Anson Phelps Stokes family papers

The Anson Phelps Stokes Papers consist of correspondence, writings, subjects files, memorabilia, photographs, financial records, and family papers. The material has been divided into six series, the largest being the correspondence of Anson Phelps Stokes, which comprises more than half of the papers in the collection.

Part I, Series I, Correspondence of Anson Phelps Stokes, includes both the general and family correspondence of Anson Phelps Stokes spanning almost eighty years from 1879 to 1958. The correspondence reflects the diverse interests of the Stokes family and Anson Phelps Stokes's participation on numerous boards and committees. (See the biographical sketch above.) As a result of these activities, Stokes became acquainted with educators, reformers, religious leaders, prominent businessmen, financiers, politicians, and diplomats. Much of the resultant correspondence concerns administrative matters; a much smaller portion is concerned with leading issues of the day.

There is significant correspondence with American educational leaders, both black and white. Because of his years at Yale and his influential work on a number of major educational boards, Stokes's correspondence reflects the early organizational efforts, the formulation of policy, and the implementation of significant projects in education.

Anson Phelps Stokes corresponded at length with fellow officials and trustees of the American University Union (Horatio S. Krans and J.W. Cunliffe), the Institute of International Education (Stephen P. Duggan and George H. Nettleton), the Rockefeller Foundation (George E. Vincent and Max Mason), and the General and International Education Boards (Trevor Arnett, Wallace Buttrick, W.W. Brierley, James H. Dillard, Abraham Flexner, Raymond B. Fosdick, and Wickliffe Rose). The American Council on Education is represented in the correspondence with Samuel P. Capen and Charles R. Mann, among others.

As President of the Phelps-Stokes Fund and a trustee of several Rockefeller Foundation boards, Anson Phelps Stokes corresponded with some leading figures in the larger foundations: Frederick P. Keppel, President of the Carnegie Corporation, Julius Rosenwald of the Rosenwald Fund, and John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

As one would expect, there is considerable correspondence related to Yale. (Stokes's official correspondence as Secretary of Yale University is in the Yale University Archives and does not form a part of this collection.) Even after leaving Yale, however, Anson Phelps Stokes maintained a strong interest in the University's well-being and frequently corresponded with administrators, alumni, and the faculty of Yale. Part I, Series I contains Stokes's correspondence with three Yale presidents: Arthur Twining Hadley, with whom Stokes worked for twenty-two years, James Rowland Angell, and Charles Seymour. Many Yale professors and officials are represented in the correspondence, among them Clive Day, Wilbur L. Cross, George Dudley Seymour, Andrew Keogh and George Parmly Day. Two other prominent individuals, known to Stokes through Yale affiliations, are William Howard Taft and Henry L. Stimson. One of the founders of Yale-in-China, Anson Phelps Stokes corresponded throughout the turbulent years of its history with its directors and staff, including Dr. Edward H. Hume, Dr. F.D. Yen, F. Wells Williams, Palmer Bevis and others.

For forty-five years, Stokes was an integral part of the leadership of the Phelps-Stokes Fund. Created by the will of Caroline Phelps Stokes, an aunt of Anson Phelps Stokes, and incorporated in 1911, the Fund was dedicated specifically to the improvement of the housing of the poor in New York City and to the education of Negroes, North American Indians, and deserving white students. Educational aid was to be primarily in the form of scholarships and endowments for school buildings and improvements. Stokes carried on a lengthy and detailed correspondence with the Fund's director, Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones, and with its secretary and treasurer, L. A. Roy and F. Louis Slade, about personalities, projects, and policies.

As a result of the Phelps-Stokes Fund's programs in support of Negro education in the United States and Africa, Stokes became acquainted with many prominent black educators. Among those with whom he corresponded are: Robert R. Moton, Monroe N. Work, and Frederick Douglass Patterson of Tuskegee Institute; William Anthony Aery, James E. Gregg, and Arthur Howe of Hampton Institute; Mordecai W. Johnson and Benjamin Brawley of Howard University; and Thomas E. Jones of Fisk University. Other black leaders who corresponded with Stokes are Walter White and James Weldon Johnson of the N.A.A.C.P., Carter Woodson of theJournal of Negro History, Mary McLeod Bethune, and W.E.B. DuBois.

Throughout his life, Anson Phelps Stokes received many pleas for financial support from both institutions and individuals. Although unable to comply with requests for financial aid in many instances, he frequently gave his time and advice in constructive ways. Requests for Stokes's opinions and suggestions are a salient feature of the correspondence.

