prompt “Share a picture of your study space” was a great success.  See some examples of how Yale undergraduate students finished out their semester.  If you would like to participate, there is still time to visit the site and send us a pic of your study space from the past semester.  Otherwise, stay tuned for more prompts coming soon!

Image of a Yale student's COVID-19 isolation work space“Desk in my brother’s room at home. Around me were childhood stuffed animals, a turtle tank and a full-size bed. Important to me is the sunlight filtering in. Lighting has had a drastic influence on my mood, motivation and study habits. The same is what occurs in my brain, the logical connections, the development of claims, the cranking out of problems. But nothing outside my mind has continued the same. I miss the intellectual generosity that the Yale space fosters and that my peers bring into my life.”

 

Image of a Yale student's COVID-19 isolation work space“I lived in Baker Hall, my work-space was the desk next to my bed. I had a nice view of the trees from my window. In had everything I needed in my small work-space:  a small pot to warm water for tea, my computer for attending my online classes, a lamp, a calendar, and pictures to remind me of my family and home (Mexico). I played the ukulele to relax, each post-it was a new ukulele song. I had three boards on the walls to write down my ideas, a section of my one of my boards can be seen in the reflection on the mirror.”

Image of a Yale student's COVID-19 isolation work space“My family and I moved from CT to NJ during our spring break.  Due to the quarantine, we weren’t able to buy a lot of the furniture we were planning to and I built myself a makeshift desk out of boxes and totes.  The desk is in my room and was definitely a huge improvement from sitting on my bed for hours on end.”

R.I.P. “Manuscripts and Archives Digital Images Database” (MADID) – Hello “Manuscripts and Archives Digital Library” Collection in FindIt

Screen capture of main Yale Library Digital Collections page (FindIt)After many years of faithful service our beloved Manuscripts and Archives Digital Images Database (MADID) will retire in January 2020. MADID’s happy retirement is made possible by the migration of the MADID images to FindIt, Yale University Library’s central digital collections search engine.

Staff and researchers, especially frequent MADID users, are encouraged to explore FindIt, where they will find digitized Manuscripts and Archives content along with content from other Yale Library repositories. You can browse using the facets, including Repository, Digital Collection, and Call Number (see “Limit your search”) or enter the old MADID number in the search box. All images from MADID are now in FindIt. Not finding what you need? Contact us at mssa.assist@yale.edu. We are happy to assist you.

The Demise of the Crocodile Club: A Town/Gown Tragedy at Yale

The following post was authored by Camila Tessler, archivist in Manuscripts and Archives. All references to archival collection material are to items from the William Henry Anderson Correspondence Regarding the Crocodile Club (MS 2018).

Image of William Henry Anderson letter to his father, 1858 January 9. (MS 2018, Box 1, folder 5).

William Henry Anderson letter to his father, 1858 January 9. (MS 2018, Box 1, folder 5).

On January 9, 1858, William Henry Anderson (Class of 1859) wrote to his father that the Crocodile Club, a Yale undergraduate group, was flourishing. In fact, he wrote, “I think I can safely say that [the Crocodile Club] is … the most popular club of all.” (MS 2018, Box 1, folder 5). A little more than a month later, on February 21, Anderson again wrote to his father, admitting that the faculty were recommending that the club disband. In a month’s time, how did Yale College’s “most popular club” fall so low as to be forced to disband by the faculty?

The Crocodile Club was a popular eating club, which provided a way for students to socialize and dine together. These eating clubs still exist at other Ivy League institutions, such as Princeton, but at Yale the only modern equivalents are the senior societies. The Crocodile Club was apparently successful, racking up bills of “nearly a thousand dollars” (Box 1, folder 4), which is the rough equivalent of $30,000 in today’s money. The club appears to have been comprised of many students who could afford to both eat out and board with the other “crocodiles.”

On the night of Feburary 9, 1858, following several nights of tension between New Haven firefighters stationed near the campus and groups of students, members of the Crocodile Club encountered a group of New Haven firemen while on their way back from dining. As an altercation between the two groups spiraled out of control, the leader among the group of firemen, a man named William Miles, was shot by one of the Yale students. (Lyman Hotchkiss Bagg, Four Years at Yale, New Haven: C.C. Chatfield & Co., 1871, pages 510-511).

Image of Letter from William Henry Anderson to his father, 9 February 1858 (MS 2018, Box 1, folder 6).

Letter from William Henry Anderson to his father, 9 February 1858 (MS 2018, Box 1, folder 6).

William Anderson was present and wrote to his father about the incident, his arrest, and the subsequent trial. He stated in a letter dated February 19, ten days after the incident, that “suspicion of course fell upon the club and perhaps justly and we were all implicated and are as much guilty as another in the eye of the law” (Box 1, folder 6). In the same letter, Anderson went on to relate to his father that “counsel advised me not to answer anything that would show I was there … and he advised all the rest to the same”. Their refusal to testify landed the boys in jail, but only nominally. Anderson claimed that he spent most of his jail time studying and did not suffer any inconvenience, though it is not altogether clear whether this is a fact, or something added to reassure a potentially concerned parent. Anderson’s letters are rife with reassurances to his parents that everything at Yale is fine, so playing down his jail time wouldn’t be completely out of character or context.

Image of excerpt from letter from William Henry Anderson to his father following his trial, 6 March 1858 (MS 2018, Box 1, folder 9).

Excerpt from letter from William Henry Anderson to his father following his trial, 6 March 1858 (MS 2018, Box 1, folder 9).

As the trial moved forward it quickly became apparent that justice favored gown over town. Even though Anderson clearly knew who shot Miles, he asserted that “I have the consciousness of knowing that I did not injure a person that night, not so much as a scratch. That consciousness, you know, will be worth worlds to me for if I knew that I had killed the man, even in self defense as what was done by whoever did it, I could hardly bear the thought” (Box 1, folder 8). Anderson continually refused to testify, as did the rest of the rest of the Crocodile Club group. Their silence bought them their legal innocence, as no one was sentenced to jail time. Anderson believed that it was “a very fair verdict” (Box 1, folder 9), since there were no legal consequences.

