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William Curtis Bok and Nellie Lee Holt Bok papers
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Held at: Historical Society of Pennsylvania [Contact Us]1300 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19107
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Curtis Bok, born in 1897 as William Curtis, was Edward and Mary Louise Curtis Bok’s oldest son. He attended Haverford School, the Chestnut Hill Academy, and The Hill School, a preparatory school in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. When graduated from The Hill School in 1915, he moved to Massachusetts and began studying at Williams College. He left school around 1917 to join the Navy when the United States entered World War I. By the age of 21, he had achieved the rank of lieutenant. At the end of the war, Curtis returned to Philadelphia to ponder his future. He turned down the opportunity to work in his father’s publishing company, and instead decided to study law at the University of Virginia.
When he returned to Philadelphia, Curtis worked for a short time as the assistant district attorney of Philadelphia County. He took on cases that were deemed “hopeless,” and took a special interest in the plight of prisoners. He became an Eastern State Penitentiary trustee, and even volunteered to serve a term in prison so he could experience first-hand life behind bars.
Curtis was appointed to the city's Orphans Court in 1935, then to the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas. While serving locally, he oversaw what became his most famous case, Commonwealth v. Gordon, on obscenity and books. He ruled that if a controversial work had any social or redeeming values, it was not obscene. His decision still stands on the books today. He was later elected, as a Democrat, to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1958.
In 1924, Curtis married Margaret Adams Plummer; together they had a daughter, Margaret Welmeot, and two sons, Benjamin and Derek. The couple divorced in the early 1930s. He married Nellie Lee Holt, a religious educator from Nebraska in 1934, and the couple had two children, Rachael and Enid. Curtis maintained lifelong interests in music, sailing, and writing. His writing abilities and legal knowledge shined in four books--- The Backbone of the Herring; I, Too, Nicodemus; Star Wormwood; and a novel, Maria---as well as his "Judge Ulen" that he wrote for the law magazine The Shingle. He was deeply involved with the Curtis Institute of Music and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Curtis also wrote articles sailing and was a member of the United States Power Squadron, a non-profit organization that promotes boating safety and education. Curtis Bok died in 1962.
Nellie Lee Holt was born in Falls City, Nebraska, to William Robert Holt and Eve Lezetta [Giannini] Holt on February 1, 1901. The Holts were known regionally for their award-winning Berkshire hogs. Nellie Lee graduated from high school in 1917 and attended St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana, where she studied piano at the school’s Conservatory of the Music. She went on to obtain a master's degree from the University of Nebraska. Her first career was as a teacher in the religious education department at Stephen’s College, Columbia, Missouri. She worked at the college from 1925 to 1934, and early on during her tenure, at the behest of the college's president, she went on a tour of Europe, Russia, the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia to meet various leaders in education and religion. While in India, she stayed in two ashrams (religious settlements) with Mohandas Gandhi, whom she interviewed.
After marrying in 1934 marriage Nellie Lee and Curtis Bok moved to Philadelphia. Nellie Lee's first foray into public service began in 1935 when she was appointed to serve on the Philadelphia County Board of Mothers' Assistance, Old Age Pension and Relief of the Blind. She resigned in 1937, the same year their first child was born. In the 1940s, she and Curtis joined the Society of Friends. Among Nellie Lee's many interests were the humanities, the education of women, music therapy, mental health reform, and, like Curtis, the treatment of prisoners. She joined numerous service organizations and helped organize the Philadelphia Fellowship Commission. In 1956, she was appointed president of The American Foundation, Inc., which was set up by Curtis's father Edward Bok. (Curtis served as secretary of the organization up to his death.) The foundation promoted educational programs for and relating to prisoners. Additionally, it supported the Mountain Lake Sanctuary in Lake Wales, Florida, which was also founded by Edward Bok. Nellie Lee's dedication to the community also extended to service with the Curtis Institute of Music, the Philadelphia Award, the Women's Committee of the Philadelphia Orchestra, The Settlement School of Music, and the National Council of Crime and Delinquency, among other organizations.
Curtis and Nellie Lee lived in several locations throughout the region, including the Society Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia, and Radnor, Pennsylvania. Later in life, Nellie Lee moved to an apartment in Center City, Philadelphia. She died in 1984.
