Summary Information
Alice Hageman Papers
1953-1993 (bulk 1967-1993)
Mss 852; PH Mss 852; PH Mss 852 (3)
4.6 cubic feet (12 archives boxes) and 14 photographs
Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)
Papers, mainly 1967-1993, of Alice Hageman, a social activist, lawyer, and Presbyterian minister, documenting her professional activities and in particular her interest in Cuban religious and political issues and Protestant ecumenism. Included are notes, publications, photographs, and correspondence with Cuban religious leaders such as Sergio Arce-Martinez of the Seminario Evangelico de Teologia about trips to Cuba from 1969 to 1993. Additional papers are organized around her involvement in organizations such as the Committee of Returned Volunteers and the Cuba Resource Center (1969-1985), of which she was a founder and initial staffer, and suits to which she was a plaintiff which concerned restrictions on travel to Cuba and access to Cuban publications.
English
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00852 ↑ Bookmark this ↑
Biography/History
Alice Hageman, social activist, attorney, and Presbyterian minister, was born on June 12, 1936 and raised in Somerville, New Jersey. She received her B.A. degree from the College of Wooster in 1958. After receiving her Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in 1962, she represented the World Student Christian Federation at the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris until 1965.
In 1967 Hageman was a representative of the University Christian Committee to investigate alleged CIA influence of the World University Service, an international mutual aid organization that fostered projects designed to improve facilities for students. In connection with the review of WUS Hageman wrote a lengthy report that concluded that CIA funds were laundered through the Foundation for Youth and Student Affairs.
After her return from Europe Hageman became involved in the establishment of the Committee of Returned Volunteers, serving as a member of the board and finance committee. In 1969 Hageman turned her attention to international issues as she made her first trip to Cuba sponsored by the Committee of Returned Volunteers. As a result of this and numerous trips to Cuba in subsequent years Hageman became a leader in establishing contacts with Cuba and in particular with the ecumenical religious movement in Cuba.
In 1970, as a result of the renewal of acquaintances with WSCF and Christian Peace Conference contacts, Hageman became active in the establishment of the Cuba Resource Center, an ecumenically-supported educational organization. The main purpose of the CRC was to provide information about Cuba to U.S. churches. During the early 1970s Hageman served as CRC coordinator. In addition, she was the administrator of the New York City office, editor of the newsletter, organizer of trips to Cuba, and editor of educational material. During this period her major editorial work included a collaboration with Philip E. Wheaton on Religion in Cuba Today: A New Church in a New Society (1971), a special issue of the Cuba Review on the status of women, and many articles on Cuba for the CRC newsletter.
In late 1971 when she moved to Boston to become Lentz lecturer at Harvard University Hageman ended her responsibility as CRC coordinator, and she limited her work to contributions to its newsletter.
In 1974 Hageman began legal studies at Northeastern University. After completing her degree in 1977, she established a community law practice (Keary, O'Laughlin, Olmstead, and Hageman) in Boston. In 1975 she was ordained as a Presbyterian minister and named pastor of the Church of the Covenant in Boston.
Hageman was one of the plaintiffs in two noted suits against the U.S. government. The suit Wald, Lowe, Morales, Bradley, Hageman et al. v. Donald Regan (1982) concerned restrictions on travel to Cuba and The Nation et al. v. Alexander M. Haig (1981-1982, also known as the Granma Suit) concerned a Presidential executive order which prohibited the importation of Cuban periodicals. For this suit Hageman was actively involved in gathering research material for the Center for Constitutional Rights as well as writing various articles regarding U.S. policies toward Cuba.
Closely related to these lawsuits was Hageman's founding in 1980 of the Boston Committee to End the Blockade (originally the Boston July 26th Committee). This committee sought to end U.S. economic blockade of Cuba by gathering and disseminating information, organizing travel, monitoring media coverage of Cuba, and lobbying for change of official policy.
Scope and Content Note
The Hageman papers are arranged as ORGANIZATIONAL FILES, LITIGATION, WRITINGS, CUBA TRIP FILES, and SUBJECT FILES. To a certain extent the series arrangement of the papers suggests false differentiations among Hageman's activities. The Boston Committee records in the ORGANIZATION FILES, for example, contain not only records of that organization but also information on travel to Cuba and the Granma suit, two subjects which are documented in other series. Researchers are encouraged to explore broadly in this collection.
The ORGANIZATIONAL FILES are arranged alphabetically by name, and they vary in size and content. Some represent organizations in which Hageman had a leadership role while other are groups with which she had limited contact, about which the contact is not documented in the papers, or about which she merely collected information. Files of the Cuba Resource Center, the Committee of Returned Volunteers, and the Boston Committee to End the Blockade are among the largest group of records in the collection and although Hageman's work with all three was substantial, for none was she the custodian of the official organizational files. Nevertheless, all three files are of research importance for none are known to have official collections in archival custody.