That lack of legal punishment did not, however, free the Crocodile Club members from consequences at Yale. In a letter to his father dated March 24, almost a full month after the end of the trial, Anderson revealed that “[the faculty] talked it over till noon and there decided to separate from the college three members of the club, Carrington, Smith, and Lorichell. This separation is about equivalent to a dismissal” (Box 1, folder 11). This dismissal was accompanied by a reference to any other college of their choice, so the dismissal, while a bold action on the part of the faculty, was one with a golden parachute.

Events where town and gown were diametrically opposed were common in the 1850s, and they are equally common today. The details of this case were so odd though, and the first-hand testimony in letters home from one of the participants so palpable, that the incident is worth exploring. Looking over historical cases such as the rise and fall of the Crocodile Club can help us to contextualize and have a clearer understanding of the relationship between Yale and New Haven over time. In this case Yale students were absolved Yale of a terrible crime through silence, and did serious damage to the town-gown relationship. We struggle with similar incidents today and can use the rise and fall of the Crocodile Club as one lens for examining accountability and justice in the ongoing, evolving relationship between the communities of Yale and New Haven.

“Dead-end street…”: Chester Bowles on Vietnam in 1968

This is a guest post by Marc A. Reyes, a doctoral student in the Department of History at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. His research interests include foreign relations history, economic and political development, South Asian studies, and histories of science and technology. He is spending 2019 in New Delhi, India, as a Fulbright-Nehru Fellow conducting dissertation research.

“I continue to feel that the Vietnam situation, to put it mildly, is a dead-end street…”

Don Corsetti, autographed pencil sketch of Chester Bowles, accompanying letter dated 22 July 1966. Chester Bowles Papers (MS 628), Box 328, Folder 47.

Don Corsetti, autographed pencil sketch of Chester Bowles, accompanying letter dated 22 July 1966. Chester Bowles Papers (MS 628), Box 328, Folder 47.

In 1968, Ambassador Chester Bowles finally expressed what he had been thinking for years: the Vietnam War would not end well for the United States. In an April 2, 1968, letter to former aide and future U.S. Ambassador to India Richard Celeste, Bowles asserted that the war had cost the U.S. dearly. Two days earlier, President Lyndon Johnson’s announcement that the United States would halt its bombing campaign to start negotiations to end the war had stunned everyone, and Bowles confided to Celeste that such talks would be “extremely difficult.” The U.S.’s options were not likely to produce a favorable outcome. Like many Americans, Bowles had serious concerns about the war, but initially he sincerely believed the war would produce a stable government for South Vietnamese citizens and eventually a more just South Vietnamese society. Now Bowles concluded the war was “a dead-end street.”

Chester Bowles would readily admit he was the Ambassador to India, not Southeast Asia, but his second stint as the U.S.’s Ambassador to India, from July 1963 to April 1969, allowed him a greater opportunity to better understand India and its evolving role in a wider range of Asian affairs. His first term, in the Truman administration, had been only for eighteen months and focused primarily on obtaining U.S. economic aid for India. Given the chance to return to New Delhi, Bowles threw himself into all matters of U.S.-Indian relations, and worked to understand one of the larger issues facing Asia during this period: the Vietnam War. Bowles thought deeply about the war and how it affected U.S. foreign policy in Cold War Asia.

U.S. Ambassador Chester Bowles at the American Embassy in New Delhi, India, cover of Span magazine, Volume VIII, number 4 (April 1967). Chester Bowles Papers (MS 628), Box 341, Folder 327.

U.S. Ambassador Chester Bowles at the American Embassy in New Delhi, India, cover of Span magazine, Volume VIII, number 4 (April 1967). Chester Bowles Papers (MS 628), Box 341, Folder 327.

Reading through the Chester Bowles Papers at Manuscript and Archives, researchers discover how much Vietnam weighed on Bowles. His personal papers provide glimpses into his thinking about nationalism, Third World revolution, and the balance of power in Asia. When he was not working on US-Indian issues, such as food aid to India and negotiating a settlement between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, Bowles analyzed India’s role in Asian affairs. He believed India could lead a coalition of non-Communist Asian nations, serving as a bulwark against the expansion and influence of China. Bowles specifically argued that India itself had seen up close the threat of Communist aggression (in its 1962 war with China) and the fight in Vietnam was another example of a non-Communist country resisting Communist domination.

Bowles’ Vietnam War concerns did not appear out of nowhere and steadily grew during the course of his second stint as ambassador. His papers document his disillusionment with the U.S.’s campaigns to repel North Vietnam forces and their South Vietnamese sympathizers and to build up a functioning South Vietnam. Mirroring a process similar to that experienced by many Americans, Bowles went from supporter to critic of the war, speculating what the war was costing the U.S. and what a post-Vietnam War world should look like for India, Asia, and the United States.

Chester Bowles, "What Hope for Peace in Vietnam?", American Reporter, issue of December 21, 1966, reprint. Chester Bowles Papers (MS 628), Box 341, Folder 342.

Chester Bowles, “What Hope for Peace in Vietnam?”, American Reporter, issue of December 21, 1966, reprint. Chester Bowles Papers (MS 628), Box 341, Folder 342.

As early as 1964, before the United States’ Rolling Thunder campaign and massive deployment of American troops, Bowles doubted that Vietnam could be resolved through purely military means. In a February 1964 letter to New York Times reporter James Reston, Bowles claimed that since his visit to Southeast Asia in 1952, “it was evident that the military approach would never work unless it was supported by a sensitive political effort to deal with the people.” Bowles lamented that since 1950 the U.S. had spent an “unbelievable” $6 billion dollars in Southeast Asia and had little to show for it. He recognized history repeating itself in that the Republic of China’s leadership, before its defeat by Mao Zedong’s Communist Army, had also believed a military victory had to precede any political and state-building reforms. Bowles recognized that these breakthroughs had to be connected, and were not separate issues to be dealt with in the future. Bowles’ reference to earlier mistakes was not a one-time occurrence, either. In a 1966 letter to Senator George McGovern, Bowles said the U.S. had failed when it allowed the French to resume control of their Southeast Asia colonies, and speculated that if FDR had lived to see the end of the war he would have challenged France’s colonial rule.

