Claude A. Barnett papers

Scope and Content

Correspondence, clippings, reports, minutes, speeches, and financial records of Claude Albert Barnett, the director of the Associated Negro Press (ANP); news releases of the ANP (1928-1964) and of the World News Service (1961-1963). Topics include African American newspapers and journalists; colleges, especially Tuskegee Institute and the Conference of Presidents of Negro Land Grant Colleges; businesses, especially advertising, beauty products, and insurance; churches; hospitals; fraternal societies; entertainment; agricultural extension services; racial segregation and integration of the United States armed forces; the home front during World War II; and African travel and culture, especially in Liberia, Ghana, and Nigeria. Also includes materials on Barnett's family and the singing and acting career of Etta Moten (Mrs. Barnett), including correspondence and advertising.

Some records pertain to Barnett's service as a trustee of Tuskegee Institute (1932-65), as special assistant to the U.S. secretary of agriculture (1942-52), and as board member of Phelps-Stokes Fund, of Booker T. Washington Institute in Liberia, of American Negro Exposition (1940 : Chicago), of Supreme Liberty Insurance Company, of Provident Hospital, of The Liberia Company, and of the American National Red Cross.

Persons who corresponded with ANP or with Barnett include J.V. Clinton, Henry B. Cole, Frank Marshall Davis, Rudolph Dunbar, Alice Dunnigan, Albon Holsey, Harry Levette, William Pickens, Percival L. Prattis, Emmanuel Racine, John C. Robinson, Alvin E. White, and editors and publishers of most African American newspapers, including Afro American (Baltimore, Md.), Amsterdam news (New York City), Atlanta daily world, Black dispatch (Okla.), Houston informer, Kansas City call (Mo.), New York age, Norfolk journal and guide, Philadelphia tribune, and Pittsburgh courier. Other correspondents include U.S. Representative Frances P. Bolton, Horace Mann Bond, Sherman Briscoe, George Washington Carver, E. M. Glucksman, Charles S. Johnson, Mordecai Johnson, Bishop Frederick D. Jordan, Robert R. Moton, Clarence Muse, Frederick D. Patterson, James E. Shepard, Jesse O. Thomas, Channing H. Tobias, President William V. S. Tubman of Liberia, and Annie M. Turnbo Malone.