Over the years, Stokes lent his support to refugee relief work in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. He had a special interest in the relief program for Russian refugees in Constantinople, because it was directed for many years by his wife's sister, Anna V.S. Mitchell. Her correspondence with Stokes and that of many others involved in relief work appear in the general correspondence.

A prominent Episcopal priest, Stokes corresponded with Roman Catholic, Protestant and Jewish clergymen, with members of the Federal Council of Churches, the Y.M.C.A., and the International Missionary Council, as well as with editors of religious publications. Among his correspondents in religious education were: Henry Sloane Coffin, William Adams Brown, and Reinhold Niebuhr of Union Theological Seminary.

As Canon of the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul in Washington, D.C., one of Stokes's major duties was to assist in the National Cathedral fund-raising campaign. A sizable portion of his correspondence from 1924 to 1939 deals with the organization of the fund-raising campaign on a nation-wide scale and with the solicitation of endowments and special gifts for the Cathedral.

Cathedral matters were by no means his sole concern during the Washington years, however. His committee work involved him in the problems of race relations, unemployment, low-cost housing, welfare, and public education. Stokes wrote to black leaders, to school superintendents, to welfare agencies, to cabinet members and congressmen presenting his views on political issues and pending legislation, and to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt about the housing situation in Washington, D.C. Stokes kept some of this correspondence with his committee files apart from the general correspondence. It is located in Part I, Series III, Subjects File. But the bulk of his committee-related correspondence is in Part I, Series I, filed under the name of the individual correspondent.

One issue which evoked a strong response from Stokes was the controversy surrounding the Marian Anderson concert occasioned by the D.A.R.'s refusal in 1939 to allow the black concert artist to perform in Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. Stokes contested the decision before the D.A.R. and published his arguments in a pamphlet entitled "Art and the Color Line." His correspondence on the subject is filed in Part I, Series I, An-Az, 1930 Jun 1 - 1939 Dec 31.

Correspondence related to Stokes's history of universities project and his book,Church and State in the United States, was kept, where possible, with the manuscripts and research materials. It now forms a part of PART I, SERIES II. Nevertheless, since Stokes worked for many years on these projects and discussed them with friends and colleagues, it is inevitable that a considerable number of letters pertaining to his research still remain in PART I, SERIES I. Correspondence with booksellers, especially about works on university history, is scattered throughout PART I, SERIES I under the name of the dealer or shop.

Some of the family members with whom Anson Phelps Stokes corresponded include his father, Anson Phelps Stokes, prominent New York banker, yachtsman, anti-imperialist, and a founder of the Reform Club; his aunt, Olivia Egleston Phelps Stokes, philanthropist; his sister, Helen Phelps Stokes, active in the National Civil Liberties Bureau and Socialist causes; his brothers, Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, architect and art collector, James Graham Phelps Stokes, who married Rose Pastor Stokes, and Harold Phelps Stokes, a member of the staff of theNew York Times; and his son, Anson Phelps Stokes, Episcopal Bishop of Massacusetts.

PART I, SERIES II, JOURNALS, SPEECHES, WRITINGS, AND RESEARCH, consists of the journals, sermons, public addresses, writings, and research materials of Anson Phelps Stokes. The writings, which include letters to the editor, articles, reviews and introductions, present Stokes's views on race relations, educational policy and public issues. There is a manuscript of the final draft of Stokes's book,Memorials of Eminent Yale Men. Stokes's work on the history of universities was never published. There is a typed copy of that portion of the study which he completed, the history of universities from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century. Materials related toChurch and State in the United States, a three-volume work published in 1950, constitute a large part of PART I, SERIES II. In addition to a typed copy of the final draft, there are research materials, correspondence with the publishers and others about the book, and reviews.

Part I, Series III, Subjects File, complements the general correspondence of Anson Phelps Stokes. Grouped by topic, the papers represent major areas of interest and concern which are in evidence throughout his correspondence. The subjects are:

For the most part, the papers in the "Subjects File" are memoranda, minutes, and reports, with some of Stokes's official correspondence. They are files maintained for his personal use and do not represent complete, official records of the organizations involved.

The "Phelps-Stokes Fund" section of Part I, Series III consists of miscellaneous papers, including correspondence, related to such specific projects and concerns as the Commission to East Africa, the Smuts Conference, the Encyclopedia of the Negro, the Booker Washington Institute of Liberia, and the Committee on Africa, the War, and Peace Aims.

