Inventory of the J. B. Matthews Papers,
1862-1986
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Descriptive Summary
Title
J. B. Matthews Papers,
1862-1986
Creator
Matthews, J. B. (Joseph Brown), 1894-1966
Extent
479 Linear Feet
307,000 Items
Repository
Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special
Collections Library
Language
English.
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Administrative Information
Access Restrictions
Collection is open for research.
However, patrons must sign the Acknowledgment of Legal
Responsibility and Privacy Rights form before using this collection.
Also, all or portions of this collection may be housed off-site in
Duke University's Library Service Center. Consequently, there may be a 24-hour
delay in obtaining these materials.
Please contact Research Services staff before visiting the Rare
Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library to use this collection.
Use Restrictions
copyright interests in these papers are reserved to Matthews' widow,
Ruth Inglis Matthews. For further information, see the section on copyright in
the Regulations and Procedures of the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special
Collections Library.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], The J. B. Matthews Papers, Rare Book,
Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University.
Provenance
The papers of J. B. Matthews (1894-1966), missionary, political
conservative, research director, author, and lecturer, were a gift to the
Manuscript Department in 1983 by Ruth Inglis Matthews.
Funds from the Virginia Gray Fund were used in the acquisition of
the collection.
Processing Information
Processed by Sharon E. Knapp
Completed ca. 1986
Encoded by Stephen D. Miller and Robin LaPasha
This finding aid is NCEAD compliant.
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Biographical Note
1894, June 28 | Born, Hopkinsville, Kentucky |
1915 | B.A., Asbury College, Wilmore, Kentucky |
1915-1921 | Methodist Missionary to Java |
1917 | Married Grace Ison |
1923 | B.D., Drew University |
1924 | S.T.M. (Magna cum laude), Union Theological Seminary |
1924 | A.M., Columbia University |
1924-1927 | Professor of Hebrew and the history of religion at the
Scarritt College for Christian Workers, Nashville, Tennessee |
1927 | Member of faculty of Fisk University, Nashville,
Tennessee |
1929 | Publication of
Youth Looks at World
Peace: a Story of the First World Youth Peace Congress |
1929-1933 | Executive Secretary of the Fellowship of
Reconciliation |
1930s | Member of various left-wing organizations |
1934 | Publication of
Fascism (with Ruth
E. Shallcross) and
Traffic in Death: a Few
Facts Concerning the International Munitions Industry |
1935 |
Vice President of Consumers' Research, Inc.
Publication of
Partners in Plunder: the
Cost of Business Dictatorship
|
1936 |
Publication of
Guinea Pigs No
More
Married Ruth E. Shallcross
|
1938 | Publication of
Odyssey of a Fellow
Traveler |
1938-1945 | Director of Research for the Committee on Un-American
Activities of the U.S. House of Representatives |
1945-1964 | Lecturer; author of anticommunist articles; speaker before
Federal and state committees investigating communism; and consultant for John
A. Clements Associates, the Hearst public relations firm |
1949 | Married Ruth Inglis |
1953, June | Executive Director of the Permanent Subcommittee on Government
Operations of the U.S. Senate |
1953, July | Publication of
"Reds and Our
Churches"
in
American
Mercury |
1966, July 16 | Died, New York City |
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Collection Overview
The papers of J.B. (Joseph Brown) Matthews span the years 1862 to
1986, although the bulk of the collection falls during the 1930s to the 1960s.