The William Curtis Bok and Nellie Lee Holt Bok papers include sixty-nine boxes and four volumes and document the histories of the Boks and their respective families. The collection is arranged into four series, and the first two series are broken down further into subseries. Within each series or subseries, papers are arranged in rough chronological order. Almost all the papers have been re-housed into new folders, however, due to time constraints, old file folders that were in good shape were retained. Original folder titles were transferred to new folders whenever possible. The collection spons the period up to the 1990s, though Curtis died in 1962 and Nellie Lee died in 1984. Papers dating from after 1984 consist of a file from one of Nellie Lee's assistants, Ester Van Sant, and a few other items that were added to the collection by family members. Overwhelmingly, the collection is made up of correspondence, but there are also genealogical records, financial papers, school records, newspaper clippings, photographs, book manuscripts, speeches, printed material, date books and calendars, and miscellaneous ephemera.
The first series of twenty-two boxes is devoted to Curtis Bok. His papers are arranged into two subseries: Personal and Professional. These materials present a fairly complete picture of Curtis's life from his earliest days in school to his final days as a judge on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Highlights in the Personal subseries include a siginificant run of letters he wrote to his parents while in various schools, from the Haverford Academy to the University of Virginia. There are also outgoing letters and a diary he kept while serving in the U. S. Navy. Additional personal correspondence includes letters he wrote to Nellie Lee before and after their 1934 marriage. Items of interest in the Professional subseries include papers on Curtis's landmark obscenity case of the 1950s; various other opinions, decisions, and notes on court cases; and papers on his books The Backbone of the Herring; I, Too, Nicodemus; Star Wormwood; and Maria.
The second series is comprised of forty-seven boxes that contain documents relating to the life and work of Nellie Lee Holt Bok. The material has been divided into five subseries: Early education, Stephen's College, and world tour; Correspondence; Personal; Organizations and interests; and Calendars, dayplanners, and notebooks. These papers date from her days as a religious educator at Stephen's College in the 1920s and 1930s, to her role as wife and mother, to her stint as president of Edward Bok's The American Foundation, Inc. and service with many other civic organizations from the 1950s onward. Partiocularly notable are papers related to her world tour in the first subseries. Between 1926 and 1927, she was charged by the president of Stephen's College to interview various educational leaders around the world, including Count Hermann Keyserling in Germany, founder of the School of Wisdom, and Mohandas K. Gandhi in India. Her interview with Gandhi was later published and she recalled her adventures in a manuscript she titled "The Neighborhood."
The third series contains the oldest material in the collection and is comprised of letters, family records, account books and notebooks, and clippings primarily from Nellie Lee's immediate family. There are files of papers from Nellie Lee's parents, William R. and Eva (Giannini) Holt, and various members of the Giannini family. Additionally, there are genealogical records on the Giannini, Holt, Speer, and Seymour families; clippings on the Holt family; daily journals of Laura Speer and Eva Holt; some family correspondence; and mixed family papers. There are also a few files of papers related to the Bok family and its genealogy.
The fourth and final series ( Oversized papers and printed material) consists of large family photographs and prints, sample of original art collected by the family, and a number of publications and unsorted clippings. Comprising the publications are two boxes of Mid-Week Pictorials from 1918 to 1919 and a variety of British magazines commemorating the 1937 coronation of King George VI.
I. Curtis Bok, 1905-1962; 22 boxes, 5 volumes
a. Personal, 1905-1964; 13 boxes, 5 volumes
b. Professional, 1921-1962; 9 boxes
II. Nellie Lee Holt Bok, 1897-1991; 38 boxes, 23 volumes
a. Early education, Stephens College, and World Tour, circa 1906-1991; 6 boxes, 4 volumes
b. Correspondence, 1917-1984; 12 boxes
c. Personal, circa 1900-1986; 10 boxes, 11 volumes
d. Organizations and interests, 1897-1984; 4 boxes
e. Calenders, dayplanners, and notebooks, 1920-1984; 6 boxes, 8 volumes
III. Holt, Giannini, and related families, 1836-1991; 4 boxes, 8 volumes
IV. Oversized papers and printed materials, 1856-circa 1980; 6 boxes
Gift of Dr. Enid Curtis Bok Okun, Rachael Bok Goldman, and Derek Bok, 2005.
Accession number 2005.019.
Approximately forty volumes and a number of rolled items from this collection are undergoing conservation treatments and are unavailable. Once conservation work is completed, the volumes will be returned to the collection and the finding aid will be updated.
People
- Anderson, Isabella Giannini.
- Bok family.
- Bok, Derek Curtis.
- Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948.
- Giannini family.
- Giannini, M.
- Goldman, Rachel Bok.
- Holt family.
- Holt, Eva Giannini.
- Holt, William R.
- Keyserling, Hermann, Graf von, 1880-1946.
- Okun, Enid Curtis Bok.
- Seymour family.
- Speer family.
- Speer, Laura.
- Zimbalist, Mary Louise Curtis Bok, 1876-1970.