The "Washington, D.C., Committees" files contain a notable amount of Stokes's official correspondence with prominent Washington citizens, congressmen and senators. Speaking on behalf of such organizations as the Washington Committee on Unemployment, the Washington Housing Committee, and the Interracial Committee of the Washington Federation of Churches, Anson Phelps Stokes sought to influence public opinion in favor of his committees' proposals and recommendations on specific legislation and federal programs. This material complements the correspondence in PART I, SERIES I with such individuals as John Ihlder of the Alley Dwelling Authority, Helen Duey Hoffman of the Washington Housing Association, Emmett J. Scott of Howard University and the Interracial Committee, and others.

In addition to correspondence, memoranda, minutes and reports, the "Yale-in-China" material in Part I, Series III includes photographs of faculty, students, and Yali facilities.

The sub-section on "Yale-New Haven History" contains memorabilia of town and gown, including eighteenth and nineteenth century records and letters. Anson Phelps Stokes's personal contributions include an evaluation of President Hadley's administration and a history of the Pierpont-Stokes house. (Photographs of the interior and exterior of the house may be found in Part I, Oversize Materials) There is also correspondence and copies of miscellaneous documents pertaining to the Lowell House Settlement, which Stokes described in a 1946 article entitled, "The Founding and Early Years of Lowell House."

The final sub-section contains what is probably the most significant original material in the series: manuscripts pertaining to Yale's role in the drafting of the Portsmouth Treaty. Included is correspondence between Anson Phelps Stokes and Barnabas Sakai, a member of the diplomatic mission of Baron Kaneko to the United States in 1904. There is a copy of "Yale, the Portsmouth Treaty, and Japan," a pamphlet presenting and interpreting the available material on the subject, written by Harold Phelps Stokes, brother of Anson and a member of theNew York Timeseditorial staff.

Part I, Series IV of the Anson Phelps Stokes Papers is comprised of memorabilia and photos. The photographs include individual and group photos of Anson Phelps Stokes from childhood to the last years of his life. Among these are photos of his wife, family, friends, and associates. Memorabilia consists primarily of scrapbook materials, gathered over the years by Stokes, which provide biographical information. In addition to memorabilia of Stokes's own life, there are genealogical studies, family records, charts and some correspondence pertaining to the history of the Stokes family. One part of the memorabilia relates to Anson Phelps Stokes's grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncles. There are a very limited number of items on the Lindley family. One of them is the biography of Daniel Lindley, the maternal grandfather of Stokes's wife, Carol Mitchell Phelps Stokes.

Part I, Series V, Financial and Property Records, contains bills, receipts, cancelled checks, leases, tax records, and similar items belonging to Anson Phelps Stokes, as well as papers relating to Stokes family finances. While a small amount of correspondence is included here, almost all of the financial correspondence is filed in Part I, Series I, under the name of the bank or investment company involved, and, in some cases, under the name of the individual representative.

Part I, Series VI, Stokes Family Papers, contains three boxes of Phelps Stokes correspondence, dating from 1834 to 1960, including interesting information about the history of the Stokes family. Following this correspondence, are letters to Olivia and Caroline Phelps Stokes, aunts of Anson Phelps Stokes. These letters reflect the philanthropic interests of the Stokes sisters in the Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes, Barnard College, the town of Ansonia, Connecticut, the Columbia University chapel, the Bible Institute, the Constitution Island Association, and the Voorhees Industrial School, to name a few. There are thirty-four letters from Booker T. Washington, as well as letters from his wife and daughter.

In addition, there are accounts of the travels in India and the Middle East by Anson Phelps Stokes's sons, Anson and Newton. The high point of their journey was an interview with Gandhi in 1930.

Part I, Series VI also contains some papers of Helen Phelps Stokes, a member of the Socialist Party and treasurer of the National Civil Liberties Bureau. One portion of the papers is comprised of minutes, memoranda, reports and publications of the National Civil Liberties Bureau and the American Civil Liberties Union, from 1917 through 1923. There is also some correspondence including letters from Roger Baldwin, Albert DeSilver, Rose Pastor Stokes and Norman Thomas.

Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, contain the following papers related to this collection: Records of the Secretary of Yale University, 1899-1921 (RU 49); Files of Yale-in-China (including, but not limited to, RU 232, RU 233, and RU 234); The Anson Phelps Stokes Autograph Collection (MS 402); The Harold Phelps Stokes Papers (MS 645); The Rose Pastor Stokes Papers (MS 573).

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The following statement as to the whereabouts of my major correspondence and as to various publications too large for including in these six volumes of Miscellaneous Material, is given for possible reference.

I. Correspondence

(I have made arrangements with Yale University Library to deposit my general correspondence there. See correspondence with Mr. Knollenberg under date of 1941-1942).

