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HIST 215J The Art of Biography Research Guide: Collection Materials Used in Class

The following entries highlight the archival collections used in the class session held in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library on Wednesday, February 14th, 2023. 

While you're exploring the collection box in front of you and preparing to tell your fellow students something about the materials it contains and the person whose life it documents, it may be useful to consider some of the following questions:

Who created this archival collection, when were the materials in it created, where were they created?

What is going on in the folders you looked at? What is the context for the document(s) you looked at? Who is the intended audience?

Whose perspective(s) comes through in the document(s) you examined? Whose doesn’t? Does the material you examined have biases that should be considered when using it as primary sources for a biography?

What can you know based on the sources you have in front of you? What do you not know?

What questions do the sources raise that could help someone shape a biographical paper? What challenges would someone writing a biographical essay using these materials face?

Did anything surprise you when looking at the folders in your collection?

American Horse Papers (WA MSS S-903) - Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Link to the online catalog description for this collection

Overview: Letters written for the Dakota Chief American Horse regarding early customs of the Sioux, their cultural advancement, and the tragedy at Wounded Knee Creek. Accompanied by a letter about Charles Foster's position on Indian affairs and a letter from Mrs. James Landy to Daniel E. Soper. There are 76 folio drawings depicting Sioux life and three photographs of American Horse.

Collection materials used in class session:

  • Box 1, folder 11: Letters from American Horse to James Landy, July 1881-December 1896.

 

James Beebee Brinsmade, Jr. Diaries in the Yale Student Diary Collection (RU 861) - Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library

Link to the Archives at Yale finding aid for the Yale Student Diary Collection, of which these diaries are a part

Overview: The two-volume diary primarily documents Brinsmade’s junior and senior years at Yale College (he was a member of the Class of 1845) and richly describes campus life. Subjects include prayer meetings, excursions, baseball (the first known reference to baseball at Yale), football, wicket, and an incident of violence toward a local man. The regular entries end on August 31, 1845 but continue sporadically until February 3, 1853.

Collection materials used in class session:

  • Accession 2011-A-030, Box 1, Folder 2: Diary, 1845-1853.

Joseph Goldsborough Bruff Diaries, Journals, and Notebooks (WA MSS 50) - Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Link to the online catalog description for this collection

Overview: The diaries describe an 1849 expedition by way of St. Joseph, Fort Kearney, Fort Laramie, South Pass, Sublette's Cut-off, Bear River, Cantonment Loring, Raft River, the Humboldt, Lassen's Route to Deer Creek, and Bruff's camp. They contain maps and sketches from the journey and notes on life in California. The journals were written from the diaries. The notebooks contain more sketches from the trip and of equipment. There are memoranda of supplies and equipment, routes, and remedies.

Collection materials used in class session

  • Volume 6: Diary, November 6, 1849-March 16, 1850.

Henry Hale Bucher, Jr. Papers (RG 250) - Divinity Library Special Collections

Link to the Archives at Yale finding aid for this collection

Overview: Correspondence, writings, and collected material in the papers of Henry Hale Bucher, Jr. are focused on specific areas that are complementary to other collections at the Yale, including his participation in ecumenical study abroad programs, his work with the University Christian Movement, and his draft resistance in a movement that involved Yale Chaplain William Sloane Coffin. This collection should be examined in connection with the papers of Henry Hale Bucher, Jr.'s parents, the Henry Hale Bucher and Louise Scott Bucher Papers (RG 249). Henry, Jr.'s early life is well documented in the papers of his parents.

Collection materials used in class session:

  • Series III, Box 2, folder 3: "Seminary Year Abroad Letters" from Henry Hale Bucher, Jr. at University College, Legon, Ghana, October 1960-June 1961.

Wesley Brown Papers (JWJ MSS 229) - Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Link to the Archives at Yale finding aid for this collection

Overview: Wesley Brown, born 1945, received his M.A. in Literature and Creative Writing at The City College of the City University of New York and his B.A. in History and Political Science at State University of New York, Oswego. Wesley Brown is a novelist, playwright, and teacher. He worked with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1965 and became a member of the Black Panther Party in 1968. In 1972, he was sentenced to three years in prison for refusing induction into the armed services and spent 18 months in Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary. Brown was a professor at Rutgers University (1979-2005). He has taught literature at Bard College at Simon’s Rock since 2007. Papers primarily contain Brown's creative writing, including novels, plays, poems, short stories, film scripts, correspondence, and reviews related to these writings. The papers also include legal documents related to Wesley Brown’s refusal to be inducted into the armed services in 1972.

Collection materials used in class session:

  • Box 7, folder 52: Journal reminiscing about his 1965 "civil rights journey" to Mississippi, 2005, and journal of his 2010 trip to Israel.

Carolyn Davidson Hill Diary and Family Papers (MS 2122) - Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library

Link to the Archives at Yale finding aid for this collection

Overview:  Papers consist of the diary Hill kept during the Battle of Shanghai in 1949 as well as photographs and related material on the experiences of Hill, her husband Horace "Hod" Hill, and other workers at the Caltex Oil Terminal. Additional materials in the collection document the Hill's family history, their friends, work, and travel. A letter from a family friend, Paul Bordwell, discusses his experience in Singapore during an anti-colonial riot in December 1950.

