Elizabeth Dodge Huntington Clarke papers
Scope and Contents
The Elizabeth Dodge Huntington Clarke Papers consist of .5 linear ft. and are primarily related to her work on behalf of the YWCA in the U.S. and around the world, particularly in the Middle East. Materials include correspondence, newspaper clippings, publications, a published volume of memoirs, speech texts and notes, and reports. The bulk of the materials date from 1915 to 1966.
Clarke's memoir The Joy of Service chronicles her privileged New York City upbringing, initiation into YWCA work, and years in Turkey.
The correspondence contains small amounts of correspondence with U.S. and World YWCA leaders such as Ruth Rouse, Emma Bailey Speer, Doris Boss, Anna Rice, Theresa Wilbur Paist, Ruth Woodsmall, and Marion Robinson. Among the YWCA materials are various minutes, reports, clippings, and publications. The bulk of these deal with Foreign Division and World Service Council, though there is also a small amount about the Archives Committee. Materials related to the Eastern Mediterranean Federation of YWCAs include extensive proceedings of a federation conference in Jerusalem in 1926. Also included are memorial tributes Clarke wrote about her aunt, Grace Hoadley Dodge, and Emma Bailey Speer.
Dates of Materials
- Creation: 1915-1981
- Creation: Majority of material found within 1915-1966
Language of Materials
English
Conditions Governing Access
This collection is open for research use without restriction beyond the standard terms and conditions of Smith College Special Collections.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright ownership of Elizabeth Dodge Huntington Clarke's writings is unknown. Copyright to materials authored by persons other than Elizabeth Dodge Huntington Clarke may be owned by those individuals or their heirs or assigns. For reproductions of materials that are governed by fair use as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission to cite or publish is required. Researchers are responsible for determining who may hold materials' copyrights and obtaining approval from them. Researchers do not need anything further from Smith College Special Collections to move forward with their use.
Biographical / Historical
Elizabeth Wentworth Dodge was born August 10, 1884, to Cleveland H. and Grace Parish Dodge, at Greyston, the Dodge family summer home in Riverdale, New York. The wealthy Dodge family had a strong tradition of philanthropic and evangelical activity and her aunt, the philanthropist Grace Hoadley Dodge, became the first president of the YWCA of the U.S.A. when that organization formed in 1906.
Elizabeth's early schooling took place at home, then she attended the Brearley School, graduating in 1903. Soon after, Grace Dodge got Elizabeth involved with the YWCA, asking her to assume the post of treasurer of the Territorial Committee for New York and New Jersey. Though she was an enthusiastic amateur painter, Elizabeth soon found that her YWCA duties left no time for that hobby. But the YWCA took advantage of her interest, convincing her to help organize a Studio Club for art, dance, and music students in New York City.
Through her father's service as President of the Board of Trustees of Robert College in Constantinople, Turkey, Elizabeth met her first husband, George H. Huntington, who was on the faculty of the College's preparatory Academy. They were married on July 27, 1916.
The Huntingtons lived in Constantinople where Elizabeth was involved in Robert College, American College for Girls, the YWCA, and its Istanbul Service Center for young women. George contracted polio in the fall of 1933, and the couple returned to the U.S. so that George could get treatment. Two years later, he resigned his position as Vice President of the College. The Huntingtons returned to Turkey in 1938. From a wheelchair, George participated in College activities as much as possible, but the challenges of negotiating the steep hills of the campus ultimately proved too great and they returned to the U.S. just before World War II.
Elizabeth served on many YWCA committees through the 1940s and 1950s. After George's death in 1953, she married her long-time friend, Dumont Clarke, in 1955. In the 1950s and 1960s, Elizabeth served on the Board of Robert College and the American Hospital in Istanbul and continued her involvement with the YWCA. She received an honorary degree from Western College for Women in 1963.
Dumont Clarke died in 1960. Elizabeth Dodge Huntington Clarke died on January 9, 1976 in Bronx, New York.
Extent
0.875 linear feet (1 container)
Abstract
YWCA volunteer, Volunteer. Papers are primarily related to her work on behalf of the YWCA in the U.S. and around the world, particularly in the Near East. Her memoir, The Joy of Service, chronicles her New York City upbringing, initiation into YWCA work, and her years in Turkey. The correspondence contains small amounts of correspondence with U.S. and World YWCA leaders such as Ruth Rouse, Emma Bailey Speer, Doris Boss, Anna Rice, Theresa Wilbur Paist, Ruth Woodsmall, and Marion Robinson. Among the YWCA materials are various minutes, reports, clippings, and publications.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The Elizabeth Dodge Huntington Clarke Papers came to the Sophia Smith Collection with the Records of the YWCA of the U.S.A. in 2002. The YWCA received them from Clarke's brother, Cleveland Dodge in 1977.
Processing Information
Processed by Maida Goodwin, 2008
Subject
- Young Women's Christian Associations -- Middle East (Organization)
- Robert College (Istanbul, Turkey) (Organization)
- Young Women’s Christian Association of the U.S.A. (Organization)
Source
- YWCA of the U.S.A. (Donor, Organization)
- Dodge, Cleveland (Person)
Genre / Form
Geographic
Topical
- Title
- Elizabeth Dodge Huntington Clarke papers
- Subtitle
- Finding Aid
- Author
- Finding aid prepared by Maida Goodwin.
- Date
- 2008
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Sponsor
- Processing of the Elizabeth Dodge Huntington Clarke Papers was made possible by the generous support of the National Historical Records and Publications Commission
Revision Statements
- 07/26/2017: This resource was modified by the ArchivesSpace Preprocessor developed by the Harvard Library (https://github.com/harvard-library/archivesspace-preprocessor)
- 2017-07-26T17:48:18-04:00: This record was migrated from InMagic DB Textworks to ArchivesSpace.
Repository Details
Part of the Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History Repository
