Title: David Nolan Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1960-1987

Creator:

• Nolan, David, 1946-

Call Number: Mss 773; PH 3905; PH 3906

Quantity: 2.4 c.f. (6 archives boxes) and 104 photographs

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

Abstract:

Papers, mainly 1963-1977, of Nolan, a writer and social activist. Included are correspondence; executive board, staff, and editorial board minutes; reports; policy papers; and informational mailings of organizations and publications with which he was involved such as Our Generation, Penn Community Services, Inc., Southern Student Organizing Committee, the U.S. China Peoples Friendship Association, and Virginia Students Civil Rights Committee. Prominent correspondents include Anne Braden and Leonard Boudin. Papers as a staff member of the Atlanta office of the U.S. China Peoples Friendship Association also include extensive planning materials for friendship tours of China, biographical information on participants, and a lengthy journal written by one participant in the 1975 tour. Files on the Virginia Students Civil Rights Committee include correspondence, minutes, photographs, an unpublished history, and community organizing project files. Limited personal papers include biographical clippings, copies of articles and papers, photographs, and information on his status as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00773

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David Nolan, writer and social activist, was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1946. Very little is known about the details of his life and early career but it is known that during his youth Nolan lived in Washington, D.C., and New York City and that his father Joseph Nolan was a journalist for United Press International.

Nolan attended the University of Virginia where he studied history and political science from 1963 through 1965. During this period he also became involved with a number of social action and civil rights organizations, and he left school without graduating to join the staff of the Virginia Students Civil Rights Committee. For several years he was involved in community organizing in southern Virginia.

In 1967 Nolan became editor of the Southern Student Organizing Committee's journal New South Student. In 1969 Nolan became associated with Penn Community Services, a community organization first established as a school for freed slaves at Beaufort, South Carolina, in l862.

From 1971 to 1977 Nolan lived in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was active with the local office of the U.S. China Peoples Friendship Association. Nolan was a member of the first national steering committee for this organization, and he served as national vice chair from 1975 to 1977. He helped organize several American tours and traveled to China himself in 1974 and 1975.

In 1975 Nolan married Becky Hamilton, a movie critic for an Atlanta newspaper, whom he met because of their shared interest in the U.S. China Friendship Association and other social action groups. They gave birth to a daughter in 1976 and a son in 1979.

In the late 1970's the Nolans moved to St. Augustine, Florida, where he worked for the Historic Preservation Board as a surveyor of historic sites. When this grant funded project ended in 1980 he began working on his first book, Fifty Feet in Paradise, a popular history of the state of Florida published in 1984. More recently Nolan has been working on a second book and editing David Rockefeller's memoirs.

The David Nolan Papers are not in a strict sense a collection of personal papers, rather they are a collection of material acquired by Nolan about organizations with which he was involved. The collection consists chiefly of minutes, position papers, memoranda, and other mimeographed administrative papers, with only a small quantity correspondence or other unique materials. As a result, only the outline of Nolan's social activism can be drawn from the collection. His files are important, nevertheless, for they contain material on several undocumented or underdocumented organizations. The files on the Virginia Student Civil Rights Committee are particularly important, as they appear to be, at least in part, the record files of that organization, one of the few southern civil rights organizations to include both black and white students. The papers also contain manuscript copies of some of Nolan's political writings; many of the journals and newsletters with which he was associated as writer and/or editor have been separated from the collection and are available in the SHSW Library. In addition, the files originally included a very large quantity of printed, research material used by Nolan for his writing and editorial work. Published material concerning China has been separated to the University of Wisconsin Memorial Library, as it is out of scope for the Historical Society. Publications concerning social activism in the United States have been separated to the SHSW Library.

The papers are primarily arranged by organizational name. The files of the U.S. CHINA Peoples FRIENDSHIP ASSOCIATION are most extensive and are arranged as a separate series. Other less extensively documented groups are filed together as a series entitled MISCELLANEOUS ORGANIZATIONS. The limited quantity of material about Nolan and the file of his writings has been arranged under the heading PERSONAL MATERIAL.

