We are always looking for “new” Jane Addams documents! Some are still privately held by the descendants of Addams’s friends and correspondents, others are in archives that haven’t been cataloged or that we might have missed.
If you know of a document or a collection not listed on our Collections tab, please let us know. Email Cathy Moran Hajo @ chajo@ramapo.edu. We do not need original documents, but will scan them and return them to you.
Document Search
The editorial team that worked on the Jane Addams Microfilm conducted an extensive search for documents from 1976 to 1985. For the digital edition, we will include documents on the microfilm, but will also conduct a new search, taking advantage of digital databases, online finding aids, newspapers, and archives, websites, and catalogs now available.
A listing of all known repositories holding Addams documents will be published as part of the digital edition. If you know of any archives or private collections that contain Addams material (from any year), please contact the project so that we can work to include the documents in the digital edition.
The following archival collections are currently on our search list. If you live near one of these collections and would be willing to undertake a search for documents, please contact the project.
To Be Searched:
Blake family.
Radcliffe College – Schlesinger Library
1 folder.
Photocopies of a scrapbook and other papers of Blake include clippings, and correspondence with Anna Howard Shaw, Jane Addams, and Woodbridge N. Ferris, among others.
Letter, 1924 Jan. 4, Washington, D.C., to William C.[sic] Hobbs, Ann Arbor, Mich.
Woods, Amy.
University of Michigan Libraries
1 p.
On behalf of [Jane] Addams, who is ill, states position of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom toward taking a pledge such as that of the Women’s Peace Party.
Harper, Ann Austin, 1863-1935.
Western Reserve Historical Society
0.2 linear ft.
Letters, financial receipts, a death certificate, poems, recipes, home remedies, and miscellaneous lists. A letter from Jane Addams responds to a proposal by Harper to board delinquent or ill children in her home.
Blanche W. Walton papers, 1914-1932.
Walton, Blanche W.
New York State Historical Association
0.25 cu. ft.
Letters, from Lillian Wald, Jane Addams, and Oswald Garrison Villard, among others, regarding Walton’s interest in World War I peace efforts and her recuperation hospital for soldiers in her home in Hartsdale, New York, 1917-18; and photograph album of World War I soldiers, many identified.
Woman’s Peace Party. Madison Branch (Wis.).
Wisconsin Historical Society Library and Archives
0.4 c.f. (2 archives boxes)
Papers of the Madison branch of the Women’s Peace Party consisting chiefly of correspondence of Louise P. Kellogg as Secretary and of printed materials. Correspondents include Grace Wales and Harriet P. Thomas with single letters from Jane Addams and Louis P. Lochner.
Typed letter signed Jane Addams to: My dear Mrs. Elliott September 2, 1930.
Addams, Jane, 1860-1935.
Wellesley College
1 p.
Papers, 1828-1913 ; (bulk 1876-1896).
Livezey, Josephine E.
Duke University – David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library
204 items.
Family correspondence, including descriptions of travel and of resorts from Virginia to Maine; parties given by the Du Pont family in Wilmington, Del., 1886; the illness of Jane Addams, 1910; conversations of Bernard N. Baker (Josephine’s brother-in-law) with William Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt, and Gifford Pinchot, 1910; and the mercantile business of John Ely in Attleboro, Pa., 1843.
Diaries, 1896 Sept. 28-1897 June 13.
Gow, H. J.
Duke University – David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library
2 v. (.2 linear ft.)
Entries describe a trip from England to Canada and the United States to visit settlement houses, especially in Chicago, Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia. Miss Gow’s longest stay was in Chicago where she went to Hull House and met with Jane Addams. In New York City she described the bad conditions in the tenements and a stop at a Labor Bureau. She also visited kindergartens, hospitals, clubs, and sweat shops. Other stops were in Montreal and Guelph in Canada; Norwich, Conn.; Cape Cod, Niagara Falls, and Hamilton.
Lugenia Burns Hope files, 1908-1933.
Neighborhood Union (Atlanta, Ga.).
