Irene McCoy Gaines papers

Series 1. George Washington Ellis papers, 1893-1919 (box 1)

This series contains ca. 200 items, dating from 1893 to 1919, of Mrs. Gaines' uncle, George Washington Ellis (1875-1919), who was an author and lawyer. Items concerning Ellis’ diplomatic service in Monrovia include miscellaneous letters and dispatches from the Legation (1906-1910) and a manuscript diary for Aug. 31, 1908-Apr. 1, 1909, in which Ellis recorded details of Legation routine and his own activities. Included are the following undated manuscripts which may have been published: "Chicago Democracy and the Negro" (9 p.); "Reform and the Negro in Chicago" (7 p.);"The Rise and Fall of Civilizations and Why" (6 p.); "Native Religion in West Africa" (5 p.); "Is Socialism Tenable in the United States?" (3 p.); "Political Conditions in Liberia" (7 p.); plus "The Negro at the Chicago Bar," (February 3, 1916; 3 p.).

Of political interest are Ellis’ letters to Progressive Headquarters in February-March 1913 offering to campaign for the Progressive ticket and an undated appeal to Woodrow Wilson for a patronage position. Among the miscellaneous items is a copy of a Memorial of the American Colonization Society to Secretary of State Walter Q. Gresham (June 26, 1893) petitioning for U.S. intervention against the French in Liberia and an undated National Citizenship Defense Committee Memorial to Suppress Lynching directed to President Woodrow Wilson. Collection also includes retained copies of Ellis’ outgoing letters to W.E.B. DuBois (July 15, 1908 and June 23, 1913); Ida B. Wells-Barnett (February 13, 1913); Booker T. Washington (Jan. 24, 1906); and George F. Harding, Jr., Chicago 2nd Ward alderman (Jan. 14, 1913; 1 p. typed) commenting on segregation in Chicago.

Series 2. Irene McCoy Gaines files, 1917-1968 (box 1-9 and other items)

Correspondence and other files of Mrs. Gaines including personal correspondence with her family, and booklets and reports regarding her activities as a young woman. Includes a booklet on the War Community Services, Inc., 1918, and her report as secretary of the Industrial Department of the Indiana Area Branch of the YWCA, October 1921. The core of the collection is material on various clubs and volunteer service organizations with which Mrs. Gaines was affiliated, notably the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, Inc., and the Chicago Council of Negro Organizations. There is scattered information on these and other organizations consisting of reports, minutes, newsletters, agenda, clippings, and incoming and outgoing correspondence. Records of Mrs. Gaines’ club activities before her election to national office are more scattered and sparse. Documents of interest are her presidential report to the Chicago and Northern District Association of Colored Women, 1937-1938 (48 p.); her June 21, 1944 presidential address to the Illinois Association of Colored Women; and random IACW bulletins from March 1943 through June 1944. Papers covering Mrs. Gaines' service as NACWC president (1952-1958) are especially extensive. During the decade 1948-1958 there is a concentration of material surrounding the National Biennial Conventions of the NACWC, held in July and August of even-numbered years, consisting of correspondence, presidential reports, which are typically six to ten typescript pages in length and provide a calendar of Mrs. Gaines’ activities; and convention minutes or extracts thereof of varying lengths form twenty to over five hundred pages. Documentation of NACWC activities includes the restoration of the Frederick Douglass home in the early 1950s; the official Non-Government Observer to the United Nations (10 p. 1955 summary report), and the Community Improvement Project contest to Improve Homes and Neighborhoods (45 p. thermofax report, July 31, 1956). Also present is incoming and outgoing correspondence with other NACWC club members on NACWC activities and personalities.

Documentation on the Chicago Council of Negro Organizations, which she helped to found and which she served as president (1938-1952), includes information in, for example, Mrs. Gaines’ presidential reports for 1942 (9 p.) and 1952 (5 p.) and in minutes of Annual Dinner meetings held in June of 1950, 1951, 1952 and 1953 (4 to 6 p. typescripts, each). Also included are scattered copies of the CCNO Newsletter, a two-page mimeographed monthly (1942-1948). Although the CCNO was primarily a coordinating body which undertook few separate projects of its own, the following reports of its endeavors are of note: Call to Action Against Discrimination, Mar 27, 1941; "The Right to Work is the Right to Live," a 78 p. mimeographed report of the National Conference of Negro Organizations held in Washington, D.C., March 1941, sponsored by the CCNO; and a 1 p. report of June 20, 1953, on the early history of the organization including mention of a 1941 March on Washington.