Included are correspondence, memoranda, statements, speeches, reprints,
clippings, broadsides, newsletters, press releases, petitions, and other
printed material. there is virtually no material relating to Matthews' early
work as a Methodist missionary and college professor or to his involvement with
various leftist and radical groups during the 1930s. The principal focus of the
collection relates to the work and research of Matthews and his associates in
the area of anticommunism. This focus is especially reflected in the Vertical
Files, Persons, and Card File Series in the collection with many of the
organizations, newspapers, periodicals, and persons represented therein having
various leftist, socialist, communist, pacifist, or radical connections. The
Vertical Files Series, primarily covering the period of the 1940s through the
1960s, constitutes over three-fourths of the bulk of the total collection, with
printed matter comprising a large portion of the individual files. Originally
the Vertical Files Series was a set of duplicate files that J.B. Matthews kept
while working as a consultant for John A. Clements Associates. He later
acquired other material and integrated it into the original files. During
processing, many loose papers, unlabelled folders, and unorganized files were
integrated into this Series when appropriate. There is, however, some overlap
among the materials in the Vertical Files Series, the Research Correspondence
Series, and the Persons Files Series.
Organizations represented in the Vertical Files Series include many
peace and anti-Vietnam war groups, such as America First Committee, American
League Against War and Fascism, American League for Peace and Democracy,
American Peace Crusade, American Peace Mobilization, Church Peace Union,
Committee for Non-Violent Action, National Mobilization Committee to End the
War in Vietnam, Promoting Enduring Peace, Vietnam Day Committee, War Resisters
League, World Council of Peace, and Youth Against War and Fascism. Also
included are other organizations, such as the Women's International Democratic
Federation, Women Strike for Peace, Black Panther Party, National Negro Labor
Council, and Revolutionary Action Movement. Other representative categories in
this Series include the American Civil Liberties Union, American Committee for
Protection of Foreign Born, American Friends Service Committee, American
Legion, Americans for Democratic Action, Communism and the Communist Party,
Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy, The Federal Council of the
Churches of Christ in America, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Foreign Policy
Association, Institute of Pacific Relations, Ku Klux Klan, National Council of
American-Soviet Friendship, World Federation of Trade Unions, Young Socialist
Alliance, United Nations; and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers
of America. At the end of this series are folders for various miscellaneous
organizations and miscellaneous lists of organizations.
The Persons Files Series consists of files of information about
persons who were investigated because of suspected communist or communist-front
connections and volumes of indexes and selected documents. m e individual
persons files, which are generally quite slim, usually include written
statements about people and their activities, accusations against them, and
other Items such as speeches, memoranda, and clippings, often including the
source of the information. This series also includes files gathered by
associates of Matthews. Included in the volumes in this series is the
"Index to Organizations and
their Members,"
ca. 1930s-1950s. Names of organizations, institutes,
conferences, periodicals, committees, councils, appeals, funds, etc., are
organized alphabetically. Below the name is the dated source of the
information, such as a leaflet or letterhead, followed by the names of members
of that organization, often including a brief biographical phrase identifying
each person.
Also in the volumes are an
"Index to
Individuals,"
and an
"Index to Organizations and
Publications."
These indexes refer to page numbers in the volumes of
selected documents where one can locate references to the names of the person,
publication, or organization. Examples of the types of documents to be found
are letters; portions of newsletters and journals; newspaper clippings;
programs; petitions; press releases; articles; announcements of meetings;
partial directories; and lists of staff, sponsors, or officers of
organizations. Each volume of selected documents is indexed separately. In
addition, each volume of selected documents also has its own index at the
front. Some volumes are incomplete and/or unbound.
Benjamin Mandel was an important associate of J.B. Matthews and the
series within the collection bearing his name forms an important component of
the papers. Like Matthews, Mandel also was involved with various communist
organizations only to change his views in later life. Mandel was a leading
member of the Communist Party in the 1920s and later joined the research staff
of the House Un-American Activities Committee and from 1950 to 1967 served as
the research director of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. Included in
this series is a file of correspondence, 1939-1969, between Matthews and Mandel
and subject files relating to the F.B.I. and J. Edgar Hoover.
Matthews's personal and private life is reflected in the Personal
Series. Included are family papers, private correspondence, material he
collected, columns and editorials in which he is mentioned, and Items about his
death. Telephone messages, 1949-1955, are mostly typed carbons that were
created while he worked for John A. Clements Associates. This series reveals
information about family relationships, including his children Joseph, Jr.
