Summary Information
Clarence Senior Papers
1924-1945
- Senior, Clarence Ollson, 1903-1974
Mss 142
0.8 c.f. (2 archives boxes)
Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)
Papers of Clarence Senior, a socialist, historian, and expert on Latin America. Although the bulk of Senior's papers relating to his years as executive secretary of the Socialist Party of America are at Duke University, this collection contains reports and memoranda of the national executive committee and solicitations for the Keep America Out of War Congress and the 1935 Continental Congress of Workers and Farmers. Other correspondence includes personal letters from fellow socialist Paul R. Porter and numerous references to activities in Mexico and Latin America. Prominent correspondents include Upton Sinclair and Norman Thomas.
English
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00142 ↑ Bookmark this ↑
Biography/History
Clarence Ollson Senior was born to Joseph Cressey and Margaret (Ollson) Senior on June 9, 1903, in Clinton, Missouri. He graduated from Missouri Wesleyan Academy in 1923 having interrupted his education for two years to help support his family. He attended Kansas City Junior College and received a B.A. degree in sociology from the University of Kansas in 1927. While at the University of Kansas, Senior was a member of the editorial board of The Dove, a student newspaper printed on pink paper and branded as radical. Senior ultimately completed his formal education by taking a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University in 1955.
During the intervening years, 1927-1955, while extending his expertise as a socialist theoretician and activist, as a labor journalist, and as a specialist in Inter-American affairs, especially in the areas of economics, land reform and labor, Senior managed two partial years of graduate study at the University of Vienna and the International People's School of Elsinore, Denmark.
From 1927 to 1929 he was Field Secretary of the Cleveland Adult Education Association and Secretary of the Cleveland Labor College. He had gained additional experience during his college years as Chairman of the Midwest Student Conference of the League for Industrial Democracy. In 1929 he became national executive secretary of the Socialist Party of the United States, serving as Norman Thomas' presidential campaign manager during the elections of 1932 and 1936. One of his last official acts as secretary was to organize the 1935 Continental Congress of Workers and Farmers, in order to give an outlet for teamwork among like-minded labor organizations.
During 1937 Senior was labor editor for The Milwaukee Leader, a socialist newspaper. In 1938, serving as executive secretary for the Keep-America-Out-of-War Congress, he was unsuccessful in his attempt to promote labor solidarity across the border by organizing a labor delegation to Mexico. Living in Mexico in 1939-1940, Senior was on the Faculty of the Mexico City Institute for the Study of Latin America, was the head of the City of Mexico Bureau of the Information Center for the Americas, and was associated with the New York Committee on Cultural Relations with Latin America. He assisted the American Friends Service Committee in planning and implementing workcamps and service seminars in Mexico.
His work for the Information Center for the Americas led to a teaching position at the University of Kansas City in September, 1940, where he taught Mexican Civilization and Municipal Government, was the Director of the Inter-American Institute, and pioneered one of the earliest “Semester in Mexico” programs, eliciting support from both the Rockefeller Foundation and other colleges and universities.
In 1942 Senior went to Washington to do governmental research on Mexican land development and other Latin American topics for the United States Board of Economic Warfare, the National Planning Association, and the Foreign Economic Administration. At the same time he was a consultant to the United States-Mexico oil commission. Accepting a teaching and research post as director of the Social Science Research Center at the University of Puerto Rico, Senior specialized in Puerto Rican migration and also acted as a consultant to the Puerto Rican Department of Labor. After three years, he returned to the United States as director of field work for a Columbia University study of Puerto Rican migrants in New York City. At the same time, he was a lecturer in sociology at Columbia, and in 1951 became the chief of the Migration Division of the United States Department of Labor with headquarters in New York City.
After receiving his doctorate in 1955, Senior undertook Central and South American research for himself and several agencies of the government. He has authored an impressive list of books, the most significant of which is Land Reform and Democracy, published in 1958. It contributed to the break-up of the feudal land system in Latin American countries. His Strangers-Then Neighbors: From Pilgrims to Puerto Ricans (1961), discusses Puerto Rican migration in comparison to that of other ethnic and racial groups, and the accompanying problems of prejudice and discrimination.
Presently professor of sociology at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, Senior is a past member, 1961-1968, of the New York City Board of Education. He was married in 1934 to the former Ruth Louise Miller, and has one son, Paul Norman Senior.