Mrs. Gaines activities for the Idlewild Lot Owners Association resort area in Michigan cover a considerable span of time. Information on this association is chiefly contained in Mrs. Gaines’ annual presidential addresses, which are present for most years between 1940 and 1954. Chicago neighborhood improvement programs also attracted Mrs. Gaines’ support, as shown in several items relative to the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference and Kenwood-Ellis Community Center concentrated in the late 1950s.

Interest in the improvement and upgrading of housing conditions is reflected in scattered clippings throughout the collection and in the following items: Report of the Subcommittee on the Physical Aspect of Negro Housing--Urban, of the President’s Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership, July 1931 (31 p.); Mrs. Gaines’ 1 p. letter to Abner H. Ferguson, Federal Housing Administration, Mar. 27, 1941, protesting discrimination by the FHA, and Mr. Ferguson’s Apr. 3, 1941, reply (1 p.); a 2 p. report by the CCNO to the Mayor’s Emergency Housing Committee, Apr. 7, 1947; a 17 p. mimeographed release by the National Association of Inter-Group Relations Officials, Apr. 23, 1948, regarding litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court involving race restrictive housing covenants; a list entitled: Attacks on the Personal and Property of Negroes Moving into So-Called 'White' Communities in Chicago during 1948, compiled by the Chicago Council Against Racial and Religious Discrimination listing 43 incidents; and a 6 p. mimeographed summary of a public hearing on Real Estate Practices in Racially Changing Neighborhoods, sponsored by the Chicago Commission on Human Relations, Aug. 9, 1962. There also is material regarding the Community Project to Improve Homes and Neighborhoods, Jan. 1956-June 1957, sponsored by the NACWC and funded by a Sears Roebuck Foundation grant.

Items about eliminating discrimination in education and improving educational opportunities is diverse and scattered in the collection. Of particular interest are her March 28, 1941, letter to Mr. Studebaker, U.S. Commissioner of Education, in which she protests discrimination in federally-assisted vocational schools, and attaches a 3 p. report of the National Conference of Negro Organizations’ Committee on Education & Training and a 2 p. report of a conference between the members of that committee and Mr. Billington, Assistant Commissioner of Education; her Jan 27, 1943, letter to Congressman William L. Dawson, regarding progress of the National Youth Administration in combating discrimination in Vocational Youth Training; a report of the Superintendent of Chicago Schools on the Inter-Cultural Relations Program, Oct. 25, 1949 (9 p. mimeograph); Mrs. Gaines’ letter of Nov. 25, 1955, to Robert M. Hutchins of the Fund for the Republic, seeking funds for a project designed to prepare mothers and children to meet the programs of desegregating the public schools; Newsletter No. 1 of the Committee to Integrate Chicago Schools, Apr. 26, 1961 (6 p. mimeograph); a copy of an Aug. 20, 1961, Chicago NAACP statement to Mayor Richard J. Daley on Racial Segregation in the Chicago Public Schools; and letters of endorsement for Mrs. Gaines in her 1942 bid for appointment to the Chicago school board.

For the Chicago Urban League, her papers contain little that bears directly on League activities. There are, however, three A.L. Foster letters of note: one of July 20, 1937, expresses his concern over the problems that alcohol and taverns have produced in the African American community; a December 12, 1938, letter concerns the naming of a proposed South Side Federal Housing Project for an outstanding African American woman; a September 27, 1944, letter deals with an October 15th Mass Meeting at Reverend Beck’s church. Other Chicago Urban League items include: a radio discussion involving Irene McCoy Gaines, Earl B. Dickerson, and A.L. Foster, entitled "What the Urban League Movement Means to Chicago," 1938 (6 p.); a news release by Sidney Williams, Chicago Urban League executive secretary, entitled "Our Stewardship in 1947 and Our Plans for 1948" (6 p. mimeographed); and minutes of a cabinet meeting of Bronzeville, June 27, 1959, at which A.L. Foster was in attendance (3 p. typescript).

