Swarthmore College Peace Collection

Ellen Starr Brinton Papers, 1895-1980

Collection: DG 051

Contact Information
Swarthmore College Peace Collection
500 College Avenue
Swarthmore, PA 19081-1399
U.S.A.
Telephone: (610) 328-8557 (Curator)
Fax: (610) 328-8544
Email: wchmiel1@swarthmore.edu (Curator)
URL: http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/peace/

Descriptive Summary
Repository
Swarthmore College Peace Collection
Creator
Brinton, Ellen Starr (1886-1954)
Title
Ellen Starr Brinton Papers
Inclusive Dates
1895-1980
Call Number
DG 051
Language of Materials
Materials in English
Extent
15 linear inches [papers only]
Abstract
Ellen Starr Brinton (1886-1954), Quaker, feminist and internationalist, served as the first curator of the Jane Addams Peace Collection (later the Swarthmore College Peace Collection) from 1935 until her retirement in 1951.
Administrative Information
Restrictions to Access
None
Usage Restrictions
None
Alternate Form of Material
None
Acquisitions Information
Gift of Elizabeth Wheeler (cousin of Ellen Starr Brinton), 1954 [Acc. 54-038]
Processing Information
Processed by Barbara Addison, September 1992; this version of finding aid by Wendy E. Chmielewski, July 2009.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], in the Ellen Starr Brinton Papers (DG 051), Swarthmore College Peace Collection
Copyright Notice
Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendents, as stipulated by United States copyright law

Online Catalog Headings
These and related materials may be found under the following headings in online library/archival catalogs.
See tripod record

Related Collections
Archives of the Swarthmore College Peace Collection (DG 000)

Historical Background
Ellen Starr Brinton (1886-1954), Quaker, feminist and internationalist, served as the first curator of the Jane Addams Peace Collection (later the Swarthmore College Peace Collection) from 1935 until her retirement in 1951.

During World War I, Ellen Brinton assisted with educational publicity work under the Food Administration in Philadelphia and also wrote for a newspaper there. She was a field representative in the Philadelphia office of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom during the 1920s and early 1930s. During this time Brinton was particularly interested in the political situation in Cuba and human rights violations there. She also worked with other WILPF representatives to establish ties with women's organizations in Latin America. When the Daughters of the American Revolution published attacks on WILPF in the 1920s, Brinton was one of the League members who wrote articles in rebuttal. She specifically attacked the DAR's color barrier in the admissions policy of their organization.

As first curator of the Peace Collection, Brinton established collection and arrangement policies for the WILPF papers and other material. Her various historical interests initiated several collections such as the peace seals, stamps, and covers collection and the material pertaining to Benjamin West's painting William Penn's Treaty With the Indians. Brinton travelled to Europe before and after World War II to secure valuable peace records. During her 1937 trip to Europe Brinton correctly assessed the growing political termoil, especially in Germany, where she met with peace activists. During this trip she also met Rosa Kulka, a member of the Czechoslavkian WILPF. Brinton's attempts to assist Kulka, her sister and two nieces escape Nazi occupied Europe are documented in these papers. Brinton's interest in the history of the American peace movement, Quakerism, international relations, and archival theory led her to write many articles on these and other topics.

After her retirement, Ellen Starr Brinton was one of the founders of a venture to promote interracial understanding which became the Media, Pennsylvania, Fellowship House. She died on July 2, 1954.

Collection Overview
The Ellen Starr Brinton papers consist of personal correspondence (1935-1953), travel journals and address books, as well as notes, manuscripts and typescripts of articles and related correspondence and subject files (1895-1980). Part of her correspondence focuses on Cuban-American relations (1935-1937). Other correspondence includes letters to and from Rosa Kulka, who was Chairman of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (German Group) of the Czechoslovakian branch in Brunn from 1924 to 1938. Kulka and her family were Jewish pacifists who tried unsuccessfully to come to the United States to escape persecution in Czechoslovakia. The correspondence includes Brinton's attempts to locate Kulka and her family after the war.

Topics of Brinton's research include the Daughters of the American Revolution, Elihu Burritt, Benjamin West's painting Penn's Peace Treaty With the Indians, the Universal Peace Union, and Mexican-American relations; there is a card file of notes for a proposed biography of Jane Addams. Her notes and manuscripts for articles and books, and the manuscript draft of her unpublished work on the American peace movement, Dreamers of Dreams, are also located in this collection.

Correspondents in this collection include Emily Greene Balch, Heloise Brainerd, Benny Cederfeld, A. Ruth Fry, Rosa Kulka, Paul Vanorden Shaw, Phyllis M. Tiller, Herminio Portell Vila, Elizabeth A. Wheeler, and Lyra Trueblood Wolkins, who contributed reminiscences about her father, Benjamin Trueblood.

Items removed:
Photographs

Arrangement of Collection
The Ellen Starr Brinton papers were received from Elizabeth Wheeler, her cousin, in 1954. The material was in good order, apparently having been arranged by Brinton herself. A preliminary checklist was written in 1959. In 1992, the collection was fully processed, and a new checklist was made. Biographical material about Ellen Brinton was brought together and transferred to the beginning of the collection. She had arranged her material about her published works by subject rather than by title of the work, since she occasionally wrote more than one article about a subject. A new grouping, archival topics, was created to bring together her writings on that subject, which had been scattered throughout the collection. She had also arranged her unpublished work by research topic: her folder headings were retained. Notebooks, journals, and a card file were placed at the end of the collection. Photographs were removed, and put into the Peace Collection photograph collection (Collective box, DG 51).