Organizational files from Hageman's early career are quite sketchy and preparation of the portion of the preceding biographical sketch which parallels that portion of her life was consequently difficult to write accurately.
About the Boston Committee to End the Blockade there is correspondence, handwritten notes, reference material, financial records, and lists of names. Of special interest is a newsletter of the Covenant Church containing a short article by Hageman, some correspondence regarding the Granma suit, and a sample of the form sent out by the committee to collect information on the effects of the publication blockade. Overall, however, the records of this organization are sketchy.
The three folders on the Christian Peace Conference concern Hageman's participation in a committee on reorganization which examined the role of the U.S. Association of the CPC in 1971-1972 and which urged continued interaction with Marxists and socialists. About this there are minutes, correspondence, printed material, and a printed report of the Youth Commission of the CPC to which Hageman was a contributor.
Although the files on the Committee of Returned Volunteers, which began in 1966, are not complete and they fail to indicate Hageman's role in the group's early history, they are still of considerable value. Hageman's files include information for the committee-sponsored trip to Cuba in 1969 (together with notes on an interview with Lazaro Mora), records of the finance committee (she was CRV treasurer in 1969), restricted membership records, and many revisions of the committee's policy statement on Vietnam. The records reflect Hageman's involvement not only in the national organization, but also in the New York City chapter, and her extensive file of the local newsletter has been transferred to the SHSW Library. The most detailed documentation of Hageman's involvement with the CRV can be found in the progression of the Vietnam position papers drafts, complete with her handwritten editorial comments. In addition, the Nominating Committee file includes correspondence between members, information on candidates, and documentation of the organization's election procedures. Hageman's personal notes and tallies are also included.
Clear documentation of Hageman's role in the organization of the Cuba Resource Center in 1970 is similarly absent from the papers, although it is clear that by the fall of 1970 she had assumed a leadership role in the New York City office. Although Hageman moved to Boston late in 1971 she continued to be active in the organization and to collect important documentation, and her papers contain copies of many records prepared by her successors, Mary Lou Suhor and Elise Higginbotham. About the CRC there is correspondence, general papers, council minutes, administrative reports, and many notes and notebooks. Some of the most detailed documentation of Hageman's involvement with the CRC can be found in the correspondence and minutes of the CRC newsletter. The newsletter itself (later called the Cuba Review and CUBATIMES) is available in the Wisconsin Historical Society Library. A few brochures and a resource packet, “100 Years of Struggle,” are housed with the records, however. Also part of the records are draft project proposals and several mimeographed trip reports. Of special interest is the file about the criticism of the CRC contained in a 60 Minutes episode about the National Council of Churches in 1983 and a related attack launched by the Institute on Religion and Democracy.
Hageman's World University Service files contain information and drafts of the report prepared concerning CIA infiltration of the organization as well as research material used. The background files consist of minutes, correspondence, and reports, dating from the 1950s about WUS and its relationship with the International Union of Students and the National Student Association. (The source of these documents is not indicated.)
Files on the Young Lords and the Quaker Action Group's Culebra Project (each a single folder) contain limited information about Hageman's role.
The LITIGATION FILES relate to the two foreign policy suits against the government in which Hageman was a plaintiff. About the Granma suit there are notes on Center for Constitutional Rights meetings and petitions, but nothing regarding the actual litigation. The Wald case, however, is represented by a number of court documents.
The TRIP FILES document travel to Cuba which Hageman organized or participated in during the 1980s that was not sponsored by the Cuba Resource Center. Included are correspondence and notes. A substantial portion of this correspondence consists of exchanges with Sergio Arce-Martinez and Dora Valentin of the Seminario Evangelico de Teologia in Matanzas, Cuba, and various ecumenical leaders in the United States. The notes represent planning activities as well as information about her own trips.
Hageman's WRITINGS are only incompletely represented here. There are no sermons and nothing on either Sexist Religion and Women in the Church, which she edited in 1974, or on her article on Cuba in Capitalist Patriarchy: the Case for Socialist Feminism (1978). About Religion in Cuba Today there is only a printed volume. There is, however, an interesting file on the reaction to her article in New World Outlook, correspondence on the preparation of the Cuba Times special issue on women in Cuba and on the preparation of articles about Cuba for other publications, and multiple drafts of an essay, “Women in the Cuban Revolution.” Printed versions of a few other short pieces are also included.
The alphabetically-arranged SUBJECT FILES contain material culled from Hageman's research files. Publications in this file were transferred to the Historical Society Library and the U.W. Memorial Library and the clippings were returned to the donor. Remaining are a substantial number of unpublished papers and essays which primarily deal with Cuba, the church in Cuba, and the women's movement. Also with the subject files are records about the Columbia University strike of 1968 as this material was not appropriate for inclusion in other series. The strike files include pamphlets, nearprint material, and many listings of special liberation classes of which Hageman, then a campus pastor, taught one offering. The miscellaneous correspondence arranged here contains two interesting letters from a former women's movement associate who was living in Beijing. Also of note is a transcription of a 1972 Congressional conference on U.S-Cuban relations.
