Main content
Clement and Sophie Winston papers
Notifications
Held at: University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts [Contact Us]3420 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6206
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts. 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
Clement Winston (1902-1986) and Sophie Zion (1902-1986) both spent their youth and married in Philadelphia, but spent most of their lives together in Washington, District of Columbia. Both Clement and Sophie were Jewish, and active within their religious community.
Clement Winston was born (with the name Kalman "Kutze" Weinstein) on February 14, 1902, in the central Ukrainian city of Byelaya Tserkov, then a part of Russia. At the time of his birth, Winston's parents Jacob (Yacov Yosif) Weinstein, and Esther (Feige) Weinstein were in the process of emigrating from Russia with their two other children, Joseph ("Zalman") and Samuel (Shmuel). Esther and her sons Joseph, Samuel, and Kalman (later Clement) finally joined Jacob Weinstein, who was employed as a tailor in a clothing factory, in Philadelphia in 1905. The family's youngest child, Lena, was born in 1908.
Clement attended Pennsylvania State University where he studied industrial engineering and graduated in 1923. He went on to earn a BS in education (1927), a masters in mathematics (1928), and a doctoral degree in mathematics (1929) from the University of Pennsylvania. He served as an instructor in math at the University of Pennsylvania from 1927 to 1933 and for the National Recovery Administration from 1933 to 1934. From 1935 to 1937, he worked as chief of the statistician section for a Works Progress Administration National Research Project in Philadelphia before moving to the National Resources Board from 1937 to 1938. From 1938 to 1942, Winston was employed by the Railroad Retirement Board and from 1942 to 1945, he served as an industrial analyst with the War Production Board. Clement spent the majority of his career (1945 to 1962) as an economist at the Office of Business Economics at the United States Bureau of the Budget, serving as chief of the Consumption and Markets section of the Business Structure Division. In 1962, he moved to the Office of Statistical Standards (or the Statistical Standards Division) where he worked on prices, price indexes and consumer expenditure surveys; statistical methodology; and retail and wholesale trade; retiring in January 1968. From 1947 until at least 1967, he also served as a lecturer in statistics at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. He and Sophie Zion married in Philadelphia in 1934.
Sophie Zion was born in Philadelphia on January 10, 1902, the oldest child of Harry and Rose Zion. According to the 1920 census, Sophie was employed as a salesgirl at a department store, but had not gone to school. During the Second World War, Sophie volunteered as an art instructor with the American Red Cross. Sophie's youngest sister, Mollie B. Zion (February 27, 1915–August 21, 2007), who features considerably in the correspondence of this collection, was employed for many years as an administrative assistant at the Securities and Exchange Commission, beginning in 1955.
This collection documents Clement and Sophie Winston's personal and professional lives. The bulk of the material appears to have been created by Clement Winston; however, there is a significant portion of material generated by Sophie Winston and her sister, Mollie B. Zion. In some cases, it is difficult to ascertain the creator of material; and because Clement's professional and personal worlds appear to have been largely intertwined, the series designations are not completely rigid and there is a certain degree of overlap in materials between series (for example, copies of poems enclosed in some letters, or sketches in a few of the notebooks).
The collection is arranged in seven series: I. Academic and professional writings; II. Creative writing, music, and drawings; III. Poetry; IV. Correspondence; V. Notes, notebooks, ephemera, and clippings; VI. Household accounts; and VII. Personal papers. Descriptions of the contents of each series are located at the series level.
In addition to detailing the day-to-day life of a middle-class family in Washington, DC, this collection provides significant documentation on the mid-century American economy, both through Clement Winston's writings via the Office of Business Economics and the couple's meticulous records of their household finances, which cover, to varying degrees, the 1920s to the 1980s. Moreover, the collection provides a glimpse into this Jewish family's close relationships to both immediate and extended family, as they maintained pride in their culture in a time of "religious prejudice," (box 7, folder 9). Finally, Winston's creativity is abundantly evident through his poetry, musicals, sketches, doodles, and musical compositions; and the topics of his creative outlets and his humor very much reflect the world in which he lived.
Gifts of Steven Rothman, 2008 and 2017.
People
Organization
Subject
Place
- Publisher
- University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts
- Finding Aid Author
- Rive Cadwallader
- Finding Aid Date
- 2018 May 10
- Access Restrictions
-
This collection is open for research use.
- Use Restrictions
-
Copyright restrictions may exist. For most library holdings, the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania do not hold copyright. It is the responsibility of the requester to seek permission from the holder of the copyright to reproduce material from the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts.