Research Catalog

Details

Additional authors

1. Jones, Thomas Jesse, 1873-1950.
2. Stokes, Anson Phelps, 1874-1958.
3. Tobias, Channing H.
4. Patterson, Frederick D. (Frederick Douglass), 1901-1988.
5. Dillon, Wilton S., 1923-
6. Brown, Aaron, 1904-1992.
7. Stokes, I. N. Phelps (Isaac Newton Phelps), 1867-1944.
8. Ross, Emory

Description

1. 52 linear ft., 127 boxes

Summary

1. The Phelps-Stokes Fund Records contain administrative records including trustee and committee minutes, correspondence, memoranda, financial records, legal documents, speeches, reports, occasional papers, and printed material, such as pamphlets, brochures, clippings, articles, press releases and programs. Records concern the early work of the Fund in researching and supporting education for Africans and African Americans and improvement in housing conditions, through study commissions, reports, and project grants, as well as its engagement in contemporary debates concerning the philosophy and policies of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois. To a lesser extent, the Fund provided early support for surveys of American Indian schools and administration, such as the 1928 Lewis Meriam study and the 1939 Navajo Indian study. Later endeavors included administering grants for conferences on race relations, exchange and training programs, cooperative programs with other foundations, government aid programs, and a number of cultural projects.
2. The bulk of the collection contains the office files of the four principal leaders of the Fund, Anson Phelps Stokes (1924-1946), Thomas Jesse Jones (1917-1946), Channing Tobias (1946-1953), and Frederick D. Patterson (1953-1969). Of particular interest is material concerning the Fund's relationships with organizations such as Agricultural Missions; Booker T. Washington Agricultural and Industrial Institute of Liberia, founded by the Fund in 1929; British and Foreign Bible Society; Capahosic (VA) Conferences, where black and white leaders gathered for off-the-record conferences; Carnegie Corporation; Committee on Negro Americans in the Defense Industry; Cooperative College Development Program to assist historically black colleges in coordinating development programs and improving management resources; General Education Board; Harmon Foundation; Highlander Folk School; International Missionary Council; Jeanes and Slater Funds; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, including its disagreements with Fund policies; Rosenwald Fund; South African Institute of Race Relations; Southern Regional Council; YMCA National Council, including South African Work of the Foreign Committee, as well as historically black schools and colleges, especially Bethune-Cookman, Calhoun, Fisk, Hampton, Manassas, Penn School, Talladega, and Tuskegee.
3. Significant correspondents include diplomats, educators, reformers, and foundation officials, such as Ralph J. Bunche; W. E. B. Dubois, particularly regarding the Encyclopedia of the Negro project and opposition to the Fund in the 1930s and 1940s; NAACP director Walter White, who also disagreed with certain Fund activities; educators James E. K. Aggrey, Will Alexander, Aaron Brown, Nannie Burroughs, James H. Dillard, Clark Foreman, Charles S. Johnson, Guy B. Johnson, Thomas Elsa Jones, Charles L. Loram, Robert R. Moton, Harold Odum, Emmett Scott, Booker T. Washington, Carter G. Woodson, especially his controversy with Thomas Jesse Jones in the 1920s, Thomas J. Woofter, and cultural figures and organizations including ethnomusicologist Laura C. Boulton and the Harmon Foundation. Other significant correspondents include foundation officials Jackson Davis, Emory Ross, Wallace Buttrick, Abraham Flexner, Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, Oswald Garrison Villard, L. Hollingsworth Wood, George Foster Peabody, and William J. Schiefflein; and journalists Lester Walton and Claude A. Barnett;

