Call Number:

00.011

Repository:

Drexel University: Archives and Special Collections

Extent:

0.54 cubic feet

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Hollis Godfrey papers, Drexel University Archives

Date:

1920-1936 (inclusive)

Creator:

Edmondson, Robert Edmund, b. 1874, Godfrey, Hollis, Lane, C. Goss, Lindsay, Vachel, 1879-1931, and Stokowski, Olga Samaroff, 1882-1948

Form:

Correspondence, Manuscripts (document genre), and Publications

Abstract:

Hollis Godfrey (1874-1936) served as president of the Drexel Institute of Art, Science, and Industry from 1913 to 1921. He was educated as an engineer at Tufts, Harvard, and MIT, and he later taught at MIT and served as an administrator at the School of Practical Arts in Boston. The collection contains correspondence, including a series of letters between Godfrey and the poet Vachel Lindsay; Dr. Godfrey's publications, manuscripts, and speeches; administrative records from the Engineering Economics Foundation, which Godfrey led in the 1920s; and publications collected by Dr. Godfrey, including some pamphlets and periodicals dealing with economics, national security, and the Jewish "threat."

Hollis Godfrey (1887-1936) served as president of the Drexel Institute of Art, Science, and Industry from 1913 to 1921. He was educated as an engineer at Tufts, Harvard, and MIT, where he later taught. After completing his education he was an administrator at the School of Practical Arts in Boston prior to becoming president of Drexel Institute of Art, Science, and Industry in December of 1913.

During Dr. Godfrey's tenure at Drexel, he reorganized the institute's independent departments into three schools, discontinued a number of programs, and standardized the schools' curricula into systematized two- to four-year programs of study leading to formal degrees. He was interested in scientific management, management in education, and the role of engineering education in national defense. He led efforts to establish the Council for National Defense and led its Advisory Committee on Engineering and Education during World War I. Dr. Godfrey left Drexel in 1921 to establish and direct the Council for Management Education and later became president of the Engineering-Economics Foundation.

The Engineering-Economics Foundation was dedicated to understanding consumption and the business world through scientific inquiry. Located in Boston, Massachusetts, this Foundation was for post-graduate studies and it offered classes and talks in which Godfrey participated. Godfrey died on January 17, 1936.

Works Consulted: Edward D. McDonald and Edward M. Hinton. Drexel Institute of Technology, 1891-1941, A Memorial History. Philadelphia: Drexel Institute of Technology, 1942, pp.54-69.

Biographical Sketch of Series 4 The Edmondson Economic Service was one of many radical, anti-Semitic organizations that was founded in America during the 1930’s. In the milieu of the Great Depression politically radical groups emerged representing a variety of viewpoints. Groups like the German American Bund and individuals like Father Coughlin used the uncertain times to promote group prejudice and fuel racial hatred. Robert Edward Edmondson, the man behind the Edmondson Economic Service, was born in Ohio in 1872 and began his career as a journalist in Cincinnati. He eventually moved to New York City where he worked as a reporter and began to write about finance. It was during this period that he claimed to have identified "positively the sinister Jewish Leadership forces which were then subverting American finance through economic power, and who later similarly subverted politics." Feeling that his views were being censored by a New York newspaper he started the Edmondson Economic Service in 1934. Using, in part, his own capitol as well as money from financial “angels” he founded what he called "his own independent and unsubsidized financial news" service. While initially he used the forum to denounce the economic policies of the New Deal, he soon turned to anti-Semitism. The basis of Edmondson's argument was the notion of a Jewish world conspiracy spelled out in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Edmondson railed against Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal claiming that both represented the alignment between Jewish bankers and the United States government.

Works consulted: 1.Donald Strong. Organized Anti-Semitism in America: The Rise of Group Prejudice During the Decade, 1930-1940 (Washington, D.C.: American Council on Public Affairs, 1941)

Series I is devoted to correspondence, of which letters from the poet Vachel Lindsay are a large portion. The correspondence between Lindsay and Godfrey consists of arrangements between the two men to have Lindsay speak at the Drexel Institute in 1916 and later for Lindsay to be the Phi Beta Kappa Poet of the year in 1917. This was an honorarium which paid Lindsay fifty dollars and he dedicated his poem, the “Eyes of Queen Esther,” to Drexel at that time. One letter contains Lindsay’s thoughts on being a young poet.

Olga Stokowsky, the pianist, was also given an honorarium in 1917 and there is correspondence between her and Godfrey on arrangements for her to play at Drexel and on details of the financial arrangements for the honorarium. Stokowsky was a well-known American pianist. All Correspondence is arranged by date and by writer.

Series II consists of diverse publications written by Godfrey and by other scholars. The topics include the Japanese-Chinese conflict of the early 1930’s, Federal Reserve Bank policy, economic policy and prices, and Anti-Semitism. Godfrey wrote the pamphlet on the Japanese-Chinese Conflict in 1932.

Series III, the Engineering-Economics Foundation series has publications written by Godfrey and by others in the academic community. The writings produced by Godfrey include pamphlets and an unpublished manuscript written in 1928. This manuscript was written for a business audience who had been asking questions of the Foundation. Letters which had been sent to the Foundation were included along with Godfrey’s answers. In the administrative files from the foundation is a letter from 1936 explaining that Godfrey’s research was not immediately publishable because of the small audience for his work.

This series also contains Godfrey’s business card, a catalogue of publications by the Foundation from 1931, newspaper articles on business and finance, a history of the Foundation, and scholarly articles on the economy. One focus of the articles is the Depression and how the business community should respond to the difficult market.

Edmondson Economic Service Series 4

These materials were found as a group in the university archives collections in March 2005. The bulk of the broadsides are from late 1935 into 1936. There are approximately 120 individual issues. The series of broadsides begins in 1934, when Robert Edmund Edmondson started his Economic Service and this collection abruptly ends in March of 1936. Edmondson was accused of libel in 1937 in the state of New York which brought him a great deal of publicity but the case was eventually dropped. The broadsides are written by Edmondson and deal with many of the social issues of the 1930’s. The early broadsides were written on the New Deal and Roosevelt and express economic and social concerns about the changes which Roosevelt was making in American society through New Deal programs. Edmondson also wrote on what he saw as the growth of Jewish control over American society. The Soviet Union and its embrace of communism was a significant component of Edmondson’s rhetoric.

Sources: RACIAL LIBEL WRIT ISSUED BY MAYOR New York Times 1857-Current; Jun 9, 1936; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2004), pg. 1, accessed 03/31/2008.

LIBEL' ON RELIGION HELD BEYOND LAW New York Times (1857-Current file); May 11, 1938; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2004) pg. 15, accessed 03/31/2008.