American Association of University Professors, Administrative Files of the Northwestern University Chapter

The files of the Northwestern chapter consist of eight boxes of material which span approximately forty years, beginning in 1916 and ending in 1960. These materials reflect the problems, questions and activities of the NU chapter; they outline the organization, operation and management of one segment of the AAUP in its attempt to address the problems of the educational profession at the chapter, regional and national levels.

The collection falls into four major categories:

1) General correspondence, 1918-1960;

2) Northwestern University Chapter Administrative Files, 1916-1960;

3) National, Regional and Local Files pertinent to the Northwestern chapter's business and activities, 1916-1959; and

4) Controversies of Academic Freedom, that is, information regarding controversies in the educational profession, especially those concerning academic freedom, the profession's reactions and general pertinence of the controversies to the NU chapter's business and activities, 1935-1958.

The bulk of the correspondence is dated after 1950. All letters are arranged chronologically. Correspondence is sparse for some years, especially in the late 1940s, and nonexistent for 1919-1921, 1925, 1926, 1932, and 1937.

The correspondence covers a wide variety of subjects from mundane arrangements for local meetings, discussions of operating procedures and local elections, to discussions and activities concerning issues with more far-reaching implications. The most serious activities were fundraising for court cases dealing with academic dismissal and freedom and investigations of the financial status of the teaching profession.

The administrative category contains several smaller, distinct units. Although the material in most of the units is incomplete, it is arranged alphabetically by subject and chronologically within subjects. These subjects include such things as local chapter meeting announcements, chapter minutes and chapter membership and officer lists.

Various committee reports, resolutions and statements also form a significant part of these files. Many of these resolutions and statements were prepared in the late 1940s and early 1950s as reactions against the Illinois legislature's Broyles' Bills and national legislative attempts to restrict the intellectual freedom of teachers and scholars in all professions, but primarily in the educational profession. Included are statements presented by Franklin D. Scott, Brunson, MacChesney, Robert Strotz, and Frank Fetter to state government investigating committees at various intervals between 1949 and 1955 on behalf of the NU chapter of the AAUP.

Some of the items in the administrative category are dated ambiguously, but frequently the date can be derived from the context of the paper or announcement.

Only a small part of this collection consists of national, regional and local or Chicago-area materials that directly concern the proceedings of or formally reveal participation by the NU chapter. Such things as minutes, meeting announcements and chapter letters are incomplete and include only those materials that are pertinent to Northwestern.

Although the material included under controversies in the educational profession neither originated with the NU chapter nor contains many, if any, references to it, the material was used extensively by the chapter's Committee on Academic Freedom, as frequent references in correspondence, committee statements and chapter meeting agendas show. This category covers the years 1935 to 1959 with emphasis on the late 1940s and early 1950s. These materials could even form a small, independent, fairly complete reference collection since they are a well-rounded variety of sources such as news clippings, reports of all kinds from many groups, legal briefs, and American Civil Liberties Union newsletters and news analyses, all of which are related to the controversies over academic freedom.

From the disorderly condition of these papers before they were organized as a collection, it was obvious that the material was moved from office to office with each successive election of chapter officers. If this was the case, it is understandable that some material was lost or inadvertently thrown away. Nevertheless the collection contains useful and provocative information about a rather elusive organization of faculty at Northwestern.

Description of the Additions: The additions to the NU AAUP administrative records fill one box and span the years 1954 through 1972. The records consist of minutes, correspondence, and subject files. A bound volume of minutes, covering the dates 1954 to 1965, includes handwritten minutes for the earlier years and tipped-in typed or mimeographed minutes for the later years. Correspondence files contain letters or memos relating to meetings, letters exchanged with members of other chapters, copies of resolutions passed by the NU Chapter. An occasional letter relates to Chapter actions, such as the correspondence in Box 9, folder 6 (1964-65) from the Chicago Board of Education and Mayor Richard J. Daley responding to the Chapter's stand on a controversy about James Baldwin's Another Country. Among the topics covered in the subject files are membership forms and rosters, plans for an annual banquet, correspondence with other chapters on specific issues, various resolutions, and forms or findings from surveys initiated either by the National AAUP or by the NU chapter.