II. Books Written

(Most pamphlets are not mentioned as they will be found in one of these six Miscellaneous Volumes).

III. Books Edited

IV. Books for Which Introductions Prepared

V. Books in Preparation

VI. Journals

VII. Scrap Books

VIII. Lindley Papers in Dr. Smith's Room, Hartford Seminary; also in iron trunk, Lenox house, and in my Library (Family Section)

IX. Collections (in my Lenox Library)

X. Addresses (in these volumes and especially):

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The addition to the Anson Phelps Stokes Family Papers consists of correspondence, writings, subject files, memorabilia, photographs, financial records and family papers.

This group of papers represents a portion of the Anson Phelps Stokes papers which was not discovered until several years after the bulk of the collection had been processed. The addition is complementary, but fragmentary in nature. While it covers the same years as the major portion, it does not represent a simple extension of the earlier portion of the papers. For example, significant additional information can be found in the correspondence of Barnabas Sakai, and there is a complete typescript of Stokes's book,A History of Universities, but in other instances, such as under the subject heading, Washington Cathedral, the body of additional material is small and unimportant.

Part II, Series I, Section C (General Correspondence 1950-1957 M-Z) is the part of the addition which is most clearly a fragment of the main body of the papers. Correspondence for the years 1950-1957 A-L is contained in the portion of the papers which was previously processed, while the bulk of the correspondence 1950-1957 M-Z forms a part of the addition. In order to have a complete view of the collection both the main body of papers and the addition will have to be consulted. The organization of the previously processed portion of the papers has been used as a model for the addition, and series and section divisions have been retained wherever applicable. The addition is arranged as follows:

I. Correspondence

A. General Correspondence 1893-1923

B. Letterpress Books 1900-1921

C. General Correspondence 1950-1957, M-Z

D. Family Correspondence 1897-1957

II. Journals, Speeches, Writings, and Research Materials

A. Journals and Memoranda

B. Articles, Addresses and Public Statements

C. Reviews and Introductions

D. Books

III. Subject Files

A. American Academy in Rome

B. American University Union in Europe

C. General Board of Religious Education

D. General and International Education Boards

E. Phelps Stokes Corporation

F. Phelps Stokes Estates

G. Phelps-Stokes Fund

H. Russian Refugee Relief

I. St. Paul's School

J. Washington Cathedral

K. Yale-in-China

IV. Memorabilia and Photographs

V. Financial and Property Records

VI. Stokes Family Papers

Part II, Series I, Correspondence, is the largest single series, comprising more than two thirds of the addition. The series includes both general and family correspondence from 1893 to 1957, but the great majority of the material falls into two time periods, 1896 to 1923 and 1950 to 1957.

Anson Phelps Stokes was, as were several members of the Stokes family, a public figure throughout his life. As a result of his activities, he became acquainted with educators, reformers, religious leaders, business-men, financiers, politicians and diplomats. Throughout the addition the researcher will find correspondence with public figures which discusses the prominent issues of the day. Examples of this type of correspondence are Irving Fisher's letters on the Prohibition question, George Wharton Pepper's letter on the League of Nations and comments made by Henry White on the Paris Peace Conference (1920 Jan 10).

Education and religion, however, were the major concerns of Stokes's life, and a large portion of the correspondence is with educational and religious leaders. He corresponded with fellow officials of the American University Union (Horatio S. Krans and J. W. Cunliffe) and the General and International Education Boards (Wallace Butterick, Abraham Flexner, Raymond B. Fosdick and Wickliffe Rose), as well as with ministers, bishops and officials of the General Board of Religious Education. There is extensive correspondence with missionaries who were affiliated with the Young Men's Christian Association (Y.M.C.A.), and the Yale Foreign Mission or Yale-in-China. While this correspondence deals almost entirely with organizational and administrative matters, there is also some discussion of local events, such as the Chinese Civil War in letters from Fletcher S. Brockton and Sherwood Eddy. Other missionaries with whom Stokes corresponded include John R. Mott and Sidney L. Gulick.

Stokes also corresponded with Francis Burton Harrison, governor-general of the Philippine Islands, who in a letter dated (1914 Apr 30) discusses United States administration of the Philippine Islands and criticism of his policies as governor. Another item dealing with the Philippine Islands is a copy of a letter (1900 Jan 10) from Carson H. Bell to his mother which describes the death of Ward Cheney, a close friend of Stokes, in a guerrilla action taking place in the islands. Aside from Stokes's friendship with Cheney, the letter is interesting for its detailed description of the type of fighting which was taking place in the Philippines at that time.