Subject

1. Nurses > Haiti
2. American Society of African Culture
3. United States > Foreign relations > South Africa
4. Indian Rights Association
5. Missions > Africa
6. Stokes, Anson Phelps, 1874-1958
7. Liberia > History
8. African Americans > Charities
9. Booker Washington Institute of Liberia
10. Race relations
11. Stokes, I. N. Phelps (Isaac Newton Phelps), 1867-1944
12. United States > Race relations
13. Education, Cooperative > United States
14. Education > Ghana
15. African American college students
16. Endowments > United States
17. Bunche, Ralph J (Ralph Johnson), 1904-1971
18. International organization
19. South Africa > Race relations
20. Ross, Emory
21. Burroughs, Nannie Helen, 1879-
22. African Americans > Education
23. Student aid > Africa
24. Southern Regional Council
25. Washington, Booker T., 1856-1915
26. South African Institute of Race Relations
27. Dillon, Wilton S., 1923-
28. Phelps-Stokes Fund
29. Education > Liberia
30. International relief > Africa
31. Dillard, J. H (James Hardy), 1856-1940
32. Music > Nigeria
33. African American universities and colleges
34. African Americans > Scholarships, fellowships, etc
35. Agricultural colleges > Liberia
36. Missions, American > Africa
37. Housing > New York (State) > New York
38. Jones, Thomas Jesse, 1873-1950
39. Patterson, Frederick D (Frederick Douglass), 1901-1988
40. Student aid > United States
41. Art > Nigeria
42. Tuskegee Institute
43. African Americans > Housing
44. Peabody, George Foster, 1852-1938
45. Aggrey, James Emman Kwegyir, 1875-1927
46. Missions > Educational work
47. Fisk University
48. Indians of North America > Education
49. Tobias, Channing H
50. Slums > New York (State) > New York
51. United Negro College Fund
52. Educational exchanges
53. Education > Africa
54. Johnson, Charles Spurgeon, 1893-1956
55. Cooperative College Development Program
56. Johnson, Guy Benton, 1901-1991
57. Medical centers > Nigeria
58. Highlander Folk School. Highlander Folk School (Monteagle, Tenn.)
59. Du Bois, W. E. B (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963
60. Indians of North America > Legal status, laws, etc
61. Brawley, Benjamin, 1882-1939
62. Mellon Haitian Nurses Training Program
63. Education > United States > Societies, etc
64. Davis, Jackson T., 1882-1947

Call number

1. Sc MG 162

Source (note)

1. Phelps-Stokes Fund

Biography (note)

1. The Phelps and Stokes families had long been associated with a variety of philanthropic enterprises in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Phelps-Stokes Fund was created in 1911 as a non-profit foundation under the will of Caroline Phelps Stokes. Its original objectives were to improve housing for the poor in New York City, and the "education of Negroes, both in Africa and the United States, North American Indians, and needy and deserving white students." The contacts maintained by the staff and trustees of the Fund through correspondence, travel, and service on numerous boards and commissions often had a greater impact than any direct financial assistance rendered by the Fund. For the period of these records, it served as a headquarters for visiting African educators, students and government officials, and, in addition to sponsoring its own commissions and reports, became a clearinghouse for information on the intellectual and political life of colonial and post-colonial Africa

Indexes/finding aids (note)

1. Finding aid available.

Author

1. Phelps-Stokes Fund.

Title

1. Phelps-Stokes Fund records, 1893-1970.

Biography

1. The Phelps and Stokes families had long been associated with a variety of philanthropic enterprises in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Phelps-Stokes Fund was created in 1911 as a non-profit foundation under the will of Caroline Phelps Stokes. Its original objectives were to improve housing for the poor in New York City, and the "education of Negroes, both in Africa and the United States, North American Indians, and needy and deserving white students." The contacts maintained by the staff and trustees of the Fund through correspondence, travel, and service on numerous boards and commissions often had a greater impact than any direct financial assistance rendered by the Fund. For the period of these records, it served as a headquarters for visiting African educators, students and government officials, and, in addition to sponsoring its own commissions and reports, became a clearinghouse for information on the intellectual and political life of colonial and post-colonial Africa

Indexes

1. Finding aid available.

Source

1. Phelps-Stokes Fund Gift 1980, 1981 SCM 80-19, SCM 81-17

Connect to:

1. Finding aid

Added author

1. Jones, Thomas Jesse, 1873-1950.
2. Stokes, Anson Phelps, 1874-1958.
3. Tobias, Channing H.
4. Patterson, Frederick D. (Frederick Douglass), 1901-1988.
5. Dillon, Wilton S., 1923-
6. Brown, Aaron, 1904-1992.
7. Stokes, I. N. Phelps (Isaac Newton Phelps), 1867-1944.
8. Ross, Emory.

Research call number

1. Sc MG 162