Hoping to receive some kind of Indian support for the U.S.’s war effort in Vietnam, Bowles traveled to Thailand, Laos, and South Vietnam in August 1966. While there, he met with government leaders, ambassadors, and military commanders to learn more about the U.S.’s Vietnam mission. If Bowles, a trusted voice to Indian leadership, witnessed and reported back signs of U.S. progress, perhaps India could offer moral support for the U.S. mission or at least refrain from criticizing the war.

First page of the itinerary outline for Ambassador Bowles' trip to Southeast Asia, 5-12 August 1966. Chester Bowles Papers (MS 628), Box 343, Folder 360.

First page of the itinerary outline for Ambassador Bowles’ trip to Southeast Asia, 5-12 August 1966. Chester Bowles Papers (MS 628), Box 343, Folder 360.

During his week-long visit, Bowles heard of South Vietnamese villages pacified, of schools built, and markets reopened. It was apparent, however, that the security situation was still fraught. Armed guards were posted throughout supposedly safe villages and U.S. officials described areas as unsafe at night, even in places without much of a North Vietnamese presence. In his reporting, Bowles acknowledged that there were U.S. military successes worth celebrating, but his analysis also revealed concerns about the growing costs of the war and the effectiveness of the U.S.’s North Vietnamese bombing campaign. While Bowles thought U.S. military successes were important, he placed a lot of faith in South Vietnam’s September 11th, 1966, Constitutional Assembly elections. He reasoned that successful elections like these would help win over skeptical South Vietnamese citizens and propel momentum for a favorable settlement to the war.

Within a year though, Bowles’ Vietnam anxieties returned. Writing to Vice President Hubert Humphrey in May 1967, Bowles remarked that it was “impossible for the United States to win a ground forces numbers game in Southeast or East Asia.” Bowles’ past support for the war rested on his conviction that the fight would be limited, but would also produce a functioning government that represented the best interests of the South Vietnamese people. What Americans saw, including Bowles, was just the opposite: a wider war and a corrupt South Vietnamese government. Bowles grumbled that the 1966 South Vietnamese elections had not produced any political breakthroughs and the ruling government had taken no steps to establish “a stable, just and peaceful society.”

Bowles reached his breaking point on Vietnam in April 1968. Not long after the Tet Offensive, and two days after President Johnson’s announcement of immediate peace talks, Bowles lamented that the war had cost the U.S. too much. In his April letter to Richard Celeste, Bowles called years of U.S. military reports “dismally wrong.” The retreating and weakened North Vietnamese enemy described in such reports did not match the one American soldiers found on the battlefield. Bowles’ biggest worry, though, was that the United States had “no realistic way out” of their Vietnam impasse.

Ernie Newhouse, photographer. Chester Bowles and other panelists on the set of the WRC-TV show Meeting of the Minds, Washington, D.C., 17 April 1966. Chester Bowles Papers (MS 628), Box 334, Folder 145.

Ernie Newhouse, photographer. Chester Bowles and other panelists on the set of the WRC-TV show Meeting of the Minds, Washington, D.C., 17 April 1966. Chester Bowles Papers (MS 628), Box 334, Folder 145.

As much as Chester Bowles wrestled with the Vietnam War and its immediate impact on U.S. foreign relations, he also imagined a world after the war. Bowles, in two 1966 letters, hoped that once the fighting stopped funds once earmarked for war could be utilized for development work abroad. Besides increased funds, Bowles thought future U.S. foreign policy would be different, even peaceful, because the true takeaway of the Vietnam War was that the U.S. could not kill its way out of trouble. Bowles declared: “every American military man and civilian, from generals and ambassadors down to privates and office boys, has witnessed at first hand the limitation of military power in a revolutionary situation.” Speculating what the United States could do with just half the money set aside for wars, Ambassador Bowles believed those financial resources “could create a new world.” If a third of the funds went overseas for development, and the other two-thirds went to develop American cities, Bowles thought the future, both for the U.S. and the world, “would look a lot less bleak.”

Chester Bowles’ second stint as the U.S. Ambassador to India coincided with his breaking point on the Vietnam War. He wrestled with uncomfortable facts until it was clear to see that the war’s costs were too great. The ambassador feared that the war harmed the United States’ ability to influence Asian nations and exercise power in the developing world. What the U.S. was losing – in lives, money, and respect – was far greater than what could be earned by continuing the U.S. presence in Southeast Asia. Bowles represented a generation of diplomats who truly believed the U.S. had the power to remake the world into something better and more just. Bowles’ voice was ignored and his post-war vision never realized, instead the tragic reality resembled what Bowles had feared all along.

New Collections and Additions at Manuscripts and Archives, April-June 2019

The following information on recently acquired and processed collections was assembled by Alison Clemens, assistant head of arrangement and description. Manuscripts and Archives has recently acquired and made available the following collections and additions to existing collections:

New collections

Catalunya Independence Movement Ephemera (MS 2099)

The collection (totaling 5.75 linear feet) contains ephemera related to the 2017 Catalan Independence Referendum, Declaration of Independence, and related elections. Ephemera includes cloth banners and bags, newspapers, pamphlets, stickers, and posters.

New Blue, Yale University, Records (RU 1160)

The records (totaling 10 linear feet) consist of tour records, performance events, scrapbooks, photographs and musical recordings from New Blue, the first women’s a cappella group at Yale University. Access to the records requires permission from the archivist of New Blue.

