#Aurelia Whittington Franklin

[lboogie1906]

John Hope Franklin (January 2, 1915 – March 25, 2009) was a historian and former president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Southern Historical Association. He is known for his work From Slavery to Freedom. More than three million copies have been sold. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He was born in Rentiesville, Oklahoma to attorney Buck (Charles) Colbert Franklin and his wife Mollie (Parker) Franklin. He graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa. He graduated from Fisk University, then earned a MA and Ph.D. in history from Harvard University. In his autobiography, he described a series of formative incidents in which he confronted racism while seeking to volunteer his services at the beginning of WWII. He responded to the navy's search for qualified clerical workers, but after he presented his extensive qualifications, the navy recruiter told him that he was the wrong color for the position. He was unsuccessful in finding a position with a War Department historical project. When he went to have a blood test, as required for the draft, the doctor refused to allow him into his office. He took steps to avoid the draft, on the basis that the country did not respect him or have an interest in his well-being, because of his color. He served on the NAACP Legal Defense Fund team led by Thurgood Marshall and helped develop the sociological case for Brown v. Board of Education. This case, challenging de jure segregated education in the South, was taken to the SCOTUS. It ruled that the legal segregation of African American and white children in public schools was unconstitutional, leading to the integration of schools. He married librarian Aurelia Whittington (1940-1999) and they had one son. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #alphaphialpha #sigmapiphi #phibetakappa https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm6iuqnLpMO/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[womenoflibraryhistory]

Frances Lydia Yocom

Today’s post was written by Lorna Peterson, who is also the source of our posts on Betty Jenkins (2017), Clare Beck (2017), Aurelia Elizabeth Whittington Franklin (2016), Leaonead Pack Drain-Bailey (2015), and Clara Stanton Jones (2014). The image above is from “Small in Stature, Great in Spirit: A Tribute to Frances Yocom” by Betty Bolton, which appeared in North Carolina Libraries Volume 22, Number 3 in 1964.

Born in Pennsville, Morgan County, Ohio, on May 13, 1899, librarian Frances Lydia Yocom’s contributions to librarianship are many, but most notably are marked by her thoughtful, groundbreaking works on subject retrieval of research about and by African Americans, her book reviews of works concerning African Americans, and her bibliographies, which preserve for us titles that without her documentation would likely remain lost to future readers.

Her published works provide a bibliographic foundation for understanding the complexity of subject information retrieval, controlled vocabulary, and implicit bias.  Notably, her Berkeley MA thesis published as A list of subject headings for books by and about the Negro, by the H.W. Wilson Publishing Company in 1940 and cited in Arna Bontemps 1944 Library Quarterly article “Special Collections of Negroana is one such seminal work.  Her 1942 review of The Negro Federal Government Worker by Lawrence J. W. Hayes in the Southern Economic Journal minces no words on discrimination and shortcomings of the Civil Service merit system as researched and described by the author Lawrence Hayes.  In the same issue of the Southern Economic Journal Ms. Yocom reviews with great care and praise, Eliza Gleason’s The Southern Negro and the Public Library[1] which in turn has been cited by library historian Cheryl Knott.[2] These titles are just a few of the works published by a scholar who is in need of remembering and deserving of a deep, and rich, biography.

Who was this white woman who worked at historically black colleges and universities as well as predominately white institutions, and was a librarian who used her bibliographic skills in the crusade for racial justice? Who and what shaped her mission to live in a world of racial equality?

The Yocom family moved to Oberlin in 1907, where the father, Eli King Yocom owned a dry goods store with his brother Joseph.  Frances attended Oberlin public schools; she graduated from Oberlin High School in 1917, and graduated from Oberlin College in 1921 with a major in English.  Her obituary lists her having earned the Master of Arts degree from Columbia University Teachers College in 1925. Oberlin alumni magazines from 1927 and 1929 report on Ms. Yocom working at Straight College (a predecessor of Dillard University) as a librarian and also as an English teacher.  Frances Yocom’s interest in librarianship was greater than in teaching, as evidenced by her move back to Ohio to work in a library. She is listed in the 1930 Census as living with her mother and working as a librarian at Oberlin College.[3] She also lived in Cleveland where she earned the B.S. in library science from Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University) in 1931.

From Fisk University, Nashville Tennessee records, she is additionally listed in the teacher records/teacher reports for 1931-32, 1935-37.  It is here that her friendship developed with Fisk University history professor Theodore S. Currier, who was such an important part of the enriched undergraduate education experienced by future librarian Aurelia Whittington, and her future historian husband John Hope Franklin, that Frances Yocom was mentor to Aurelia Whittington.[4]  (Note: Lorna Peterson wrote about Aurelia Whittington Franklin for Women of Library History in 2017. --Ed.)

In 1939, Yocom earned the M.S. in librarianship from the University of California, Berkeley.  Her MA thesis was “List of Subject Headings for Books by and about the Negro,” 1939, M.A. (California) as cited in “Graduate Theses Accepted by Library Schools in the United States from July, 1938, to June, 1945” by Dorothy Ethlyn Cole, Library Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Jan., 1947), page 56.  