Atlanta University Center – Robert W. Woodruff Library
28 folders.
The collection consists of the personal papers of Lugenia Burns Hope from 1908-1933. These records document Mrs. Hope’s activities outside of the Neighborhood Union. Includes correspondence, brochures, pamphlets, programs, clippings, speeches and lectures, printed material, and rosters. Of particular interest are materials relating to her work with the Red Cross Colored Advisory Commission during the 1927 Mississippi Valley Flood and the YWCA’s War Work Council’s Hostess House program during World War I. Notable correspondents include Jane Addams, Will W. Alexander, Eva Bowles, W.E.B. Du Bois, Herbert Hoover, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Mary E. McDowell, Robert R. Moton, and Margaret Murray Washington.
Sue Douglas Berry and Margaret Keller Douglas oral history interview, 1977 Nov. 11.
Berry, Sue Douglas.
Georgia State University – Special Collections and Archives
2 audiotapes ;
The collection consists of an oral history interview with Sue Douglas Berry and Margaret Keller Douglas on November 11, 1977 in which they discuss Rockfort College and Douglas family tradition; Jane Addams and Hull House; family background; reason for family’s move South; Douglas family becomes Unitarian; significance of number “11” to Douglas; Douglas family traits; Douglas family and Atlanta society; Helen Douglas Mankin’s first engagement; Red Cross button; Mankin’s personality; Guy Mankin Jr.’s relationship with Mankin; Mankin’s will; the Douglas family and Michigan Tech; Mankin’s father; Mankin’s broken engagement; Mankin and Catholicism; Mankin’s death; Mankin’s relationship with Guy Mankin Sr.; and Nancy Downing.
Anne Martin campaign literature, 1914-1918.
Martin, Anne, 1875-1951.
University of Nevada, Reno – Mathewson IGT Knowledge Center
7 items.
Campaign literature includes flyers with testimonials from well-known national feminist figures; Martin’s views on World War I, on land monopoly in Nevada, and on labor; and postcards in English and Italian urging women to support Martin in her Nev. senatorial campaign. Also included is a copy of Outwest magazine featuring “The clash in Nevada: a history of women’s fight for enfranchisement (Aug. 1914), with articles by Jane Addams, Mary Austin, Carrie Chapman Catt, Mary Roberts Coolidge, Sara Bard Field, Inez Haynes Gillmore, Charlotte Perkins Gilman,
Gail Laughlin, Anne Martin, and Anna Howard Shaw.
Thomas Elsa Jones collection (1-71), 1925-1947 (bulk, 1926-1946).
Jones, Thomas Elsa.
Fisk University – Fisk University Library and Media Center,
30.53 cubic ft.
Personal materials consist of biographical information and correspondence with family and friends, including a few financial records and insurance policy materials. General correspondence contains three subseries: College/University Correspondence, Resignation, and Work Camps. Correspondents include Jane Addams, W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, Eleanor Roosevelt, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and Augusta Savage. The College/University correspondence contains mostly incoming and outgoing letters from presidents and deans at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, with some folders on other educational institutions. The Resignation subseries includes information on Jones’s tentative resignation in 1941, and his final official resignation in 1946. The Work Camp subseries includes information on the Whiteville Work Camp, in which students were engaged in assisting the residents of rural Whiteville, Tenn., in a project to build schools.
Lucy B. Johnston papers, 1887-1937.
Johnston, Lucy Browne, 1846-1937.