Additions to existing collections

Accession 2016-M-0089 of the Harold C. Conklin Papers (MS 1956)

This accession (totaling 50.75 linear feet) comprises Yale University administrative and teaching files, topical files, professional service files, and correspondence documenting Harold Conklin’s professional responsibilities at Yale University and in professional organizations. The Yale University files document Harold Conklin’s tenure at Yale University, including trips with the Association of Yale Alumni, teaching and research records from the Anthropology and Linguistics departments, and curatorial files from the Peabody Museum of Natural History. The records also document Conklin’s professorial and administrative responsibilities at Yale, particularly in the Department of Anthropology, such as his chair and committee service, courses and exhibitions, the Agrarian Studies Program, Southeast Asia Studies activities, and the development of Human Relations Area Files. The bulk of the collection is open for research. Access to Yale University administrative files is prohibited for 35 years from creation of the records. Access to student and personnel files is prohibited for 75 years or life plus five years (whichever is longer).

Accession 2018-M-0030 of the Hadley Family Papers (MS 985)

This accession (totaling 3.58 linear feet) consists of correspondence between members of the Hadley and Morris families and includes letters by and to Helen Hadley, Arthur Twining Hadley, and their children. Also includes studio portraits of family members and memorabilia, including documentation of academic achievements and family finances.

Accession 2018-M-0058 of the Louis H. Pollak Papers (MS 1989)

This accession includes a notebook of mementos prepared for the twentieth anniversary of Judge Louis H. Pollak’s appointment to the federal bench as judge for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Also includes other documentation related to his anniversary celebration.

Accession 2018-A-0082 of the Yale University Press Records (RU 554)

This accession comprises acquisition files for the Yale University Press, 1982-2016. Access to the materials is restricted until January 1, 2052.

Accessions 2019-M-0004 and 2019-M-0024 additions to the Duncan Chaplin Lee and John Lee Papers (MS 2062)

Accession 2019-M-0004 contains the personal papers of Duncan Chaplin Lee and includes personal and family photographs and albums; correspondence between Duncan Chaplin Lee, family, friends, and colleagues; and clippings. Accession 2019-M-0024 consists of the personal papers of Duncan Chaplin Lee, including correspondence with his son John Lightfoot Lee and other family members, and biographical material of the Lee family, including written accounts by Duncan Chaplin Lee. Accession 2019-M-0024 also contains a photograph album documenting Duncan Chaplin Lee’s time in Burma during World War II.

Accession 2019-A-0017 of the Ravi D. Goel Collection on Yale (RU 1081)

This accession (totaling .5 linear feet) consists of letters and legal documents, 1726-1799, documenting Yale affiliated individuals and organizations, collected by Ravi D. Goel.

Accession 2019-M-0020 of the G. Evelyn Hutchinson Papers (MS 649)

This accession (totaling .25 linear feet) comprises correspondence to and from G. Evelyn Hutchinson, including letters written by Hutchinson to Yemaiel Oved Aris, who resided with the Hutchinsons in New Haven during World War II. It also includes letters between Hutchinson’s colleagues regarding Hutchinson, class lecture notes taken in Fall 1953 by Estella B. Leopold (born 1927; Yale PhD 1955) for Hutchinson’s Ecological Principles class, and photographs of Hutchinson family members.

Accession 2019-M-0025 of the Henry Lewis Stimson Papers (MS 465)

This accession is a guest book for Highhold, Henry L. Stimson’s house in West Hills, Huntington, New York, 1905-1937.

Accession 2019-A-0025 of the Employee Unions and Strikes, Yale University, Records (RU 105)

This accession (totaling .25 linear feet) contains correspondence, promotional material, and ephemera documenting faculty and graduate student support of the 1984 Yale University clerical and technical employees strike.

Accession 2019-M-0033 addition to the John Glines Papers (MS 1895)

This accession (totaling 1.92 linear feet) consists of the writings of playwright John Glines, including scripts of productions performed at The Glines Theatre in New York City, personal and autobiographical writings, and a daily journal. The papers also include correspondence and recordings of author Erlo Van Waveren and production materials from Glines’s play Butterflies and Tigers, including video and audio recordings.

Accession 2019-A-0031 of the Yale University Buildings and Grounds Photographs (RU 703)

This accession contains a photogravure of a circa 1906 bird’s-eye view of Yale University, drawn and signed by Richard Rummell (1848-1924) and published by F. D. Nichols of Boston.

Accession 2019-A-0032 of the Yale Diploma Collection (RU 150)

This accession contains the 1856 BA, 1859 MA, and 1863 PhD diplomas of Lewis Richard Packard, classics scholar and Yale professor of Greek.

Accessions 2019-A-0034, 2019-A-0035, and 2019-A-0050 additions to the Yale Course Lectures Collection (RU 159)

These small additions to the Yale Course Lectures Collection include art history course materials and notebooks of Susan P. Casteras (1973 MA, 1975 MPhil, and 1977 PhD); course notes, examinations, and papers of Mark Hubert Curtis (1942 Yale College, 1953 PhD); and a 1966-1967 Math 131 lecture notebook titled “Natural Function Algebras” of professor Charles E. Rickart.

Accession 2019-A-0048 of the Whim ‘n Rhythm, Yale University, Records (RU 210)

This accession consists of a diary written by Charlotte Juergens during the 2016 Whim ‘n Rhythm world tour.

Accession 2019-A-0054 of the Yale Events and Activities Photographs (RU 690)

This accession comprises a New York Graphic article depicting four Yale secret society buildings: Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key, Delta Kappa Epsilon, and Phi Upsilon, 1886 June 19.

Accession 2019-A-0055 of the Yale College records of Classes (RU 491)

This accession contains a photograph album for the Yale College class of 1865.

2019 Manuscripts and Archives Diane Kaplan Memorial Senior Essay Prizes Awarded

Young Americans for Freedom brochure, 1969

Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) brochure, 1969. William F. Buckley, Jr. Papers (MS 576), Part I, Box 67, Folder: YAF, Oct-Dec 1969.

We are pleased to announce the two winners of the 2019 Manuscripts and Archives (MSSA) Diane Kaplan Memorial Senior Essay Prize. The prize recognizes outstanding senior essays on any topic, including Yale, based substantially on research using Manuscripts and Archives collections. More information, including a list of prize winners since the prize’s inception in 2003, can be found on the MSSA Prize website. Up to two prizes are awarded each year based on essays self-submitted for prize consideration by Yale College seniors. One-semester and two-semester essays from any department are eligible for consideration. Faculty and others may encourage submissions, but students must submit the essays themselves for prize consideration. Prize winning essays are published in EliScholar.