Collection materials used in class session:

  • Series I, Box 1, folder 1:  Battle for Shanghai diary, original typescript with annotations by Carolyn Davidson Hill, 1949 February–August

Kristaps J. Keggi Vietnam War Service Papers (Ms Coll 29) - Medical Historical Library, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library

Link to the Archives at Yale finding aid for this collection

Overview: Letters by Kristaps J. Keggi, (Yale College 1955, School of Medicine 1959) while serving in the Army Medical Corps in Vietnam from September 1965 to June 1966, to his wife, Julia Q. Keggi, who was raising their three young daughters in El Paso, Texas; letters from Julia Keggi to Kristaps Keggi; letters to Kristaps Keggi from his patients in Vietnam and patients' families; patient records from Vietnam (restricted); photographs of Keggi and family members; slides and digitized photographs from Vietnam and Bangkok, Thailand; photographs by Keggi of gunshot war wounds to the extremities and drawings by medical illustrator Leon Schlossberg, under Keggi's supervision, of these wounds and Keggi's methods of debridement and management; and news clippings and articles mentioning Keggi and the 3rd MASH.

Collection materials used in class session:

  • Series I, Box 1, folder 2: Letters from Keggi to his wife, Julia, September 1965.

Ellison and Lottie Hildreth Papers (RG 15) - Divinity Library Special Collections

Link to the Archives at Yale finding aid for this collection

Overview: Substantive correspondence with family members and fellow missionaries documents the Hildreth's struggle to reach the mission field, their initial impressions of China, family life in China, daily educational and evangelistic work, and the political unrest rampant in South China during their tenure. The intense anti-Christian movement in the mid 1920s is well documented. Ellison Hildreth served as a Baptist home missionary from 1910 until 1913. From 1913-1927, the Hildreths were American Baptist missionaries in South China. During a furlough from 1918-1919, Ellison Hildreth served with the YMCA in Siberia. From 1928-1949, he served as pastor of Federated Churches in Vermont and Connecticut.

Collection materials used in class session

  • Series I, Box 5, Folder 54: Correspondence from Lottie Lane Hildreth to her parents Carrie and Everett Lane, October-December 1915

Much of this collection has been digitized and is available through links in the Archives at Yale finding aid.

Maxine Kumin Papers (YCAL MSS 734) - Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Link to the Archives at Yale finding aid for this collection

Overview: Maxine Kumin was born Maxine Winokur in 1925 in Philadelphia. Educated at Radcliffe College (1946, 1948) she  is the author of numerous children’s books, poetry collections, essay and short story collections, and novels. Her many awards include the Pulitzer Prize (1973) for Up Country. Her husband, Victor Kumin, was born in 1921 in Worcester, MA. They met in Cambridge where Victor studied chemistry. In September 1944, while he was serving in the Army, Victor was dispatched to Los Alamos to work on the Manhattan Project. The collection includes 3 boxes of the couple’s correspondence from 1945 to 1946.

Collection materials used in class session:

  • March 2013 Acquisition, Box 66, folder 1 of 14: Letters from Maxine Kumin and Victor Kumin, May 3-June 21, 1945.

John Hall Paxton Papers (MS 629) - Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library

Link to the Archives at Yale finding aid for this collection

Overview: Correspondence, writings, photographs and printed materials of John Hall Paxton, American foreign service officer. The papers reflect primarily Paxton’s service in China from 1925 to 1949, broken only by a year in Tehran in 1943. He made a dramatic escape from China (1949) and returned to the United States. He broadcast for the Voice of America, and returned as Consul to Isfahan, Iran in 1951, where he died in 1953. Papers include reports on Chinese economic and political conditions, memoranda on Nanking and the Nationalist takeover in 1927; an account of the U.S.S. Panay incident in 1937, to which he was an eyewitness; a record of his internment in Nanking by the Japanese in 1942, and articles and letters on his escape from China in 1949. An unpublished manuscript, "Consul to Sinkiang," is among the papers, as are extensive collections of photographs of China and Iran.

Collection materials used in class session:

  • Series II, Box 3, folder 52: Rough draft, record of events and plan for escape, some undated but all approximately 1941-1942.

Arthur Bostwick Van Buskirk World War I Diaries (MS 2091) - Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library

Link to the Archives at Yale finding aid for this collection

Overview: Two diaries by Arthur Botswick Van Buskirk (Yale College Class of 1918) documenting his military experience during World War I. Newspaper clippings, correspondence, tickets, and other ephemera in folder 3 were originally inserted between diary pages. Several pages in volume II detail the Armistice of November 11, 1918 in Paris, France.

Collection materials used in class session

  • Box 1, Folder 2: Diary, volume II, 1918-1919.