(married to Helen; children were Susan, and twins Sharon and Steve); Roy
(married to Genevieve; children are Brian and JoAnne); Martin S.; Margaret
(married to John Burd; children are Larry and Marilyn, who married Thomas
Quinn); and Grace (married to Wayne Cressman). In the Joseph Matthews file is
information pertaining to the tragic suicide/murder incident involving J.B.
Matthews' son, Joseph, Jr. Other family members represented in this series are
Matthews' sister, Jesse Matthews Sikes, and his second wife, Ruth E. Shallcross
Matthews, who was an economist at the Institute of Paper Chemistry; she later
married George Erskine Maynard on July 14, 1951.
In the Ruth I. Matthews series are the papers of the third wife of
J.B. Matthews, who also had been a consultant to the Hearst Corporation, but,
contrary to her husband, has always held conservative political views. She has
had an important career in her own right, most recently as treasurer, assistant
publisher, and trustee of
Consumer's Research
Magazine and as a free lance writer. She has been a professor of
sociology at the University of Washington and research editor of
Combat, a subsidiary of
National Review; helped
launch
Deadline Data on World
Affairs; and was a staff member of the House Committee on Internal
Security.
Highlights of the titles in the Volumes Series are
"Subversive Activities
Investigation"
(Investigatory Hearings of the New York Department of
Labor's Industrial Commission), 1941;
"Master Reference on
Communism;"
"Communist Perspective: A
Handbook of Communist Doctrinal Statements in the Original Russian and
English;"
"Communism in the Motion
Picture Industry;"
Joint Statement of Five Employees of Allis Chalmers
Manufacturing Company Before the House of Representatives Committee on
Education and Labor, 1947; and works of J.B. Matthews:
Odyssey of a Fellow
Traveler and
Guinea Pigs No More. In
this series are two reports published by John A. Clements Associates:
"Report on Venezuela"
(1958) and
"Report on Guatemala"
(1952). A mimeographed report,
"Vanguard in Guatemala - The
Myth Comes to America,"
used by J.B. and Ruth I. Matthews for
"Report on Guatemala"
is in the Addresses and Writings Series.
In the picture cabinet are oversize items, such as an invitation to a
dinner and awards presentation sponsored by the American-Russian Institute,
including the names of the Board of Directors of the Institute and the
sponsors. Also included, from the American League Against War and Fascism
folder, is a 1936 calendar with appropriate artwork. A large poster advertises
the book
Partners in Plunder by
J.B. and Ruth Shallcross Matthews.
The collection includes extensive card files, which are principally
comprised of files of names. The two major files in the Card Files Series are
the J.B. Matthews File and the Donald I. Sweany File. In general, there is more
factual information, as opposed to referrals to others sources, in Sweany's
File, Although both files contain both types of information. Donald I. Sweany,
who compiled the Sweany File, was a friend of the Matthewses' and a member of
the American Legion. The card file was originally prepared for the Legion; the
Manuscript Department has the carbon copies he prepared on paper slips. The
types of data on the cards include citations to information on persons in
periodicals or other sources, such as the Fish Hearings; and biographical
information about persons. Sometimes a source is given.
Another file in the Card Files Series is the Titles of Publications
File. These cards have the title of a publication at the top, with one or more
of the following pieces of information: a number, name of a person, date,
letter/number combination, or abbreviation of an organization. The
Tocsin File gives
citations in this publication for information on persons. Perkins Library
stacks does not have holdings of
Tocsin. In the Vertical
Files Series of this collection, there are a few folders of
Tocsin material,
including issues from 1960 plus an index to
Tocsin, 1961-1965.
Also included in the Card Files Series is the In Process Files,
including a variety of cards that Ruth and J.B. Matthews were working on, such
as some cards to be filed in the Matthews name file. Other cards contain a
statement from a newspaper or petition which was signed by several people. The
Matthewses would then type the name of each person at the top of a card with
the statement on it, and then file the cards by name. The Miscellaneous File is
a small alphabetical file of miscellaneous information, such as addresses.