Administrative/Restriction Information
Presented by Alice Hageman, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, 1994. Accession Number: M94-210
Processed by Angela I. Fritz (archives intern) and Carolyn J. Mattern, 1995.
Contents List
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Mss 852
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Series: Organization Files
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Boston Committee to End the Blockade
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Box
1
Folder
1
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Financial records, 1980-1984
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Box
1
Folder
2-3
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General information, 1980-1984
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Christian Peace Conference
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Box
1
Folder
4
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Christian-Marxist Encounter Group, 1972-1974
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Box
1
Folder
5
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United States Committee, Minutes and general papers, 1971
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Box
1
Folder
6
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Youth Commission, Documents of, 1960-1970
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Committee of Returned Volunteers
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Box
1
Folder
7
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By-laws, 1960-1970
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Cuba trip, 1969
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Box
1
Folder
8
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General papers
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Box
1
Folder
9
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Notes
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Box
1
Folder
10
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Finance Committee, 1967-1971
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Box
1
Folder
11
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General information, 1967-1970
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Box
2
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Membership lists, 1967
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Box
3
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Membership and dues cards
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Box
4
Folder
1
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Nominating Committee, 1967-1969
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Box
4
Folder
2
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Office manual
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Box
4
Folder
3
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Vietnam position paper, 1967
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Cuba Resource Center
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Box
4
Folder
4-6
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Correspondence, 1969-1978, 1985
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Box
4
Folder
7-11
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General papers, 1969-1985
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Box
5
Folder
1
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Minutes, 1970-1975
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Box
5
Folder
2-3
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Newsletter Committee, 1971-1975
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Box
5
Folder
4-5
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Notebooks, 1971, 1973, undated
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Box
5
Folder
6
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Project proposals, 1977, undated
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Box
5
Folder
7-8
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Publications
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Box
5
Folder
9
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Reports, 1970-1978
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Box
5
Folder
10
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60 Minutes charges, 1983
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Box
5
Folder
11
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Trip reports, 1971, 1973, undated
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Box
6
Folder
1
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Trip miscellany
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Box
6
Folder
2
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National Council of Churches, Policy statement on Latin America, 1983
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Box
6
Folder
3
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Quaker Action Group, Culebra, 1970-1971
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Box
6
Folder
4
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UNESCO, 1966-1968
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Box
6
Folder
5
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United Methodist Church Latin American Task Force, 1967-1971
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World University Service
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Box
6
Folder
6
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Background, 1953-1957
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Box
6
Folder
7
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Minutes, 1967
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Box
6
Folder
8
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Report, 1967
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Box
6
Folder
9
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Young Lords, 1970
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Series: Litigation Files
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Box
6
Folder
10-11
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Granma Suit, 1981-1982
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Box
7
Folder
1
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Wald, 1982
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Series: Trip File
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Box
7
Folder
2-3
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Travel correspondence, 1979-1993
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General papers
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Box
8
Folder
1
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1979 Update
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Box
8
Folder
2-3
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1980, General and notebook
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Box
8
Folder
4-6
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1982, Volunteers in Mission, General and notebook
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1985, Colloquium on Theological Education for Global Solidarity
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Box
8
Folder
7-8
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General
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Box
8
Folder
9
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Applications
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1989
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Box
8
Folder
10
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Notebook
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Box
9
Folder
1
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General
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Box
9
Folder
2
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1993, Notebook
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Series: Writings
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Box
9
Folder
3
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New World Outlook article background and response, circa 1970
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Box
9
Folder
4
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Religion in Cuba Today, printed volume, 1971
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Box
9
Folder
5
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Women in Transition special issue of Cuba Review, 1974
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Box
9
Folder
6
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Cuba, People-Questions, 1974-1975
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Box
9
Folder
7
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Three Worlds of Marxist Encounters, 1982-1985
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Box
9
Folder
8
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“Women in the Cuban Revolution,” drafts, undated
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Box
9
Folder
9
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Miscellaneous short writings, 1970, undated
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Series: Subject Files
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Columbia University strike, 1968
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Box
10
Folder
1
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General materials
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Box
10
Folder
2
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Publications
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Cuba
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Box
10
Folder
3-5
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General
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Box
10
Folder
6
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Exiles
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Box
10
Folder
7
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U.S. relations (Transcription of 1972 Congressional conference)
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Box
11
Folder
1-2
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Women
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Miscellany
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Box
11
Folder
3
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Miscellaneous correspondence
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Box
11
Folder
4-6
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Miscellaneous essays
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Box
11
Folder
7
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Miscellaneous organizations
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PH Mss 952
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Photographs
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PH Mss 952 (3)
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Oversize Photographs
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Mss 852
Box
11
Folder
8-9
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Puerto Rico
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Box
11
Folder
10
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Women's Liberation
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