Series II: Rose Russell Material, 1921-1965, inclusive
Scope and Content Note
The bulk of this series is correspondence, much of it in the form of tributes to Rose Russell on celebrating the tenth and twentieth anniversaries of her association with the Teachers' Union. Tenth anniversary tributes (1954) come from union representatives, university professors, attorneys, politicians and religious leaders; correspondents include such well-known individuals as W. E. B. DuBois, Joseph P. Selly, Morris Schappes, Cedric Belfrage and Scott Nearing. In 1964, at the twentieth anniversary celebration, Russell was presented with several leather binders full of tributes. Among them are letters and telegrams from notables such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, Langston Hughes, Abraham Beame, Frederic Ewen, I. F. Stone, Irving Adler, Linus Pauling, Alexander Meiklejohn, Corliss Lamont, and a host of state senators and assemblymen, journalists, Board of Education members and staff, union members, court officers, representatives of a wide variety of organizations and personal friends. The Irish playwright Sean O'Casey corresponded with Ms. Russell for a number of years. One of his letters in the collection, a moving condolence written on November 20, 1963, after the assassination of President Kennedy, was subsequently published in The New York Times.
