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Records, such as search committee files or others pertaining to employment where individuals are identified, are closed for 70 years.
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[Identification of item], Robert S. Rankin Papers, University Archives, Duke University.
The Robert S. Rankin Papers was received by the University Archives as a transfer in 1977, 2001.
Minimally Processed by Sara Busija, Dean Jeffrey
Completed May 15, 2006
Encoded by Dean Jeffrey, May 15, 2006
This finding aid is NCEAD compliant.
Robert Stanley Rankin (1899-1976), educator and political scientist, was born in Tusculum, TN, and educated at Tusculum College. He received graduate degrees at Princeton and returned to Tusculum as a political science professor in 1924. His career at Duke began in 1927 as assistant professor of political science. Rankin was appointed associate professor in 1929, professor in 1934, and was chairman of the political science department from 1949 to 1964. He was co-founder and president (1931) of the Southern Political Science Association. Active in local and national politics, he served on the Durham, NC City Council from 1955 to 1960. President Eisenhower appointed him to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in 1960, where he served for 16 years. He retired from teaching in 1969. The Robert S. Rankin Civil Rights Library at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, established in 1960, was named for Rankin in 1976.
The collection includes departmental records, correspondence, reports, notes, student papers, questionnaires, publications, and other materials of Robert S. Rankin and the Duke University Department of Political Science, circa 1927-1977.
These and related materials may be accessed under the following subject headings in the Duke University Libraries online catalog.
This series includes files of departmental records, correspondence, reports, notes, student papers, questionnaires, publications, and other materials of Robert S. Rankin and the Duke University Department of Political Science.
The materials in this series appear to have been edited and rearranged by Rankin's wife, Dorothy Newsom Rankin. In many instances, there are interpretive notes written by Mrs. Rankin on the outsides of file folders. Some of the folder titles appear to be Rankin's original titles, while other titles and dates seem to have been provided by Mrs. Rankin. Some of the folders were unlabeled and have been given titles by University Archives staff. In some instances, no common subject for the materials in the folders could be ascertained, and those folders have not been supplied titles and remain unlabeled.
There are extensive handwritten notes by Mrs. Rankin regarding these materials in the University Archives Collection File. Please consult a University Archives staff member to see these notes.