The U.S. CHINA Peoples FRIENDSHIP ASSOCIATION files include minutes, annual conference papers, committee papers, correspondence, applications for China tours and other records collected by Nolan in his capacity as a staff member of the Atlanta office and as national vice chair. These materials, which were received in considerable disorder, have been arranged functionally as administrative files, national steering committee files, correspondence, China tour files, regional and local files, and miscellany. Minutes include not only material pertaining to national conferences, but also several meetings which preceded formation of the organization. The correspondence file is correspondence of Nolan and Becky Hamilton as staffers of the Atlanta office. The tour files are quite extensive including planning information, applications containing personal information about individuals who desired to visit China, and a lengthy typed journal of Charles Zukowski concerning his 1975 tour. The regional and local files are less complete, but they give a good indication of the internal structure of these groups. Most complete are those of the Southern Region, of which Nolan was a leader, and other local offices in the South. The Southern newsletter, which Nolan edited, is available in the Historical Society Library.

The MISCELLANEOUS ORGANIZATIONS files document Nolan's affiliations with Brunswick Community Action, Inc., Our Generation, Penn Community Services, Southern Conference Educational Fund, the Southern Students Organizing Committee, and other groups. Documentation on these organizations is limited, variously including minutes, correspondence, administrative papers, and subject files. The earliest material concerns Nolan's attempt as a member of the Virginia Council on Human Relations to bring Norman Thomas and Bayard Rustin to campus in 1964. Especially interesting among the miscellaneous administrative materials on the Penn Center are correspondence with Leonard Boudin and the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee and numerous handwritten notes of Nolan and other members of the staff concerning the case of a local physician who dispensed drugs to white and black patients without proper authority.

The Virginia Students' Civil Rights Committee files contain original correspondence of staff members, staff minutes, materials concerning various county projects, photographs of staff activities, and information on the formation of VSCRC in 1964 including an incomplete history (entitled Booknotes) apparently written by Nolan. Tape recordings concerning the history of VSCRC also made by Nolan in conjunction with this project, which are alluded to in the Society's correspondence with Nolan, were not received by the Historical Society.

The SCEF files contain Nolan's correspondence with Anne Braden regarding Nolan's writing for the Southern Patriot, while the Our Generation materials contain correspondence and minutes of the editorial board. With the SSOC files is Nolan's correspondence as editor of the New South Student with writers such as Herbert Aptheker and Eugene Genovese.

The PERSONAL MATERIAL relate to correspondence, articles, and material on Nolan's own draft status and that of his friend John Buenfiel. Included in his writings are several term papers and essays that he wrote while attending the University of Virginia. Also here are notes on a KKK rally observed in 1964, a letter concerning his arrest in Miami in 1967, photographs, and a folder of clippings concerning Fifty Feet in Paradise.

Acquisition Information

Presented by David Nolan, St. Augustine, Florida, 1972-1977. Accession Number: M72-370, M73-72, M77-387

Processing Information

Processed by Glenn Cook (Intern) and Carolyn J. Mattern, 1989.