Although Mrs. Gaines, her husband Harris, and son Charles, were active in Republican Party politics for a period of forty years, the collection contains less directly political items than might be expected. A few significant items relate to Harris B. Gaines, who served in the Illinois General Assembly 1928-1936, including a campaign leaflet from his unsuccessful bid for election to the General Assembly in 1922 and a draft of a 2-page letter from Harris Gaines to his wife Irene, in which he comments on Archibald J. Carey’s knowledge of General Eisenhower’s attitudes on race relations (Aug. 27, 1952)

Mrs. Gaines first involvement in politics appears in her papers in her ardent support of Ruth Hanna McCormick’s campaign for the U.S. Senate from Illinois in 1930. The papers contain clippings on Mrs. McCormick’s campaign, a copy of a speech Mrs. Gaines made in her behalf on Nov. 25, 1929 (6 p.), a letter from Mrs. McCormick to Mrs. Gaines thanking her for her support, May 7, 1930. An April 9, 1940, campaign leaflet concerns Mrs. Gaines’ candidacy for the First Senatorial District seat in the Illinois General Assembly, and a Feb. 23, 1950, press release pertains to her candidacy on the Republican Party ticket to serve on the Board of Commissioners of Cook County. Other items of political value are: Mrs. Gaines’ letter of Aug. 11, 1938, to Edward A. Hayes, Chairman of the Pre-Convention Platform Committee, relating to methods by which the Republican Party could appeal to African American voters; C. Wayland Brooks’ letter of Feb. 14, 1948, to Mrs. Gaines regarding his position on the poll tax; a Mar. 29, 1948?, report involving discrimination against Mrs. Gaines at a Republican women’s meeting; a 3 p. script of a radio speech over station WHFC by Irene McCoy Gaines endorsing Judge Julius H. Minor for election to the Illinois State Supreme Court, May 21, 1951; a Mar. 27, 1952, letter from Mrs. Gaines to Park Livingston, Republican candidate for Governor of Illinois, complaining that no African American woman’s name appeared on the local or state Republican ticket; Mrs. Gaines’ letter of Sept. 18, 1954, to President Eisenhower expressing gratitude for his efforts in behalf of racial equality, and her May 4, 1955, letter to Eisenhower, in which she requests an appointment to a part-time commission in order to facilitate her travel to Washington on NACWC business. Other items of political note are several clippings regarding the activities of Mrs. Gaines’ son, Charles Ellis Gaines in the 1952 elections, and his 2 p. letter of Sept. 9, 1952, to Arthur Summerfield, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, in which he outlines activities to promote the Eisenhower candidacy in the African American community.

Among the national and local political figures whose correspondence is represented in the Gaines papers (usually consisting of only one or two items) are: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Everett M. Dirksen, Paul H. Douglas, Richard M. Nixon, Marguerite Stitt Church, Richard J. Daley, William G. Stratton, Martin H. Kennelly, Dwight H. Green, C. Wayland Brooks, Ruth Hanna McCormick and Mayor Edward J. Kelly (approximately 40 items in all).

Miscellaneous items in the collection on civil rights and human rights or African American history include the following: a pamphlet report of the Anti-Lynching Department of the Northeastern Federation of Women’s Clubs, July 1926; Chandler Owen’s "Program for Immediate Attack Upon Bad Relations Between Jewish and Negro Elements of the Population" (undated 5 p. typescript, filed with undated 1930s); a June 16, 1948, form letter from A. Philip Randolph concerning the elimination of Jim Crow conditions in the military; a 6 p. undated mimeograph report to the Chicago delegation to a Washington, D.C. Emergency National Conference on Columbia, Tennessee Lynch Terror (filed with undated 1940s); a report of Benjamin F. Bell, Jr., executive secretary of the Chicago Branch of the NAACP, Sept. 9, 1952 (3 p. mimeographed) regarding racial tensions and police brutality.

The papers also include Irene McCoy Gaines’ statement in support of the Federal Equality of Opportunity in Employment Act before a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate, March 2, 1954; a Civil Rights Congress fact-sheet entitled "Hitlerite Mob Violence at 56th and Peoria St., 1954" (3 p. mimeograph); Irene M. Gaines’ February 1956 press release (1 p. mimeograph) urging the creation of a congressional commission to study the plight of African Americans in the South; a statement entitled "No Compromise on Segregation," April 24, 1956, to be submitted to the State of the Race Conference by A. Philip Randolph (2 p. typescript); plus materials relating to the Century of Negro Progress Exposition held at McCormick Place in Chicago during August-September 1963. Box 7 of the papers contains 10 radio and play scripts on African American history subjects, collected by Harris B. Gaines, Jr., known as Harry. Mr. Gaines also performed in some of these plays.

The collection includes eight phonograph records (12 sides, 33 1/3 rpm. and 78 rpm.) consisting of interviews with and speeches by Mrs. Gaines from 1943, 1952 and 1953 and several undated. There also is one oversize folder, which contains three posters, two from 1954 and one from 1959. Later additions to the collection (primarily box 8 & 9) are not described in detail in the catalog record or the descriptive inventory.