Detailed Description of the Collection

Box 1 Biographical information and correspondence
Biographical information about Ellen Starr Brinton, [1924]-1980
Correspondence of Ellen Starr Brinton (arranged alphabetically by subject)
Cuba: correspondence with H. Portell Vila, 1935
Cuba: correspondence with H. Portell Vila, 1936-1937
Czechoslovakia: correspondence with Kulka, Pollak, Siebenstein families, 1938-1947
Czechoslovakia: correspondence among ESB, Emily Greene Balch, and the Kulka, Pollak and Siebenstein families, 1939-1941
Denmark: correspondence with Benny Cederfeld, 1937-1947
England: correspondence with A. Ruth Fry, 1946-1947
England: correspondence with Phyllis Tiller, 1944-1947
European trip, correspondence, memoirs, 1948
European trip, documents, clippings, 1948
Middle Western (USA) trip, correspondence and miscellaneous, 1949
Middle Western (USA) trip, correspondence and miscellaneous, 1951
Soviet Union correspondence, 1941-1943
Miscellaneous correspondence, 1930, 1952-1953
 
Box 2 Writings and Research of Ellen Starr Brinton
Published Works by ESB (arranged alphabetically by subject)
Archival Topics
Archives of Causes and Movements: Difficulties and Some Solutions as Illustrated by the Swarthmore College Peace Collection, [1951?]
Inexpensive Devices to Aid the Archivist, [1950?]
The Swarthmore College Peace Collection - A Memorial to Jane Addams, 1947
Benjamin West's Painting Penn's Treaty With the Indians
Benjamin West's Painting of Penn's Treaty With the Indians, offprint, and 5 postcard-size illustrations
of the painting, 1941
The Society of Friends
Are Friends Friendly?, 1953
Books By and About the Rogerenes, 1945
Letter to the Editor, Friends Intelligencer, 1941
Letter to the Editor, Friends Intelligencer, 1954
Old Meetings and New Neighbors, 1953
The Rogerene Quakers, 1939
The Rogerenes, 1943
The Welsh Quaker Heritage [Montgomery County], 1947
The Yearly Meeting House of Mt. Pleasant, Ohio, 1952
Yearly Meetinghouse at Mount Pleasant, 1952
Miscellaneous Topics
-- La Accion Femenina en Pro de la Paz, 1934
--Collecting Peace Covers [Stamps], 1940
--Historic Arguments Against the Army, 1947
--League of Nations Anti-War Force, [1930s?]
--Mexico Today, 1935
--The Munitions Industry and Pennsylvania, 1935
--Record Vote Pennsylvania Legislature 1933 [printed chart prepared? by ESB for WILPF], chart correspondence, [1933?], 1938
--Wie en Krieg verhindert Wurde [article about the National Council for Prevention of War] [1954?]
Unpublished works, research, and notes by Ellen Starr Brinton (arranged alphabetically by subject; titles in italics were the titles supplied by ESB; other headings are research topics)
-- Archival Advice to Peace Organizations, 1946, 1947, 1952
--Christians and Jews [ca. 1953]
--Daughters of the American Revolution (An Unwritten History of the D.A.R., and The D.A.R. Comes of Age), typescripts, manuscripts, correspondence [1947]-1948.
--Daughters of the American Revolution research, 1895-1938.
--Dreamers of Dreams (a history of the peace movement), typescript, chapters I-V [1952?].
--Dreamers of Dreams, typescript, chapters, I-V, with ESB's annotations, [1952?].
--Dreamers of Dreams, notes and reference material, 1952.
--Dreamers of Dreams, notes and reference material, 1953-1954.
--Dreamers of Dreams, correspondence and readers' comments, 1952-1954.
--Dreamers of Dreams, correspondence with Lyra Trueblood Wolkins about her father, Benjamin Trueblood, 1953-1954.

Box 3 Writings and Research of Ellen Starr Brinton (continued); Notebooks, journals, card file of ESB.
Unpublished works by ESB (continued).
-- Elihu Burritt and Ocean Penny Postage, typescripts and notes, [1939?].
--Friends and the Peace Movement, correspondence and notes, [1940s].
--How Long Should a Peace Organization Live?, annotated typescript, [n.d.]
--Ohio Research on M. Williams, Joel Wright, and T. Rotch, correspondence, notes, brochures, 1950-1951
--Our Neighbor - Mexico, typescript, 1930
--Treasures, Trifles, Trash!, typescript and correspondence, 1952-1953
--Universal Peace Union and Independence Hall, typescript, notes, and correspondence, [1939]
Miscellaneous topics
Articles Mentioning Ellen Starr Brinton
Notebooks, journals, card file of ESB
Two notebooks, [n.d.]
Chronology of Jane Addams' life, 3 x 5 cards on ring, [n.d.]
Trips and Travels, 1937
Travel Diary and Address Book, 1948


This file was last updated on July 24, 2009