Mss 773	Series: U.S. China Peoples Friendship Association
	Administrative files
Box   1 Folder   1	Minutes, 1973-1977
Box   1 Folder   2-5	Conventions, 1974-1977
Box   1 Folder   6	Office reports, 1974-1977
Box   1 Folder   7	Leadership conferences, 1976-1977
	National Steering Committee
Box   1 Folder   8	Minutes, 1974-1977
Box   1 Folder   9-12	Meeting materials, 1974-1976
Box   1 Folder   13	Miscellaneous papers, 1974-1977
	National committees
Box   1 Folder   14	Budget, 1974-1977
Box   1 Folder   15	Center for Teaching about China, 1977
Box   2 Folder   1	Convention Committee, 1977
Box   2 Folder   2	Education, 1975-1976
Box   2 Folder   3	Health Care in China, 1975-1977
Box   2 Folder   4	Normalization, 1975-1977
Box   2 Folder   5	Outreach, 1975
Box   2 Folder   6	Publications, 1974-1977
Box   2 Folder   7	Tour, 1974-1977
Box   2 Folder   8-10	Correspondence, 1974-1977
	China Tours
	1974
Box   2 Folder   11	Student leaders trip
Box   2 Folder   12	General
	1975
Box   2 Folder   13	General
Box   3 Folder   1	Journal of trip
	1976
Box   3 Folder   2	Applications
Box   3 Folder   3	Correspondence
Box   3 Folder   4-5	Undated applications
	Regional organizations
Box   3 Folder   6	Organizing Committee, 1974-1976
	East Coast Region
Box   3 Folder   7	Minutes, 1973-1976
Box   3 Folder   8	Miscellaneous papers, 1973-1977
	Midwest region
Box   3 Folder   9	Miscellaneous papers, 1976
	Southern Region
Box   3 Folder   10	Minutes, 1975-1976
Box   3 Folder   11	Miscellaneous papers, 1975-1976
Box   4 Folder   1	Correspondence, 1975-1977
Box   4 Folder   2	Activists' trip, 1974
Box   4 Folder   3	Trip Committee, 1975-1976
	Western Region
Box   4 Folder   4	Minutes, 1974-1977
Box   4 Folder   5	Miscellaneous papers, 1974-1977
Box   4 Folder   6	Local organizations, 1975-1976
Box   4 Folder   7	Auburn, Alabama, 1974-1975
Box   4 Folder   8	Atlanta, Georgia, 1974-1976
Box   4 Folder   9	Birmingham, Alabama, 1974-1976
Box   4 Folder   10	Boston, Massachusetts, 1975-1977
Box   4 Folder   11	Chicago, Illinois, 1974-1976
Box   4 Folder   12	Hawaii, undated
Box   4 Folder   13	Nashville, Tennessee, 1975-1976
Box   4 Folder   14	Norfolk, Virginia, 1975-1976
Box   4 Folder   15	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1975-1977
Box   4 Folder   16	San Francisco, California, 1976
Box   4 Folder   17	Seattle, Washington, 1975-1976
Box   4 Folder   18	Texas, 1976-1977
	Miscellaneous locals, 1974-1977
Box   4 Folder   19	Cincinnati-New York
Box   4 Folder   20	Portland-Washington, D.C.
	Miscellaneous material
Box   5 Folder   1	Asian Cultural Center, 1976
Box   5 Folder   2	Berger, Roland, 1975-1976
Box   5 Folder   3	Rosen, Sam and Helen (China tour and lecture), 1974-1977
PH 3906	Photographs issued by China for promotional purposes
Mss 773	Series: Miscellaneous Organizations	⇧
Box   5 Folder   4	Brunswick Community Action, Inc., 1965-1966
	Our Generation
Box   5 Folder   5	Editorial Board minutes, 1967-1971
Box   5 Folder   6	Administrative papers, office reports, and worksheets, 1967-1971
Box   5 Folder   7	Correspondence, 1967-1971
	Penn Community Services
Box   5 Folder   8	Minutes, 1963-1970
Box   5 Folder   9	Beaufort County statistics, 1960
Box   5 Folder   10	Books, 1970
Box   5 Folder   11	Correspondence, 1962-1970
Box   5 Folder   12	Dabbs, J.M., 1969-1970
Box   5 Folder   13	Gatch case, 1969-1970
Box   5 Folder   14	Hunger, 1968-1969
Box   5 Folder   15	Minimum wage, 1969-1970
Box   5 Folder   16	Venceremos Brigade, 1969-1970
	Southern Conference Educational Fund
Box   5 Folder   17	Correspondence, 1971
Box   5 Folder   18	Miscellaneous papers, 1970-1971
	Southern Students Organizing Committee
Box   5 Folder   19	Miscellaneous papers, undated
Box   5 Folder   20	Davis, Angela, 1970-1971
	Correspondence
Box   6 Folder   1	General, 1965-1969
Box   6 Folder   2	Magazine, 1966-1970
Box   6 Folder   3	Demonstration kit, 1968
Box   6 Folder   4	Students for a Democratic Society, 1965-1966
Box   6 Folder   5	Virginia Council on Human Relations, 1963-1969
	Virginia Students Civil Rights Committee
Box   6 Folder   6	Minutes, 1965-1967
Box   6 Folder   7	Booknotes, 1966
Box   6 Folder   8-10	Correspondence, 1964-1965
Box   6 Folder   11	Miscellaneous papers, 1964-1967
	Series: Personal Material	⇧
Box   6 Folder   12	Ben Chaney trial, 1970
Box   6 Folder   13	Biographical materials
Box   6 Folder   14	Conscientious objection, 1965-1967
Box   6 Folder   15-17	Writings, 1963-1968 and undated
PH 3905	Photographs of Nolan and his involvement with various civil rights groups, especially the Virginia Students Civil Rights Committee