Samuel Bennett, a senior History major from Ezra Stiles College advised by Professor Beverly Gage, was awarded one of this year’s prizes for his essay ‘A Critic Friendly to McCarthy’: How William F. Buckley, Jr. Brought Senator Joseph R. McCarthy into the American Conservative Movement between 1951 and 1959. Bennett’s essay explores the fluctuations in the embrace of McCarthy by Buckley, a leader of movement conservatism in the U.S. and after 1955 the founder and editor of the influential conservative journal National Review. The essay examines the turbulent 1950s, during McCarthy’s efforts to expose what he regarded as Communist influences in the administrations of U.S. presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower.

Telegram from William F. Buckley, Jr. to Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, 20 December 1956

Telegram from William F. Buckley, Jr. to Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, 20 December 1956. William F. Buckley, Jr. Papers (MS 576), Part I, Box 3, Folder: McCarthy.

Bennett deftly uses correspondence, editorials, and speeches from the William F. Buckley, Jr. Papers (MS 576) in Manuscripts and Archives to show how Buckley de-emphasized his public embrace of McCarthy following the senator’s rebuke by the U.S. Senate in December 1954, a crucial time for the launch of the National Review. The essay also explores the period immediately following McCarthy’s death in May 1957, when Buckley became a forceful and vociferous champion, in print and in speaking engagements, of the late senator’s fight against Communism. Judges in this year’s senior essay competition found Bennett’s thesis to be quite clearly articulated, and the structure of the essay clear and easy to follow. He made effective use of the secondary literature on the topic of Buckley and McCarthy, and did an excellent job at weaving in extensive citations from primary sources in the Buckley papers to bolster his arguments.

Letter from Jean McCarthy to William F. Buckley, Jr., 11 July 1957

Letter from Jean McCarthy to William F. Buckley, Jr., 11 July 1957. William F. Buckley, Jr. Papers (MS 576), Part I, Box 3, Folder: McCarthy.

Ethan Swift, a senior History major from Pierson College, also advised by Professor Beverly Gage, was awarded the other of this year’s prizes for his essay Young Americans for Freedom and the Anti-War Movement: Pro-War Encounters with the New Left at the Height of the Vietnam War.  Swift’s essay also drew heavily on the Buckley papers, though focused on a later era during the anti-war protests of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Coincidentally, this is the first time since the inception of these prizes in 2003 that both prize-winning essays utilized the same archival collection, which serves as a great indicator to future Yale senior essayists that there are many successful angles from which to approach an archival collection. Swift seeks to fill a gap in the historiography of the time period, much of which focuses on the efforts and tactics of anti-war activists. He mines the Buckley papers, especially materials relating to Buckley’s support in the founding in 1960 of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), a conservative political group with chapters on U.S. college and university campuses. In addition, Swift explores the fascinating interplay between articles in the YAF monthly journal New Guard and correspondence over more than a decade with YAF leadership in the Buckley papers. He also makes and illustrates a novel and important point regarding the way that YAF members, in their brochures and advertising, co-opted for pro-war and recruitment purposes some of the tactics and graphical symbolism used by the New Left. Members of the judging committee were impressed by Swift’s sophisticated use of primary source materials, the logical and clear organization of his essay, and the new insights he contributes to the history of a very contentious time in American politics.

Advertisement for YAF paraphernalia, New Guard, Vol. IX, No. 1, p. 26, January 1969

Advertisement for YAF paraphernalia, New Guard, Vol. IX, No. 1, p. 26, January 1969. William F. Buckley, Jr. Papers (MS 576), Part I, Box 67, Folder: YAF, Jan-Feb 1969.

Members of the 2019 judging committee for the Manuscripts and Archives Diane Kaplan Senior Essay Prize were: Mary Caldera, Christine Connolly, James Kessenides, Bill Landis, Michelle Peralta, and Camila Tessler. The prize, a certificate and check for $500.00, is awarded to each winner at his or her residential college Commencement Day ceremonies.

New Collections and Additions, January-April 2019

The following information on recently acquired and processed collections was assembled by Alison Clemens, assistant head of arrangement and description.

Manuscripts and Archives has recently acquired and made available the following collections and additions to existing collections:

New collections

Edison Price Papers (MS 2015)

  • The collection is comprised of business and design records generated by the two lighting design, manufacturing, and consulting companies founded by Edison Price in New York, New York: Edison Price, Inc. (founded in 1952) and Nulux, Inc. (founded in 1990). Papers include both project and product records, as well as research files, patent documents, and general documentation about the firms. Project records consist of drawings, correspondence, and notes relating to lighting designs, including such projects as the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, the Whitney Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and the J. Paul Getty Center in Los Angeles. Product records consist of drawings, photometric reports, and other information for a range of fixtures designed and manufactured by Edison Price, Inc. and Nulux, Inc.

James F. Ahern Papers (MS 2086)

  • The collection (totaling 11.34 linear feet) consists of the personal papers of James F. Ahern, documenting his position as chief of police for New Haven, Connecticut. Included are materials related to student and police activities during May Day 1970 at Yale University, wiretapping by the New Haven police, and Ahern’s role as a member of the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest in 1970. Also included are photographs of Ahern, posters, magazine articles authored by and concerning Ahern, audio and visual recordings of Ahern’s media appearances, scrapbooks with speeches and news clippings, correspondence by Ahern and family, and Rolodex cards with names and contact information for Ahern’s colleagues in police administration.

Arthur Bostwick Van Buskirk World War I Diaries (MS 2091)

  • Collection consists of two diaries by Arthur Botswick Van Buskirk documenting his military experience during World War I. Newspaper clippings, correspondence, tickets, and other ephemera were originally inserted between diary pages. Several pages in volume II detail the Armistice of November 11, 1918 in Paris, France.