Organization
Subject
- Coronations--Great Britain--History--20th century
- Family life--Pennsylvania--20th century
- Lawyers as authors
- Sailing--Atlantic Coast (U.S.)
- Spouses--Correspondence-–20th century
- Trials (Obscenity)--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia
- Voyages around the world--Description and travel
- War diaries
Place
- Bok Tower Gardens (Lake Wales, Fla.)
- Pennsylvania--Social life and customs.
- Pennsylvania. Court of Common Pleas (Philadelphia County).
- Pennsylvania. Supreme Court.
- Philadelphia (Pa.)--Social life and customs--20th century.
Occupation
- Publisher
- Historical Society of Pennsylvania
- Finding Aid Author
- Finding aid prepared by Cary Majewicz.
- Finding Aid Date
- ; 2011.
- Sponsor
- Processing made possible by a generous donation from Dr. Enid Curtis Bok Okun.
- Access Restrictions
-
Some materials in the collection have been restricted due to their senstitive nature. These include: Curtis Bok mixed legal and financial papers (Box 11), Curtis Bok Estate tax return (Box 43, folder 11), and a medical notebook (Box 57, Folder 8). Please see the itemized box and folder list below for information on when these papers will be made available.
Collection Inventory
This subseries contains a mix of papers documenting Curtis's personal relationships and interests. Boxes 1-8 contain Curtis's outgoing letters to his parents while in school, the U. S. Navy, and college, as well as to Nellie Lee from before and after their marriage. (Nellie Lee's corresponding letters to Curtis are in Boxes 35-37.) Following this are other correspondence files, including those on the American Foundation (Box 9, Folder 7), environmentalist Rachel Carson (Box 9, Folders 9-10), and the Curtis Publishing Company (Box 10, Folder 2). Beyond the correspondence, there is also material on the coronation ceremony of England's King George VI (Curtis served on the American delegation that was sent to the event), numerous papers on sailing (Box 13, Folders 1-6), and other records such as Curtis's passports, will, and obituaries (Box 13, Folders 8-12). Note that the financial and legal papers in Box 11 are closed to researchers until 2037. Please see the box and folder list below for more information.
The Professional subseries is made up primarily of items concerning Curtis's judicial work and his books. Curtis authored four books: The Backbone of the Herring; I, Too, Nicodemus; Star Wormwood; and Maria (published the year of his death). Related papers include correspondence, reviews, clippings, manuscript pages, and notes (Boxes 17-19). There are two boxes of articles on and by Curtis and transcripts of speeches dating from the 1930s to the 1960s (Boxes 19-20). Curtis's writing abilities are further highlighted in his "Judge Ulen" articles that were published in the law magazine The Shingle. Box 22 contains a run of the The Shingle from 1939 to 1941, with a few single issues dating from 1942 to 1961, while Box 21, Folder 1 contains some drafts of these same articles. Other materials in this subseries include notes, opinions, and decisions pertaining to several court cases Curtis oversaw; papers and clippings from his campaigns for district attorney, the Philadelphia Superior Court, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court; and items from Curtis's time on the City Planning Committee.
These materials document Nellie Lee's early life before her marriage to Curtis Bok in 1934. As the subseries name implies, there are three groups of papers. The first (Box 23) is made up of items from Nellie Lee's high school and college days that include writings, reports cards, a personal journal, a copy of her thesis on author Gilbert K. Chesterton, and notes on a trip to London she took in 1925. The next group (Boxes 23-25) highlights her tenure as a religious educator at Stephen's College in Columbia, Missouri. While there she helped further the school's new bible-based "Burrell Class" that was founded in 1921. Some of her lectures from the class are in Box 24, Folders 1-2. Additionally, she published articles in the Burrell Class's newsletter, The Grail (Box 25), and the school's general newsletter, Stephen's College Bulletin (Box 23, Folder 9). Making up the rest of the subseries are items related to her world tour of 1926 to 1927. Charged by the president of Stephen's College, Nellie Lee, accompanyied by her mother, set off to interview a number of educational and religious leaders across the world. During her eight-month-long tour that started in London and concluded in Japan, she visited over a dozen countries in Europe, the Middle East, Northern Africa, and Southeast Asia. Most notable among her interviews was that of Mohandas Gandhi. She spent almost two months in India and talked with Gandhi on several occasions. Her interview with him was later published in several outlets, including the New York Times. Among the papers related to this trip (Boxes 26-27) are the addresses of various locales she visits, correspondence, clippings, drafts of her article on Gandhi, a travel journal (Volume 4), and three bound volumes (1-3) containing her recollections of the entire journey entitled "The Neighborhood."
