Call Number:

C0869

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

7 boxes

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); New York Urban League Correspondence, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1922-1979 (inclusive) and 1922-1933 (bulk)

Creator:

New York Urban League

Form:

Correspondence

Abstract:

The New York Urban League was founded circa 1913. Its stated goals were to "promote sympathetic understanding between white and colored people" and to improve the economic status of African-Americans through health, housing, and recreation programs as well as an effort to increase the number and the quality of jobs for minorities. The League's motto: "Not alms, but opportunity." This collection is comprised mainly of the correspondence of Arthur C. Holden, president of the N.Y. Urban League from 1922-1931, and a member of the executive board until 1943. It contains general files of the organization's correspondence predominantly spanning the years 1922-1933, with a few items from the years 1968-1979.

In 1910 the National Urban League was founded as a response to the migration of blacks from the Caribbean and the southern states to cities in the north, subsequently in 1919 the New York Committee of this organization was officially incorporated as the New York Urban League. Its objectives, as an interracial, nonprofit organization are to improve the health, housing, and employment problems of New York City's black community.

Consists of correspondence of the New York Urban League. Included is correspondence (1922-1933) of Arthur Cort Holden, president, 1922-1931 and board member to 1943, his wife Miriam Holden, also a board member, James H. Hubert, executive director, 1919-1943, L. Hollingsworth Wood, and others primarily concerning fund raising, especially John D. Rockefeller III's donations, and other financial matters of the organization.

There is a small amount of correspondence from 1954 to 1979; a copy of the pamphlet The Story of the New York Urban League 1919-1979, Sixty Years of Service; other related printed material (1915-1979); a typescript of an article, "Do'ers Not Talkers - Progressives and the New York York Urban League in the 1920's" by Christine A. Lunardini; and charts (1930s) of family income analysis, sources of income and percentage of rent to income by city block in the Harlem area of New York City.