Kansas State Historical Society
3 ft. (7 boxes + oversize)
Personal papers, business & club communications, account & record books, biographical sketches, reports, and addresses relating to a wide variety of political and social causes, particularly traveling libraries; conservation, especially the West Side Forestry Club; historic sites, especially Pawnee Rock (present Pawnee Rock State Historic Site) (Pawnee Rock, Kan.) & Pike’s Pawnee Village (present Pawnee Village State Historic Site) (Republic, Kan.); national & state women’s clubs including the alumnae organization of her alma mater, Western Female Seminary (Oxford, Ohio); Prohibition; state institutions & hospitals, particularly the Kansas State Industrial School for Girls (present Beloit Juvenile Correctional Facility) (Beloit) & the Kansas State Industrial Farm for Women (Lansing); social reform legislation; World War I Liberty Loans; and women suffrage, including the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Kansas Equal Suffrage Association, & Men’s League for Equal Suffrage. Correspondents include Jane Addams; Susan B. Anthony; Clara Barton; Alice Stone Blackwell; Helen Eaker; Julia Perry; Mary Rengrose; Anna Shaw; Governors Walter R. Stubbs of Kansas & John F. Shafroth of Colorado; Stella Stubbs, wife of the governor; Eugene F. Ware & his wife, Jeanette; and Booker T. Washington & his wife, Margaret James Murray Washington.
Syracuse University – Special Collections Research Center
54 items (SC).
Papers of the American suffragist, feminist, pacifist (1883-1975). Collection includes incoming correspondence to Mabel Vernon in her capacity as a member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and campaign director of its committee, the People’s Mandate to Governments to End War (later re-named the People’s Mandate Committee for Inter-American Peace and Cooperation. Notable correspondents include Grace Abbott, Jane Addams, Frank Aydelotte, Irene Bailey, Newton Baker, Pearl S. Buck, Rafael Calderón Guardia, Samuel P. Cadman, Arthur Capper, Carrie Catt, Raymond Clapper, Jacqueline Cochran, Josephus Daniels, Norman H. Davis, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Abraham Flexner, Zona Gale, Virginia Gildersleeve, Meta Glass, Frank Graham, Inez Irwin, Alfred Landon, Sinclair Lewis, Clare Boothe Luce, Gabriela Mistral, Caroline O’Day, Ruth Owen, Galo Plaza Lasso, Nelson Rockefeller, Leo Rowe, Laurence Steinhardt, Lowell Thomas, M. Carey Thomas, Oswald Villard, Lillian Wald, Wendell
Mahatma Gandhi papers 1927-1948.
Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948.
Swarthmore College – Peace Collection
3 linear in.
This collection consists primarily of 37 letters: 33 letters written by Mohandas K. Gandhi including twenty letters written to Reginald Reynolds between 1929 and 1946; six letters to Richard B. Gregg between 1927 and 1953; and single letters to Jane Addams, Horace Alexander, C.Y. Chintamani, John H. Holmes, Hannah C. Hull, Dorothy Newman, and one unknown recipient; copy of letter from Gandhi to Reynolds, copy of letter to A.J. Muste; letters concerning the collection from Richard B. Gregg to the Swarthmore College Peace Collection and from Reginald Reynolds to Charles F. Jenkins; and a letter from Syed Mahmud to Reginald Reynolds. Collection includes typescript copies of some letters; and a 1948 typescript by Reginald Reynolds about Gandhi’s letters to him: “Letters from Bapu” (8 pages). Also includes one disc containing scanned images of the letters in TIFF format. Correspondence may be viewed online at Triptych, the Tri-College Digital Library. An online essay, Gandhi-Reynolds
Nancy Cox-McCormack papers, 1911-1965.
Cox-McCormack, Nancy, 1885-1967.
Tennessee State Library and Archives
600 items and 4 v.
Correspondence, photographs, and memoirs relating to Nancy Cox-McCormack’s commissions as a sculptor of images of prominent Europeans and Americans. Her subjects included Jane Addams, Giacomo Boni, Lauro De Bosis, Edward Ward Carmack, Rev. John Cavanaugh, Charles Upson Clark, Clarence Darrow, Rudulph Evans, Henry P. Fletcher, Mahatma Gandhi, Alice Gerstenberg, Dr. Laurence M. Gould, Charles Haubiel, Marian MacDowell, Benito Mussolini, Harold Noice, Max Pam, Ezra Pound, Lola Ridge, and Eunice Tietjens. The papers include two volumes of photographs of these sculptures as well as letters and memoirs related to the execution of the commissions. Other correspondence focuses on sixteen months spent in Italy (1952-1954) by Cox-McCormack and her husband, Charles T. Cushman, and on descriptions of post-World War II France by the family of Maurice Triand of Bordeaux. Approximately 300 letters (1948-1963) from Margaret Storrs Grierson (Archivist, Smith College) concern the Sophia Smith
Cox-McCormack, Nancy, 1885-1967.