John T. Downey Papers (GEN MSS 2125) - Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Link to the Archives at Yale finding aid for this collection

Overview: Papers document the life of John T. Downey spanning his days as a Yale College student, his subsequent 20-year captivity in China as an American prisoner of war (POW), and later activities regarding his personal life and career in public service. Collection materials consist chiefly of printed material and personal correspondence, dating mostly from the time of his capture in 1952 onwards. Much of the correspondence comprises letters between Downey and his friends and family – mostly with his mother, Mary Downey – during captivity. 

Collection materials used in class session:

  • Box 5, folder 5: Correspondence, clippings, and awards, 1927-1955, especially letters, starting in 1954, from Downey after his imprisonment in China.

Yonekazu Satoda Papers, Photographs, and Films (WA MSS S-2897) - Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Link to the Archives at Yale finding aid for this collection

Overview: Yonekazu “Yone” Satoda was born in Hanford, California in 1921. The son of Japanese immigrants, he graduated from the UC Berkeley in 1942, the same year he was imprisoned at the Jerome Relocation Center in Arkansas as part of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.  From November 1946 to August 1948, Satoda served as a first lieutenant and military intelligence officer in the United States Army. He served in the United States Army Reserves from 1949 to 1969. In March 1961, he married Taka “Daisy” Uyeda (born 1927). Satoda worked as an accountant and lived in San Francisco, California. Material related to Satoda’s internment at Jerome includes a diary he kept from May 1942 to February 1945.

Collection materials used in class session:

  • Box 1, folder 1: Diary, 12 May 1942-13 February 1945.

 

Benajah Ticknor Papers (MS 495) - Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library

Link to the Archives at Yale finding aid for this collection

Overview: Journals, letterbook, medical notes, and essays of Benajah Ticknor, doctor and surgeon with the U.S. Navy. Of primary importance are the journals which describe journeys made by Ticknor with the Navy to South America, the Far East, and Europe. Ticknor was born in Salisbury, Connecticut, in 1788, graduated from the Berkshire Medical Institute around 1810, received an honorary M. D. from Yale in 1836, and died in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1858. 

Collection materials used in class session

  • Box 2, Folder 9: Journal, volume IV, documenting a journey on board the U.S.S. Ohio from Boston to the Mediterranean and back to New York, 1838-1842.

Page Family Papers (MS 772) - Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library

Link to the Archives at Yale finding aid for this collection

Overview: Correspondence, family papers, diaries, photographs, and other materials documenting the personal lives and professional careers of Alfred Rider Page (1859-1931) and Elizabeth Merwin Roe Page (1861-1943), and their two daughters, Elizabeth Merwin Page Harris (1889-1969) and Marjorie Page Schauffler (1897-1983). The Page family papers document Elizabeth Roe Page’s work as field secretary for the Women’s Board of Domestic Missions of the Reformed Church in America and has correspondence on such subjects as relations between parents and children, courtship, and aging. The papers also contain material on the life and career of elder daughter Elizabeth, who graduated from Vassar College in 1912, received an M.A. from Columbia University in 1914, and was a teacher, Y.M.C.A. volunteer in World War I, employee of the International Grenfell Association, and author [see also the Elizabeth Page Harris Papers (MS 771)].

Collection materials used in class session:

  • Box 2, folder 37: Family correspondence, primarily between Elizabeth ("Bess") Merwin Page Harris and her mother, Elizabeth Merwin Roe Page, November 1918.

Harold T. F. Husted Yale Student Diaries and Diplomas (MS 2047) - Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library

Link to the Archives at Yale finding aid for this collection

Overview: Nine diaries written by Harold Thomas Fuller Husted (1883-1956) while a Yale College student, 1904-1908, and as a graduate student, 1908-1909. Diaries are numbered 10 through 18. Also included are diplomas for his BA degree, 1908, and his master's degree, 1909. The diaries document Husted’s college years in New Haven and summers at home in Westfield, NY with weekly entries. Husted consistently notes lectures; games; Yale sports, including baseball; undergraduate student life; epistolary relationships with women; the behavior of the family cat “Chimmie Fadden”; train travel; and the news

Collection materials used in class session:

  • Box 1, folder 6: Diary, 4 July 1907-25 May 1908.

Lisbet Tellefsen Papers (GEN MSS 1431) - Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Link to the Archives at Yale finding aid for this collection

Overview: Materials created and collected by Lisbet Tellefsen (born 1961). Many of the materials center around the creation of Aché, which was first issued in 1989 as a journal and existed as a collective in the Bay Area until 1994. The rest of the materials generally relate to allied groups and other events that Tellefsen participated in and helped to organize, such as the National Black Gay and Lesbian Conference’s Video Project.  Tellefsen–a political activist, feminist, and community organizer–is a Bay Area native who co-founded Aché along with Pippa Fleming, and has worked as an editor, recording engineer, and producer, receiving a number of awards for her service to the lesbian and gay community.

Collection materials used in class session:

  • May 2012 Acquisition, Box 1, folder 1: Aché correspondence received, circa 1990s.