John Lewis Gaddis Papers (MS 2092)

  • The collection contains the personal diaries of John Lewis Gaddis. Subjects include his academic and publishing activities, events in his personal life, his transition to Yale University from Ohio University in the late 1990s, and the founding of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy at Yale University. The majority of the diary entries are typed; some are handwritten.
  • Access to the collection is restricted until 1 January 2050 by donor request.

Felipe Lorenzo Famoso Diary (MS 2100)

  • Diary covering the career of Felipe Lorenzo Famoso, a Spanish soldier in Morocco and Spain, from 1923-1949.

Mas Yebra Family Correspondence (MS 2101)

  • Correspondence of the Mas Yerba family, a prominent political family in Barcelona. The correspondence includes one hundred thirty-three letters exchanged among the family members and their associates during the Spanish Civil War. Also includes a small amount of the family’s legal and financial papers.

Ramon Llado Correspondence (MS 2102)

  • Eleven letters between Ramon Llado, a Republican soldier in the Spanish Civil War, and his family. Seven letters are from Ramon to his wife, Concepcion. Three letters are from Concepcion to Ramon, and one letter is to Ramon from his sister, Dionisia, and his brother-in-law.

Additions to existing collections

Accession 2017-M-0002 addition to the David Brion Davis Papers (MS 1970)

  • This accession (totaling 42.58 linear feet) comprises teaching and research files, writings, correspondence, and program files documenting David Brion Davis’s work as a historian of slavery and abolition in the western world and professor of history at Yale University. The teaching files document Davis’s teaching activities and lectures at Yale University and other educational institutions. Writings document Davis’s monographs and short writings, particularly his essays and reviews for the New York Review of Books, as well as scholarly and popular writings of others that were sent to Davis for review or comment. Correspondence primarily documents Davis’s professional and research activities, and correspondence is also present throughout the research files, writings, and program files groupings. Program files include material documenting conferences Davis attended and contributed to and activities Davis undertook in the professional organizations to which he belonged. The program files also document Davis’s activities as founding director of Yale University’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition and as a Yale history professor working with researchers, undergraduate students, and graduate students at the university. The accession also contains Davis’s personal papers, which document his early academic work as a student at Dartmouth College and Harvard University, his written reflections on his life and work, and his professional activities and retirement.

Accession 2018-M-0051 addition to the Richard Benson Sewall Papers (MS 1413)

  • This accession (totaling 14.25 linear feet) comprises lecture notes and course materials documenting Sewall’s tenure as a Yale University professor of English; writings and research files on Emily Dickinson, the Strong family of Rochester, New York, and other areas relating to Sewall’s research interests; and correspondence regarding Sewall’s research and work at Yale. Also includes personal materials documenting Sewall’s professional life and family history.

Scrapbooks of William Bacon Bailey, Yale Class of 1894: Accession 2018-A-0063 of the Yale Student Scrapbook Collection (RU 138)

  • Three scrapbooks documenting reunion activity and related events of the Yale College Class of 1894, of which Bailey was a member, as well as Bailey’s professional life as an economist, professor, census worker, statistician, and employee at Travelers Insurance Companies.

Accession 2019-M-0007 addition to the Charles Hill Papers (MS 2070)

  • The accession (totaling 3.42 linear feet) consists of the personal papers of Charles Hill. Materials include Hill’s correspondence, including correspondence with former United States secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz. The accession also consists of writings, including book reviews and commentary articles on United States foreign policy, and course material from Hill’s class “Oratory in Statecraft” taught at Yale University, 2006-2018.

Accession 2019-M-0042 addition to the Spanish Civil War collection (MS 2058)

  • The accession (totaling .42 linear feet) includes children’s materials, publications, and postcards documenting the Spanish Civil War.

A Tale of Two Archives: Tracing the life of Thomas Lawrason Riggs ’10

This is a guest post by Sarah L. Woodford, director of the Vincent Library at Saint Thomas More, the Catholic Chapel & Center at Yale University.

In his July 1983 article in The Catholic Historical Review Herbert Janick observes that Father Thomas Lawrason Riggs ’10, the first Catholic chaplain at Yale, was “both an intellectual respected for his secular accomplishments and a Catholic priest.” It then seems fitting that the two archives on campus that house his papers are Saint Thomas More, the Catholic Chapel & Center at Yale University and Yale’s Manuscripts and Archives in Sterling Memorial Library. Riggs bequeathed most of his personal and professional papers to the Saint Thomas More Corporation; but those papers and personal items, particularly pertaining to his bright college years, the immediate years afterwards, and his contributions to academic scholarship were donated to Manuscripts and Archives.

Photograph of T. Lawrason Riggs from Scroll and Key senior album, 1910. Call number: Yeg2 K61x 1910.

Photograph of T. Lawrason Riggs from Scroll and Key senior album, 1910. Call number: Yeg2 K61x 1910.

Born in 1888 to the Riggs banking family of Washington, D.C., Riggs was a graduating member of Yale University’s Class of 1910. While at university, Riggs studied English literature and French, Italian, Latin, and Greek. He was both a member of Scroll and Key and the Pundit Society, as well as the president of the Yale Dramatic Society (where he met his future roommate and musical theater collaborator, Cole Porter ’13). A renowned poet on campus, first as a contributor to the Yale Literary Magazine and then as the publication’s editor during his senior year, he penned the official class song for the class of 1910.

After Yale, Riggs pursued graduate work at Harvard University under the direction of Barrett Wendell. There he roomed with Dean Acheson ’15 (a future secretary of state in the administration of President Harry S. Truman) and Cole Porter (a future popular composer and entertainer), who were both pursuing law degrees. Neither Riggs nor Porter finished their Harvard degrees, instead they focused on the writing of See America First, a Broadway show financed by Riggs and pronounced a flop by New York critics in March 1916.

World War I brought Riggs back to the Yale. In the summer of 1917, months after the United States declared war on Germany, the twenty-nine-year-old joined The Yale Mobile Hospital Unit as a translator. After leaving the Yale Unit and gaining a foreign-language specialist position assigned to military intelligence in Paris, were he also acquired the rank of first lieutenant, Riggs decided to enter into the Catholic priesthood. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1922 and after a trip to Europe to consult with the Catholic chaplains at Cambridge and Oxford, took up residency at Yale.