Smith College – Neilson Library
4.24 linear ft. (12 boxes; flat file)
The papers document Cushman’s artwork, related contacts, and her wide social network, particularly in Chicago circa 1910’s, and Europe circa 1920’s. There is correspondence, printed materials, and writings by and about many notable individuals including Jane Addams, Stephen Vincent Benť and family, Sarah Bernhardt, Giacomo Boni, Clarence Darrow, Lauro De Bosis, Louise de Koven Bowen, Edward Ward Carmack, Primo de Rivera, Mohandas K. Gandhi, Elizabeth Sparhawk Jones, Benito Mussolini, Dorothy and Ezra Pound, Frank Lloyd Wright, Amelia Earhart, Daniel Chester French, Alice Hamilton, Grace Hegger Lewis, Marion and Edward MacDowell (founders of the MacDowell Colony), among others. Of particular interest are biographical materials, correspondence, and writings by and about Ezra Pound; letters from historian Mary Ritter Beard describing attempt to establish The World Center for Women’s Archives; autobiographical letters between Cushman and Alice Gerstenberg, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s
Smith College – Neilson Library
13.25 linear ft. (28 boxes; 7 volumes; oversized items)
The Peace Collection is comprised largely of published materials documenting the work of women’s peace activism from the early nineteenth century to the 1980s. The bulk of the collection dates from 1925 to 1977 and focuses on U.S. and international peace organizations, and individual women leaders in peace movements. Types of material include organizational records, newspaper clippings, articles, periodicals, pamphlets, flyers, biographical articles, writings, correspondence, newsletters, conference materials, minutes, reports, manuals, books, photographs, and videotapes. A substantial portion of the collection documents the activities of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and individual members, circa 1919-1977. Other organizations represented include the National Congress of Women, Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Another Mother for Peace, National Committee for the Cause and Cure of War, Order of the Unicorn, Women’s Peace Party, World Gathering of
Autograph file: A-I, 1783-1983.
Vassar College.
New York State Historical Documents
4 cubic ft.
Letters with some manuscripts, speeches, poems, and other items, primarily resulting from an official connection with Vassar College, written by Vassar students, faculty or staff, or of historical and cultural significance. Letters of note include W.I. Cutter on her missionary work in India, 1852-1854; John Quincy Adams on Paris peace treaty and national politics, 1783; Elizabeth Blackwell on excessive practice of ovariotomy and dangers to women from syphilitic husbands, 1896; Thomas Boyd on work as screen writer in Hollywood (1931), being a father, World War I experiences, and other issues, 1918-1934; Pearl S. Buck’s correspondence with Alma Lutz on equal rights amendment and Buck’s writing and speaking work, 1938-1967; Ruth Crippen on Red Cross work in France, 1918; Bette Davis on using women’s rights pioneers as film material, 1944; Anna E. Dickenson on her speaking engagements and personal news, 1863-1888; Frederick Douglass on John H. Raymond’s activities on behalf of fugitive
Caroline Bartlett Crane collection, 1895-1935.
Crane, Caroline Bartlett, 1858-1935.
Western Michigan University
26 cu. ft.
Papers of Caroline Bartlett Crane (1858-1935). The collection contains material about her personal and public life as a Unitarian minister, founder of The People’s Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a social and urban reformer, suffragist, and conservationist. Papers include correspondence, speeches, sermons, articles, travel journals, scrapbooks, autobiographical material and photographs. Papers about women’s issues of the early twentieth century include correspondence with suffragists, Anna Howard Shaw, Susan B. Anthony, and Jane Addams. Information on the Kalamazoo Civic Improvement League, League of Women Voters, health, visiting nurses, and sanitation, divorce laws and women in the church and rural life in the mid 1920s. Material about social reform issues includes prison and poorhouse investigations and reform, juvenile delinquency, legislative reform of meat inspection, municipal sanitary surveys, the Salvation Army in England, old age security, and unemployment. Material about
Autograph and meeting program, ca. 1910.