Included are the names and addresses of publications to which the Matthewses
subscribed. The 4 X 6 Cards File is a separate set of files that the Matthewses
obtained from an unknown source. It primarily contains brief information about
organizations, people, and various subjects.
The final file in the Card Files Series is the large J.B. Matthews
File. These cards include information about various persons, such as
organization affiliation, relationship to the organization, and source of the
information. The name of the organization is usually given as an acronym. Other
cards give citations for information on persons in various periodicals such as
Daily Worker. Titles are
given as acronyms, such as
"DW."
There is a
guide key to these acronyms, called
"Key to
Organizations."
It includes both publications as well as organizations,
and is located on top of Cabinet 10. A few cards contain information about a
person with the source of the information. Some cards note,
"See folder in file cabinet of persons."
There
are folders for some of these names in the Persons Files Series; for others
there are not. Another notation on cards is,
"See SB
File."
The
"SB"
refers to Stephen
Birmingham, an investigator for the House Un-American Activities Committee in
the 1930s. When he retired, he gave his file to Matthews. The Manuscript
Department does not have his file, but it was too time-consuming to remove all
these cards.
Throughout the collection, in general, there tend to be small amounts
of information about numerous persons. It is not possible to mention here all
the important names that appear in the papers. There are subject cards in the
card catalog for the names that follow as well as many others. Included is
information on Joseph McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, Benjamin Mandel, Ralph
Abernathy, Bella Abzug, Roy Cohn, John Foster Dulles, Dwight D. Eisenhower,
Michael Harrington, Alger Hiss, Jesse Jackson, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther
King, Coretta Scott King, Joseph Lash, Fulton Lewis, Malcolm X, Carl McIntire,
Francis McNamara, Richard Nixon, Aristotle Onassis, Lee Harvey Oswald, Linus
Pauling, Drew Pearson, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Louis Untermeyer. In addition,
there is some correspondence in the Research Correspondence Series with John T.
Flynn, 1947-1964; Westbrook Pegler, 1936-1969; Norman Vincent Peale, 1955-1962;
and Victor Riesel, 1948-1952.
It is important when checking for names of persons in the inventory to
consult all the following series: Vertical Files Series; Persons Files Series,
including the indexes at the end; Research Correspondence Series; and Card
Files Series. There are references in some folders to a card for a person in
the Card Files Series.
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Subject Headings
These are searchable subject entries for this collection. Performing a
search on these subjects in the Duke University Libraries online catalog will
bring up other related research materials.
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Hoover, J. Edgar (John Edgar), 1895-1972.
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Abernathy, Ralph David, 1926-
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Abzug, Bella S., 1920-
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Cohn, Roy M., 1927-
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Dulles, John Foster, 1888-1959.
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McCarthy, Joseph Raymond, 1908-1957.
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Eisenhower, Dwight D. (Dwight David), 1890-1969.
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Harrington, Michael, 1928-
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Jackson, Jesse, 1941-
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Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963.
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King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968.
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King, Coretta Scott, 1927-
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Lash, Joseph P. 1909-
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McIntire, Carl.
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Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913-
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Onassis, Aristotle Socrates, 1906-1975.
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Oswald, Lee Harvey.
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Pauling, Linus, 1901-
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Pearson, Drew, 1897-1969.
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Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962.
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Untermeyer, Louis, 1885-1977.
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United States.--Congress.--House.--Committee on Un-American
Activities.
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United States.--Congress.--Senate.--Permanent Subcommittee
on Government Operations.
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John A. Clements Associates.
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Socialism.
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Liberalism.
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Radicalism.
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Peace--Societies, etc.
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Anti-communist movements.
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Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975--Protest movements.
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Matthews, Ruth Inglis.
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Mandel, Benjamin, 1891-