One of the “designs” Riggs bequeathed to Saint Thomas More, the Catholic Chapel & Center at Yale University, circa 1938. The Fr. Riggs Papers, Saint Thomas More.

One of the “designs” Riggs bequeathed to Saint Thomas More, the Catholic Chapel & Center at Yale University, circa 1938. The Fr. Riggs Papers, Saint Thomas More.

Riggs spent his tenure as Catholic chaplain entertaining young Catholic creatives at his lavish home on Whitney Avenue, building what is now Saint Thomas More Chapel, and pursuing a book project about Joan of Arc. His book Saving Angel: The Truth about Joan of Arc and the Church, was published posthumously in 1944 by The Bruce Publishing Company of Milwaukee. Riggs died unexpectedly of a heart attack on April 26, 1943. He was fifty-five. In his will, drawn up in November 1938, he bequeathed all his “papers, books, correspondence, records and designs” that concern or have to do with Saint Thomas More, to the Saint Thomas More Corporation. All other papers, books, and correspondence that did not interest the Corporation, were to go to Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University.

Among the items Riggs bequeathed to Manuscripts and Archives were two Scroll and Key senior albums, from 1909 and 1910. The former from his brother, Francis, who graduated the year before him, and the latter from Riggs’s senior year. Both albums are leather-bound and contain black and white photos of the society’s senior members with their signatures underneath. Riggs’s 1910 album also contains a snapshot of the secret society’s ivy-covered tomb in the album’s last frame.

Recipes to prepare for injured soldiers, part of Riggs’s training for the Yale Mobile Hospital Unit, 1917. Thomas Lawrason Riggs Papers (MS 704), Box 1, Folder 9. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

Recipes to prepare for injured soldiers, part of Riggs’s training for the Yale Mobile Hospital Unit, 1917. Thomas Lawrason Riggs Papers (MS 704), Box 1, Folder 9. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

Riggs also donated a collection of his notes and papers that now make up the Riggs Papers. Items of note include his typed manuscript of Saving Angel and a notebook from 1917 that contains notes from his training for the Yale Mobile Hospital Unit. The notebook is blank in the middle and its back portion contains notes in pencil dated July 18-21. These notes instruct on how to identify contagious diseases, bandage various sprains, set broken bones, and prepare meals for the injured (poached eggs and cocoa are two items on the menu). There is also a particularly sobering section that describes the different sorts of poisonous gas a soldier could inhale, how to identify them, and which ones would prove fatal.

As Saint Thomas More, the Catholic Chapel & Center at Yale University celebrates eighty years in October 2018, the community once more considers its beginnings and the priest at the center of those beginnings. Riggs was a chaplain and a Yale man—how appropriate that like his life, the archives that continue to keep his memory reflect this as well.

The New Gates Classroom in Manuscripts and Archives

It has been seven months since our move back into our beautifully renovated public service spaces in the Wall Street wing of Sterling Memorial Library. We’ve had a semester and a summer of Yale students and other researchers back in full force, enjoying the modernized lighting, comfortable and functional furniture, state-of-the-art climate control, and the relative quiet that has resulted from relocating all staff not primarily responsible for public service operations out of the reading room area. The renovation has been deemed an unqualified success by both researchers and staff members!

Students in Prof. Jay Gitlin's Yale and America class exploring Manuscripts and Archives collection materials in the Gates Classroom.

Students in Prof. Jay Gitlin’s Yale and America class exploring Manuscripts and Archives collection materials in the Gates Classroom.

The most spectacular feature of the renovation, both visually and programmatically, is the conversion of the former Grand Exhibition Room at the back of the Manuscripts and Archives reading room into the Gates classroom. The new classroom is named for the late Stephen F. Gates (Class of 1968), whose generosity made the transformation possible. With a new entrance from the back of the Linonia and Brothers (L&B) reading room, the classroom space is separated from the reading room by Samuel Yellin’s dramatically ornate, wrought-iron gates, soundproofed by the insertion of glass in the arches. The Yellin gates bear the phrase There is no past so long as books shall live. This excerpt, from the poem “The Souls of Books” by the 19th century English poet Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton, is a fitting tribute to the room’s original purpose. From the opening of Sterling Memorial Library in 1931 until the move of Yale’s rare book collection to the newly constructed Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in 1963, the Grand Exhibition Room, in what was then the Rare Book Room, showcased Yale’s copy of the Gutenberg Bible, given to Yale by Mrs. Mary Harkness in 1926 shortly before Sterling Memorial Library opened.

Right-hand gate in Manuscripts and Archives, looking from the reading room into the Gates classroom.

Right-hand gate in Manuscripts and Archives, looking from the reading room into the Gates classroom.

The entire section of Bulwer-Lytton’s poem from which the inscription on the Yellin gates is taken reads (from Dramas and Poems of Edward Bulwer Lytton (Little Brown and Company, 1898), pages 321-325):

IV.

All books grow homilies by time; they are / Temples, at once, and Landmarks. In them, we / Who but for them, upon that inch of ground / We call “The Present,” from the cell could see / No daylight trembling on the dungeon bar; / Turn, as we list, the globe’s great axle round, / Traverse all space, and number every star, / And feel the Near less household than the Far! / There is no Past, so long as Books shall live!A disinterred Pompeii wakes again / For him who seeks yon well; lost cities give / Up their untarnished wonders, and the reign / Of Jove revives and Saturn : — At our will / Rise dome and tower on Delphi’s sacred hill; / Bloom Cimon’s trees in Academe; — along / Leucadia’s headland, sighs the Lesbian’s song; / With AEgypt’s Queen once more we sail the Nile, / And learn how worlds are bartered for a smile; — / Rise up, ye walls, with gardens blooming o’er, / Ope but that page — lo, Babylon once more!

Left-hand gate in Manuscripts and Archives looking from the Gates classroom into the reading room.