This subseries was borne out of a run of correspondence that was found separate from the bulk of Nellie Lee's personal papers that were placed into subseries 3. The letters, many of which were in their original envelopes, have been re-housed into twelve boxes. Boxes 29-34 contain incoming and some outgoing letters between Nellie Lee and mostly family members from 1917 to 1971. Boxes 35-37 contains letters she wrote to Curtis Bok from both before and after they were married in 1934. (Curtis's corresponding letters to her are in Boxes 6-8.) The remaining letters in the subseries are a mix of business and personal correspondence, including miscellaneous family letters.
This subseries is comprised of items that highlight Nellie Lee's social activities, though due to the fine line between her social and civic engagements, there is some overlap between papers in this subseries and the next ( Organizations and interests). The first few boxes contain some of Nellie Lee's speeches and writings, notably a radio series she wrote called "Women in '36" (Boxes 42-43) and a manuscript on Hulda Hoover, President Herbert Hoover's mother (Box 43), and clippings and papers pertaing to major family events, such as her 1934 wedding to Curtis Bok. (Boxes 41-42). Following these boxes are a mix of correspondence, printed materials, and other documents pertaining to Nellie Lee's social outlets, friends, and various awards she received. Among these are a few folders of papers regading donations of Bok papers and artifacts to libraries and museums, such as the Library of Congress (Box 44, Folder 6), the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Box 45, Folder 5), and the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy (now part of the University of Sciences, Philadelphia) (Box 46, Folder 3). Rounding out the subseries are groups of papers from other family members that Nellie Lee collected, namely Enid C. B. Schoettle, Derek Bok, Sissela Myrdal Bok, Welmoet Roland Holst, and Mary Louise Curtis Bok Zimbalist (Boxes 47-49). Box 50 contains miscellaneous printed matter (including articles on the Boks) and programs. The estate tax return in Box 43, Folder 11, is closed to researchers until 2037. Please see the box and folder list below for more information.
The papers in this subseries document Nellie Lee's civic ventures and lifelong crusades, such as prison and mental health reform. It contains papers pertaining to The American Foundation, which was founded by Edward Bok and of which Nellie Lee served as president for a time (Box 51). There are numerous files of papers on music therapy, particularly a program founded by Paul Nordoff and Clive Robbins in the 1970s, as well as papers on general music education and piano lessons (Boxes 52-53). The last box in this subseries, Box 54, contains an assortment of papers and printed material on mental health reform, Quakers, crime prevention, business and religious leadership, and agriculture. There is also a file of papers from the Philadelphia Fellowship Commission, which Nellie Lee helped establish (Box 54, Folder 4).
The final subseries is comprised of various notebooks, date books, and dayplanners that Nellie Lee kept during her life. There are several "Communications" notebooks from the 1980s in which Nellie Lee recorded all her daily transactions with people in person, by mail, and by phone. A notebook containing medical data is closed to researchers until 2062. Please see the box and folder list below for more information.
The oldest papers in the collection are in this third series which focuses primarily on Nellie Lee's immediate family, the Holts and Gianninis. Th Holts of Nebraska originated from a family that started in New Haven, Connecticut; while the Gianninis were from Virginia, but traced their roots back to Italy. Among papers from the Giannini family are early accounts and correpondence dating from the mid to late nineteenth century (Box 61, folders 1-5). A few letters are in Italian. Holt family papers take up the bulk of Boxes 62 and 63 and include William R. Holt's (Nellie Lee's father) record of family-prized pedigreed Berkshire hogs (Box 62, Folder 6), Eva Holt's (Nellie Lee's mother) travel journal from when she chaperoned Nellie's Lee's world tour of 1926 to 1927 (Box 62, Folder 9), and another journal of a trip to Europe made by Nellie Lee, Eve Holt, and Nellie Lee's aunt Laura Speer in 1963 (Box 63, Folder 5). Also among these files are family records; genealogical notes on the Holts, Gianninis, Speers, Seymours, and Eatons; other journals, correspondence, calendars, and clippings. Box 64 contains three folders of papers on the Bok and related families and two folders of mixed family papers.
Comprising this final series of five boxes are large family photographs, oversized original art and prints, clippings, and printed matter. Images of members of the Bok family span Boxes 65 and 66. Box 65 also contains contemporary images of the Bok Tower in Lake Wales, Florida, as well as clippings on the Curtis Institute of Music from the 1970s. Other items in Box 66 include three folders that house a variety of British magazines commemorating the coronation of King George VI in 1937. Boxes 67 and 68 contain Mid-Week Pictorials, a magazine once published by the New York Times, dating from 28 March 1918 to 19 June 1919. The final box of the collection contains unsorted clippings, most of which appear to pertain to Curtis Bok's career or Bok family achievements.