Crystal Eastman letters collection, 1896-1928 and undated
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Summary
- Creator:
- Eastman, Crystal, 1881-1928
- Abstract:
- A collection of letters to Eastman from civil engineer Charles Sloane; journalist and social reformer Paul Underwood Kellogg; drama critic Clayton Meeker Hamilton; Eastman's secondary school friend Ida Langdon; an unidentified friend, Summer Robinson, and various other people (including Eastman's sister, Dorothy). Includes a folder of poetry and literature sent to Eastman by unidentified correspondents. There are no letters by Eastman in the collection.
- Extent:
- 1.6 Linear Feet
- Language:
- Materials in English
- Collection ID:
- RL.11768
Background
- Scope and content:
-
Collection of letters to Eastman from civil engineer Charles Sloane; journalist and social reformer Paul Underwood Kellogg; drama critic Clayton Meeker Hamilton; Eastman's secondary school friend Ida Langdon, who was attending Bryn Mawr; an unidentified friend, Summer Robinson, and various other people (including Eastman's sister, Dorothy). The primary topic of the letters is the individual correspondent's relationship with Eastman; many are love letters. Includes a folder of poetry and literature sent to Eastman by unidentified correspondents. There are no letters by Eastman in the collection.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Crystal Eastman (June 25, 1881-July 8, 1928) was an American lawyer, antimilitarist, feminist, socialist, and journalist. She attended Vassar College and Columbia University, and obtained her law degree from New York University (1907). Her first job as an attorney was to investigate labor conditions for the Russell Sage Foundation. Her pioneering report, Work Accidents and the Law (1910), led New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes to appoint her the first woman on New York State's Commission on Employers' Liability and Causes of Industrial Accidents, Unemployment and Lack of Farm Labor. As a member of that commission, Eastman drafted the country's first workers' compensation law. During Woodrow Wilson's administration, Eastman became investigating attorney for the United States Commission on Industrial Relations. Meanwhile, Eastman also struggled to further women's rights--first suffrage and later equal rights--as co-author of the first Equal Rights Amendment. During World War I, she was a leader of the peace movement, working with Carrie Chapman Catt to organize the Carnegie Hall meeting that led to the founding of the Woman's Peace Party of New York--later renamed the Women's International League of Peace and Freedom--the oldest women's peace organization. Eastman became Executive Secretary of the Women's Peace Party. A leading advocate for civil liberties and the rights of conscientious objectors during World War I, she joined Norman Thomas and Roger Baldwin in founding the American Civil Liberties Union.
In 1910 Eastman married Wallace Benedict; the marriage ended in divorce in 1915. As a statement of financial and personal independence, Eastman refused to accept alimony, stating that to accept her former husband's money would be to betray herself as both a woman and a feminist. In 1916 Eastman married the British editor and antiwar activist Walter Fuller; the couple had two children, Jeffrey and Annis.
Sources: National Women's Hall of Fame website, https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/crystal-eastman/ . Vassar Encyclopedia, http://vcencyclopedia.vassar.edu/alumni/crystal-eastman.html . Wikipedia entry for Crystal Eastman, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Eastman
- Acquisition information:
- The Crystal Eastman Letters Collection were received by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book Manuscript Library as a purchase in 2015.
- Processing information:
-
Processed by Alice Poffinberger, September 2019
Accessions described in this collection guide: 2015-0050-LUBMSS546
- Arrangement:
-
Arranged by author of letters.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Subjects
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Contents
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- Restrictions:
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Collection is open for research.
- Terms of access:
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The copyright interests in this collection have not been transferred to Duke University. For more information, consult the copyright section of the Regulations and Procedures of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
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- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Crystal Eastman Letters Collection, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.