The January 1946 issue of CRL News, lists Ms. Yocom as a Fisk University associate librarian and cataloger “for a number of years” who has taken a position at Humboldt State College, Arcata CA.[5] From Humboldt State College which is now Humboldt State University, Frances Yocom took a cataloging position at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill where she retired from in 1964.  Her career at Chapel Hill was memorialized by Betty Bolton “Small in Stature, great in spirit: A Tribute to Frances Yocom ” North Carolina Libraries, Volumes 22, no.3, Spring 1964, pages 87-89.

After retirement, Frances Yocom returned to Oberlin, Ohio and later, moved into Copeland Oaks Retirement Community, Sebring, Ohio. From her obituary, it is stated she kept up an active correspondence with friends and former colleagues.  One can only hope that the letters, diaries, and photos of this remarkable librarian have been preserved.  This was a life rich in work, education, travel, living in various sections of the United States, and quiet social activism.  She was involved in the American Library Association and attended its meetings. She presented at the Southeastern Library Association once it integrated. She is acknowledged in the works of some the nations foremost civil rights activists and historians—for example, Harry Emerson Fosdick[6] and John Hope Franklin.  She was a librarian dedicated to civil rights and social justice, using the expertise of librarianship to make positive social change. Her story needs to be told. 

Notes

[1] Yocom, Frances L. (1942) Review of The Southern Negro and the Public Library. Southern Economic Journal, 8 (April): 521–2.

[2] Knott, Cheryl The Publication and Reception of The Southern Negro and the Public Library, Race, Ethnicity and Publishing in America pp 51-76, Springer 2014.

[3] 1930 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2002; Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1930. T626, 2,667 rolls.

[4] Franklin, John Hope, Mirror to America, 2005, page 47.

[5] “New from the Field” College and Research Libraries, January 1946, vol 7, no 1, page 83.

[6] Miller, Robert Moats, Harry Emerson Fosdick: Preacher, Pastor, Prophet, Oxford University Press, 1985, page 572.

[theuncannytruthteller]

John Hope Franklin (January 2, 1915 – March 25, 2009) was an American historian of the United States and former president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Southern Historical Association. Franklin is best known for his work From Slavery to Freedom, first published in 1947, and continually updated. More than three million copies have been sold. In 1995, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

A native of Oklahoma and a graduate of Fisk University, he received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in history from Harvard University (this photo is from his Harvard University admissions file, 1935.) He has taught at a number of institutions, including Fisk University, St. Augustine's College, North Carolina Central University, and Howard University. Professor Franklin's has published numerous books and articles. His best-known book is From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans, now in its seventh edition.

Franklin was born in Rentiesville, Oklahoma in 1915 to attorney Buck (Charles) Colbert Franklin (1879-1957) and his wife Mollie (Parker) Franklin. He was named after John Hope, a prominent educator who was the first African-American president of Atlanta University.

Franklin's father Buck Colbert Franklin was a civil rights lawyer, aka "Amazing Buck Franklin." He was of African-American and Choctaw ancestry and born in the Chickasaw Nation in western Indian Territory (formerly Pickens County). He was the seventh of ten children born to David and Milley Franklin. David was a former slave, who became a Chickasaw Freedman when emancipated after the American Civil War. Milley was born free before the war and was of one-fourth Choctaw and three-fourths African-American ancestry. Buck Franklin became a lawyer.

Buck Franklin is best known for defending African-American survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race riot, in which whites had attacked many blacks and buildings, and burned and destroyed the Greenwood District. This was known at the time as "Black Wall Street", and was the wealthiest Black community in the United States, a center of black commerce and culture. Franklin and his colleagues also became experts at oil law, representing "blacks and Native Americans in Oklahoma against white lawyers representing oil barons." His career demonstrated a strong professional black life in the West, at a time when such accomplishments would have been more difficult to achieve in the Deep South.

John Hope Franklin graduated from Booker T. Washington High School (then segregated) in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He graduated in 1935 from Fisk University, a historically black university in Nashville, Tennessee, and earned a doctorate in history in 1941 from Harvard University.

Franklin married Aurelia Whittington on June 11, 1940. She was a librarian. Their only child, John Whittington Franklin, was born August 24, 1952. Their marriage lasted 59 years, until January 27, 1999, when Aurelia succumbed to a long illness

In 1993, he published The Color Line: Legacy for the Twenty-first Century. More than three million copies have been sold. Professor Franklin wrote a biography of his father, which he edited with his son, John Whittington Franklin.

In 1995, he received the first W.E.B. Du Bois Award from the Fisk University Alumni Association and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. Dr. Franklin has received honorary degrees from more than 100 colleges and universities. Dr. Franklin has also been the recipient of many other honors.

Professor Franklin served as chair of the advisory board for One America: The President's Initiative on Race. He is a past president of the American Historical Association and was Professor Emeritus of History at Duke University.