Scope and Content Note
The Clarence Senior Papers consist of the files generated during the years 1924-1945 when he was successively a student, journalist, public employee, and college instructor. There is no information on his one year of journalistic endeavor, however, just as there is none on his
later activities as a college professor, successful author and consultant. The Papers include correspondence, notes, lists, reports, and clippings. The correspondence is arranged chronologically and is followed by an alphabetical subject file comprising the reports, lists, notes, clippings and an occasional memo.
Senior's correspondents include the American Civil Liberties Union, 1925-1926; Bruno Lasker, 1926; Upton Sinclair, 1926; Norman Thomas, 1928; the League for Industrial Democracy, 1928: and Paul R. Porter. During the 1920s and early 1930s, Senior's most regular correspondent was his college roommate and confidant, Paul Porter. Because Porter traveled a great deal, the letters are from many parts of the United States and some foreign countries, including the Far East and China. They deal primarily with personal matters, but include much social, economic and political commentary. In addition to Porter's vivid descriptions of his local scene, the letters provide insight into the thinking of two young socialists during the 1920s, as they react to the writings of Upton Sinclair, Henry Mencken, and others. Especially vivid is Porter's description of the 1928-1929 textile strike in Elizabethton, Tennessee.
Senior's correspondence as National Executive Secretary for the Socialist Party (1929-1936) consists mainly of solicitations for the “Keep-America-Out-of-War” Congress, and the 1935 Continental Congress of Workers and Farmers. Evaluations of the 1935 congress and its effectiveness are included. In 1938 his letters to the leaders of the major international labor unions sought support for the Labor Delegation to Mexico, apparently without much success. Senior also wrote a telegram-resolution to the President of the United States that was signed by a great number of people. It expressed concern that Mexico might become a new-world Spain. The seizure of American owned oil wells by Mexico, the delicate relations that ensued, and a visit to Mexico by John L. Lewis, postponed the delegation indefinitely.
Much of the correspondence throughout pertains to Mexico and Latin America. There are numerous letters (some written in Spanish) to Mexican officials making arrangements for the AFSC C.O. work camps and service seminars in Mexico from 1939 to 1941. Senior's letters in behalf of his projected “Semester in Mexico” were written to the U.S. Department of State, other colleges and universities, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Lewis Hanke, Irving Leonard, and Hubert Herring, three men notable for their expertise in Latin American affairs and history. The letters treat conditions in Mexico, 1938-1941, and Mexican-American relations, 1938-1941. Senior's later correspondence sets forth his views on the post-war world and his own future plans.
Additional Senior papers include those originating after 1945, probably still in his personal custody; and the bulk of his papers when he was National Executive Secretary for the Socialist Party, which are at Duke University.
Administrative/Restriction Information
Presented by Clarence Senior, New York, N.Y., October 3, 1968. Accession Number: M68-308
Processed by the 1969 archives class and Dennis Rowley, March, 1971.
Contents List
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Correspondence
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Box
1
Folder
1
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1924-1928
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Box
1
Folder
2
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1929-1935
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Box
1
Folder
3
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1938, June - Aug.
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Box
1
Folder
4
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1938, Sept. - Dec.
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Box
1
Folder
5
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1939-1941, June 5
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Box
1
Folder
6
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1941, July - Dec.
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Box
1
Folder
7
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1942-1944
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Box
1
Folder
8
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1945
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Box
1
Folder
9
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American Friends Service Committee Seminars, 1939-1944
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Box
1
Folder
10
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Board of Economic Warfare: American Hemisphere Office: Research Assignments, Reports, and Memoranda, 1942
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Box
2
Folder
1
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Committee on Cultural Relations with Latin America
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Box
2
Folder
2
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Continental Congress of Workers and Farmers, 1935
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Box
2
Folder
3
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The Dove: Clippings and broadside, 1927-1930
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Box
2
Folder
4
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Kansas City Junior College Controversy: Clippings, 1924, 1926, Sept. - 1927, June
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Box
2
Folder
5
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Mexican Oil and Land Expropriations, 1938
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Box
2
Folder
6
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Midwest Student Conferences, 1925-1928
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Box
2
Folder
7-12
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National Executive Committee, Socialist Party of America, reports and memoranda, 1930-1936
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Box
2
Folder
13
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Paul Porter, 1927-1930
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Box
2
Folder
14
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University of Kansas City
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Box
2
Folder
15
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Semester in Mexico, 1941-1942
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