Left-hand gate in Manuscripts and Archives looking from the Gates classroom into the reading room.

The Yellin gates and their classics-themed ode to the power of books now watch over Yale students and other researchers, in both the Manuscripts and Archives reading room and the Gates classroom. Researchers and students pour through archival records, primarily, rather than books. These records–documenting the endeavors of Yale, its alumni and faculty, and outside organizations that often have some link to Yale–transport their readers in ways similar to the books in Bulwer-Lytton’s ode. The gist of the poem remains as true as ever..

In the months since the classroom opened we’ve hosted dozens of sessions for Yale classes, visiting high school students from around the globe participating in the Yale Young Global Scholars Program, and students from New Haven schools participating in external and Yale-hosted programs.

Students in Prof. Jay Gitlin's Yale and America class exploring Manuscripts and Archives collection materials in the Gates Classroom.

Students in Prof. Jay Gitlin’s Yale and America class exploring Manuscripts and Archives collection materials in the Gates Classroom.

One Yale course, Professor Jay Gitlin’s history seminar Yale and America, is an extremely popular class whose students plumb the depths of the collections in Manuscripts and Archives to write substantive research papers on topics relating to Yale history. The class session held in the Gates classroom introduced Spring term 2018’s participants to the wide variety of potential sources for their research projects. The Fall 2016 issue of the student-edited, student-produced Yale Historical Review was dedicated to research produced in a class that has become a right of passage for many Yale students from across the disciplines. We’re happy, as we think Stephen F. Gates would be, that Manuscripts and Archives and Sterling Memorial Library now offers a soaring, inspiring space in which a part of that right of passage can occur.

An African American Woman in Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia

The following post was written by Camila Tessler, Archivist, Manuscripts and Archives.

Clippings relating to Dorothy Hadley's marriage Malaku Bayen, circa 1931. Dorothy Hadley Bayen Papers (MS 1570), Box 1, Folder 3.

Clippings relating to Dorothy Hadley’s marriage Malaku Bayen, circa 1931. Dorothy Hadley Bayen Papers (MS 1570), Box 1, Folder 3.

In 1931, Dorothy Hadley of Evanston, Illinois, married Prince Malaku Bayen of Ethiopia, Nephew of Haile Selassie I. Malaku Bayen was studying to be a doctor at Howard University, and upon the completion of his degree, he returned with Dorothy Hadley Bayen and their son Chip to Ethiopia.

Dorothy’s work was not just of a housewife and a mother, but also as an activist for the Ethiopian and black communities, both abroad and locally. During various times in her life she acted as a fundraiser for the Haile Selassie Fund, working in New York to raise money both from the black and white community. In one letter, she stated that she could easily raise funds in the black community, while the white community was never very generous, leading her to conclude that the natural home for black Americans would be Africa, and that Ethiopia held the future of the unity and the redemption of black people.

 

Letter from Dorothy Hadley Bayen to her sister, Leora Hadley, page 2, undated but circa 1935. Dorothy Hadley Bayen Papers (MS 1570), Box 1, Folder 1.

Letter from Dorothy Hadley Bayen to her sister, Leora Hadley, page 2, undated but circa 1935. Dorothy Hadley Bayen Papers (MS 1570), Box 1, Folder 1.

Dino Robinson has written an article about Bayen, summarizing her work for the Ethiopian community and the movement that became the Rastifarian religion here. The Dorothy Hadley Bayen Papers at Manuscripts and Archives do cover this facet of her life, but they also demonstrate some of the culture shock and cover the adaptation of a woman who grew up in the Midwest to a life in Ethiopia. In several letters, she chronicles everything from the purchase of furniture (expensive in Ethiopia, but of good quality) and the personalities of her servants (from good to bad to drunkards) to life as a newly minted member of what was the oldest royal dynasty on the planet.

Her letters paint a very vivid and detailed picture of life in Ethiopia in the 30s, but the most refreshing part of her letters is her bubbling personality. She chides to Toots and Sam, in a letter dated December 27th 1935, “Why don’t you all write to me and let me know if you are living or dead?” In another letter, this one to her family, she admits that either she, or someone in their family, named her husband’s human skeleton (presumably for anatomy) Mussolini, and laments that her husband bought two rugs that they will be paying off “for twenty years hence!”

Letter from Dorothy Hadley Bayen to her family, page 1, 2 October 1935. Dorothy Hadley Bayen Papers (MS 1570), Box 1, Folder 1.

Letter from Dorothy Hadley Bayen to her family, page 1, 2 October 1935. Dorothy Hadley Bayen Papers (MS 1570), Box 1, Folder 1.

What her letters also give us is an outsider-insider view of the Ethiopian Empire. As a member of the royal family, Bayen had access into a place where most people did not, but as an American, she also had a perspective that allowed her to wonder, question, and describe customs and practices that she was not familiar with. She describes meeting the Emperor Haile Selassie:

There are two palaces, or as they are called “gibbee”, the upper, and the lower. The lower is the old palace that was Menelik’s and the new one is that built I think around 1930 when this present ruler was made emperor. It is in the new one that they receive all the important foreign visitors. It is a large two-story gray stone building inside a very huge compound, and there are soldiers and guards standing all around. Her Majesty and Sahai (her daughter) met us in a room furnished with gold and brocaded furniture, Louis XIV style (I think) […] I felt foolish bowing and backing out and so forth, seein’ as I have had so little practice in this sort of thing, and every minute I was afraid I would get my feet all tangled in my long skirt and go sprawling out on the floor. Wouldn’t that have been something? (Dorothy Hadley Bayen to her family, page 2, 2 October 1935. MS 1570, Box 1, Folder 1.)

Through her correspondence with her family in the Evanston, we get a good picture of a person in an extraordinary situation, and a witness to the beginnings of a movement that formed the basis of a new religion. But we also are given the perspective of an outsider to a new culture, a new life, and a new way of thinking.

See the online finding aid for the Dorothy Hadley Bayen Papers in Manuscripts and Archives for additional information about this collection.