Addams, Jane, 1860-1935.
Brigham Young University – Harold B. Lee Library
2 items (3 p.) ; 3 photocpies (3 p.)
American author and social reformer
Lloyd, Lola Maverick, 1875-1944.
Smith College – Neilson Library
.25 linear ft. (1 box)
This small collection of Lola Maverick Lloyd’s papers documents her peace-related activities, during and after World War I, through correspondence and published pamphlets, newsletters, and clippings.
Wood, L. Hollingsworth (Levi Hollingsworth), 1874-1956.
Haverford College – Quaker and Special Collections
81 boxes.
Correspondence, memoranda, minutes, reports, lists, press releases, transcripts, notes, photographs, clippings, drafts of articles and speeches, financial and legal papers, brochures, pamphlets and other printed items, account books and other papers. Primarily correspondence and other papers related to the many organizations Wood was involved with, including: American League to Limit Armaments, American Union Against Militarism, American Commission on Conditions in Ireland, Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Booker Washington Institute of Liberia, Fisk University, Five Years Meeting, Friends Ambulance Unit, Friends World Conferences, Happy Grove School, Haverford College, International Rescue Committee, National Urban League, New York Colored Mission, Peace Association of Friends in America, Young Friends, etc.
Records, 1915-1977 (inclusive).
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Massachusetts Branch.
Radcliffe College – Schlesinger Library
2 linear ft.
This collection primarily contains correspondence, newsletters, financial records, membership lists, minutes of board meetings, and flyers of the Massachusetts branch of WILPF, with some papers of local branches throughout the state. Also included are correspondence, newsletters, and minutes of the WILPF national branch in Washington (and later in Philadelphia), and flyers and newsletters of other Massachusetts organizations with which the Massachusetts branch has cooperated, including the Greater Boston Peace Action Coalition, the Coalition to Fight Political Repression, and People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice.
Joseph Schlossberg Secretary-Treasurer correspondence, 1914-1929, 1915-1925 (bulk).
International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. Secretary-Treasurer.
Cornell University Libraries
10 linear ft.
Correspondence documenting Joseph Schlossberg’s tenure in the ACWA during the period 1914-1929, particularly in his capacity as secretary-treasurer. Much of the correspondence concerns the formation and early struggles of the ACWA. Among the subjects documented in these letters are: union organizing efforts in the U.S. and Canada, especially in Boston, Cincinnati, Montreal, Philadelphia, Rochester, N.Y., and Toronto; individual locals of the ACWA, relations with other garment workers’ unions; strikes and lockouts, particularly in Cincinnati; the role of women in the union; and the often tense relations among the Jewish, Italian, German and various Slavic clothing workers.
ILGWU. Benjamin Schlesinger papers, 1914-1923.
International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. President’s Office.
Cornell University Libraries
2 linear feet.
Correspondence, form letters, circulars and subject files relating to Schlesinger’s term, June 1914 to January 1923. Topics covered in these materials include union organizing; strikes, labor disputes, working conditions, and other labor issues in the women’s garment industry, particularly in New York City; inter-union relations; relations between manufacturers’ associations and the union; efforts by Schlesinger and others to form an alliance of garment workers’ unions; discussions with foreign garment workers’ unions; education for workers in New York City; and Jewish war relief efforts during World War I.
Papers of William Dean Howells, 1866-1919.
Howells, William Dean, 1837-1920.
University of Virginia
342 items.
The papers of William Dean Howells,1866-1919, include reviews, stories, and poems, letters, and portraits.
Minnesota Woman Suffrage Association records, [microform]. 1894-1923.
Minnesota Historical Society
Correspondence, minutes and other record books, subject files, printed materials, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, and miscellany of this organization formed to promote equal voting rights for women. Most post-date 1900.
McMasters University