The correspondence with Barnabas Sakai is one of the more important elements of the collection. During the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) he acted as an aid to Baron Keneko, a Japanese diplomat stationed in the United States, and his letters contain information about the events leading to the signing of the Portsmouth Treaty.

A large portion of the correspondence deals with Yale University and Yale-related matters, (Stokes's official correspondence as Secretary of Yale University is in the Yale University Archives and does not form a part of this collection.) Part II, Series I contains correspondence with three Yale presidents: Arthur Twining Hadley, James Roland Angell and A. Whitney Griswold. Many Yale professors are also represented in the addition, including Clive Day, Wilbur L. Cross, George Parmly Day, George D. Seymour, and Andrew Keogh. The correspondence with William Howard Taft, another of Stokes's Yale acquaintances, is primarily concerned with education and the League to Enforce Peace, and is limited to the years prior to and following his term as President of the United States. There are several letters from his secretary, Charles D. Norton, during the presidential years, but they are not very substantial. However, there is a copy of a letter from Taft to Woodrow Wilson (1915 May 10) offering advice during the Lusitania incident.

One of the founders of Yale-in-China, Stokes corresponded with its directors and staff including Dr. Edward H. Hume, Dr. F. O. Yen, Frederick Wells Williams and others. In Part II, Series I, Section C, there is also an extensive discussion of Yale history in the correspondence with George W. Pierson.

As president of the Phelps-Stokes Fund, Stokes also corresponded with many prominent black educators including Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. DuBois, W. S. Scarborough, Robert R. Moton and Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones.

Stokes took an active part in refugee relief work. He gave special attention to the Russian refugees in Constantinople because the relief program was directed for a time by his wife's sister, Anna V. S. Mitchell. Her correspondence appears in both Part II, Series I and Series III, Section H, Russian Refugee Relief.

Part II, Series I, Section C, General Correspondence 1950-1957 M-Z, contains the correspondence of Clarence Blair Mitchell which includes an interesting discussion of the issue of McCarthyism. Mitchell, who was Stokes's brother-in-law, was a firm supporter of Senator McCarthy and made his feelings known to Stokes in this series of letters. Stokes did not agree with Mitchell and in his replies tried to modify Mitchell's point of view. In one letter, for example, Mitchell accused Henry Van Dusen of the Union Theological Seminary of having Communist connections, and Stokes in turn defended him. There is also correspondence with Van Dusen on the subject.

Also in this section, the researcher will find correspondence with Alan Paton concerning the "apartheid" policies of the South African Government and several letters from Countess Alexandra Tolstoy, of the Tolstoy Foundation, which discuss the plight of a Russian emigre.

The family correspondence is very fragmentary. The only substantial correspondence is with his father, Anson Phelps Stokes; his mother, Helen Louisa Phelps Stokes; and his three brothers Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, James Graham Phelps Stokes and Harold Phelps Stokes.

PART II, SERIES II, JOURNALS, SPEECHES, WRITINGS, AND RESEARCH MATERIALS, consists of the journals, sermons, addresses, writings and research materials of Anson Phelps Stokes. Collectively they present Stokes's religious, political and educational views. Two items found in this addition to the papers which were missing from the main portion are the complete typescript of his unpublished book,A History of Universities, and "Family Incidents and Memories", an autobiographical memoir. There are also some materials relating to his books,Memorials of Eminent Yale MenandChurch and State in the United States. In the case ofChurch and State in the United Statesmuch of the material consists of photographs and illustrations. They have been filed in this series, rather than in PART II, SERIES IV, because of their relationship to the book.

Part II, Series III, Subject Files, complements the general correspondence of Anson Phelps Stokes. Grouped by topic, the papers represent major areas of interest and concern which are in evidence through the correspondence. The subjects are:

For the most part, the papers in the subject files are memoranda, minutes and reports with some of Stokes's official correspondence. They are files maintained for his personal use and do not represent complete, official records of the organizations involved.

Part II, Series IV, Memorabilia and Photographs, consists of photograph albums, individual photographs and scrapbook material. The two photograph albums appear to be related to Stokes's trip around the world in 1896. The scrap-book material and additional miscellaneous items provide some biographical information.

Part II, Series V, Financial and Property Records, contains cancelled checks, bank statements, and checkbooks.

PART II, SERIES VI, STOKES FAMILY PAPERS, consists of one folder of Stokes family correspondence, a book,Cruising the Caribbean With a Camera, by Anson Phelps Stokes (father of APS), and some papers relating to the Americana collection of Anson Phelps Stokes, (father of APS)