In 2005, at the age of 90, Franklin published and lectured on his new autobiography, Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin. In 2006, Mirror to America received the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights Book Award, which is given annually to honor authors "whose writing, in illuminating past or present injustice, acts as a beacon towards a more just society."

In 2006, he also received the John W. Kluge Prize and as the recipient lectured on the successes and failures of race relations in America in Where do We Go from Here? In 2008, Franklin endorsed presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Franklin died at Duke University Medical Center on the morning of March 25, 2009.

[womenoflibraryhistory]

Clare Beck

Photo from Library Journal, Volume 116 Issue 7, April 15, 1991, page 32; Eric Smith possible photographer. Caption reads “Clare Beck says that present-day attitudes about reference service (and the reference librarian) stem from old-fashioned attitudes toward women in general.”

Today’s post is from Lorna Peterson, PhD, Associate Professor (emerita), University at Buffalo. This is Lorna’s fourth (!) year writing for WoLH; she has previously submitted posts on Aurelia Whittington Franklin (2016), Leonead Pack Drain-Bailey (2015), and Clara Stanton Jones (2014).

Government documents librarian and feminist librarian historian Mary Clare Beck was born and raised in the American Midwest and is a graduate of the University of Chicago with an A.B. in history.  She earned the Master of Library Science degree from the University of Denver, and a MA in interdisciplinary social studies from Eastern Michigan University.  Her reading in sociology for the MA degree is where her interest to apply gender theory to the examination of the gendered dynamics of librarianship was generated.  The result of this interest is a body of research that invigorates library and librarian history.

Beck’s career at Eastern Michigan University was one of achievement and honor when she retired at the rank of full professor from the University Library.  Beck’s achievements include but are not limited to, being one of the founders of GODORT, the American Library Association’s Government Documents Round Table, giving invited lectures on library history, and championing librarianship by writing letters to library publications and educating the general public regarding library topics by publishing letters in national periodicals. Examples of such letters are “Defending the Depositories” published in Library Journal (February 15, 1988), a letter that appeared in the March 30, 2009 Wall Street Journal critiquing the press coverage of Laura Bush’s professional librarian role in contrast to the First Ladies who were lawyers, and comments on a proposed remodel of the NYPL research library which appeared January 10, 2012 in The Nation.  As an alumna of the University of Chicago, Clare Beck has contributed to the alumni magazine regarding library matters with her “The importance of browsing,” which tempered for her fellow University of Chicago graduates the allure of automation with the appeal of serendipitous perusing of library stacks.  

It is Clare Beck’s contribution to library science research, particularly historical research, where her greatest achievements are. Through enriching library science scholarship by examining the complexities of gender issues, Clare Beck advanced library science research beyond the studies of administrative positions and gender.  With critical analysis through the lens of feminist theories and gender studies, Ms. Beck added significantly and uniquely to the library literature canon.

Her work, “Reference Service: A Handmaid’s Tale” (Library Journal, April 15, 1991, p. 32-37) examines library reference work and its 1980s self-identified crisis through the lens of gender.  Citing sources outside of the discipline of library science, Beck’s article gives the profession a fresh way to frame the tradition as articulated by librarian Samuel Green, of having a helpful sympathetic friend at a desk to take random on demand requests.  [ed. note: if you have access to Library Journal archives, you should look up and read this article. A representative quote: “Thus we have the concept of on-demand service provided by a woman at a public desk, always ready to lay aside other work to respond ‘incidentally’ to questions. The underlying image would seem to be that of Mother, always ready to interrupt her housework to attend of the problems of others.”]  

Beck’s other works include "Genevieve Walton and library instruction at the Michigan State Normal College" College and Research Libraries (July 1989). Genevieve Walton has a profile in the Women of Library History blog.  Archival research figures prominently in “A 'Private' Grievance against Dewey,” American Libraries (Jan 1996, Vol. 27 Issue 1, p62-64), a model work of library event history that goes beyond chronology and biography that is not hagiography. [ed. note: again, if you have archival access to American Libraries, give this one a read.] 

“Fear of women in suits: dealing with gender roles in librarianship” was presented at the University of Toronto and then published in the highly regarded Canadian Journal of Information Science Vol. 17 no. 3, pp.29-39, 1992. Her biography of Adelaide Hasse, The New Woman as Librarian: The Career of Adelaide Hasse, Scarecrow Press, 2006, is rich with archival material and careful analysis .

Invited lectures such as “How Adelaide Hasse got fired: A feminist history of librarianship through the story of one difficult woman, 1889-1953,” as organized by Cass Hartnett of the University of Washington,  “Fear of Women in Suits: Dealing with Gender Roles in Librarianship," and "Gender in Librarianship: Why the Silence?” (given at the Canadian Library Association conference) introduced professional librarians, library workers, and graduate library science students to a sociological feminist examination of the library and information science professions.  In her career, invited talks and juried presentations were given at such organizations as the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters (MASAL), Library and Information Science section, and ALA Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL).

Clare Beck’s contribution to library history advances our field with rigorous, iconoclastic research, enriching the understanding the practice of North American librarianship.