Title: Carlisle V. Hibbard Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1811-1954

Creator:

• Hibbard, Carlisle V., d. 1954

Call Number: Wis Mss QN; PH 1556

Quantity: 2.0 c.f. (5 archives boxes) and 95 photographs (1 album)

Repository:

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

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

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

Abstract:

Papers, primarily family correspondence, 1902-1954, of Carlisle Hibbard, a Y.M.C.A. executive involved with World War I and II relief work, and of his daughter, Esther L. Hibbard, a missionary and educator in Japan. The letters from the Hibbards' stay in East Asia (1902-1914) and during Esther's teaching career (1929-1940, 1946-1952) describe customs, living conditions, and Japanese culture. Described are Carlisle's work in prisoner of war camps (1915-1924), and general conditions in Europe, particularly Russia in 1922. Carlisle's office correspondence (1943-1944) from the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council concerns efforts to get interned students back into colleges. Photographs document Hibbard's 1904-1905 time in Manchuria and Korea.
Also included are 15 letters from Daniel Densmore, most written while he served in the Union Army during the Civil War, concerning the 1864 Sanitary Fair in St. Louis, Indian skirmishes in Minnesota, and conditions in the lower Mississippi region.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-wis000qn

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Carlisle V. Hibbard

Carlisle V. Hibbard and Sue Eugenia Lowell were married in August, 1902. He was the son of a school principal in Racine, Wisconsin and she, the daughter of a Janesville, Wisconsin businessman. The couple had three children, Esther, Lowell, and Russell. Lowell died in Dairen, Manchuria in 1914. At the time of Mr. Hibbard's death, Nov. 28, 1954, Esther was Dean of Doshisha Women's College, Kyoto, Japan; and Russell was an executive with General Motors in Detroit.

C. V. Hibbard's life was spent in the service of the Y.M.C.A., and every position he had was concerned with the work of that organization or with students. His years of service may be divided thus:

1902-1914	Student Secretary for the International Committee of the Y.M.C.A.; working in Japan, Korea, and Manchuria with students and soldiers.
1915-1924	Associate General Secretary for the International Committee of the Y.M.C.A.; working in prisoner of war camps during and after World War I, in Germany, Russia, Italy, France, Japan, Great Britain, and the United States.
1924-1940	Secretary of the Y.M.C.A. at the University of Wisconsin.
1941-1942	Y.M.C.A. representative in raising funds for prisoner of war work, traveling and lecturing.
1943-1944	Executive Secretary of the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council, Swarthmore College.
1944-1953	Secretary of the University of Wisconsin Y.M.C.A. Board of Trustees. Spearheaded the drive to raise one half million dollars for the new Y.M.C.A. building.

Esther L. Hibbard

Particular attention is called to the career of Esther Hibbard, as her correspondence makes up a large portion of the collection. Most of the years after 1929 she was a missionary and teacher in Japan. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1924, took her MA at the University of Wisconsin, and taught at Central High School in Madison for three years. In 1927 she attended summer school at the University of Colorado, in 1928 went to Europe, and in 1929 began her career as a missionary to Japan. This was interrupted by periodic furloughs and by World War II. She returned to the United States in 1941, took her doctorate at the University of Michigan in 1944, and taught the next two years at Northwestern University. After the war, in 1946, she went back to Japan to teache at Doshisha University and in 1950 became Dean of Doshisha Women's College, a branch of the University.

The Papers of Carlisle V. Hibbard include documents dated as early as 1811, Civil War letters of a Union soldier who was kin, and correspondence of the family between 1902 and 1954. At least half of the Hibbard papers are composed of personal letters on small family matters of little value except insofar as they reveal the type of family they were. However, the papers are a good chronicle of the careers within a family devoted to public service and Christian leadership.

The album of photographs relates to experiences of Carlisle Hibbard in Manchuria and Korea, and includes group portraits and images of camp life and activities, 1904-1905.

The correspondence of the C. V. Hibbard family while they lived in the Orient (1902-1914) gives much descriptive material on customs, living conditions, and Japanese culture. Most of this is found in personal letters, as there are few letters directly related to “Y” work. At Mr. Hibbard's direction, the family was careful not to write in any manner that could be misconstrued by Japan in case published excerpts from such letters ever found their way back to that country.

Letters from Hibbard to his family (then living in New York state) during the years when he was in Europe give some insight into conditions there at the time. This is particularly true of his comments on Russia in 1922.

From this collection it is not possible to glean very much information on the Y.M.C.A. at the University of Wisconsin during C. V. Hibbard's 16 years there. However, throughout his correspondence after 1910 he frequently mentions problems and incidents connected with raising funds for the Y.M.C.A.

Hibbard's office correspondence in connection with the National Student Relocation Council during World War II gives much information on the work of that council. When Japanese American students were taken from colleges and universities and interned in camps, this council undertook to help them get back into institutions of learning. This was an official agency of the War Relocation Authority.

C. V. Hibbard had two brothers; Darrell is occasionally referred to in the letters, and was engaged in Y.M.C.A. work also. During World War II he was located in New York in connection with Greek relief. Addison taught in Japanese and American universities and became Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Northwestern University. Although there are several letters from Addison to their father, D. O. Hibbard, in the summer of 1921, his other letters are few.

Esther Hibbard's letters from Japan are largely concerned with small matters, and yet they provide interesting commentary on Japanese life as seen by a well-informed and sympathetic foreign observer. The comments on political events are fairly limited in scope, but there is a little material on the Manchurian invasion, made more interesting by the fact that both Miss Hibbard and her father had some personal acquaintance with that area. There is also some material, in the years from 1936 to 1941, on the Japanese war effort insofar as she was able to observe it. One comment in the letters, that people were a little careful about discussing political subjects before her, indicates that she was not in a position to be able to acquire too much information by hearsay; most of her comments are based on watching what went on. The post-1946 material contains a small amount of comment on the military government, and more on conditions in post-war Japan.

The earliest of the C.V. Hibbard papers are documents dating from 1811 to 1856. Although most of these are deeds and mortgages involving transfer of land in the Benjamin Fowle family of New York state, two concern mortgages to which Charles Hanford was a party. Hanford was an uncle of Daniel Densmore, the author of Civil War letters in this collection.

Letters pre-dating the C. V. Hibbard family are worth noting only because they include fifteen from Daniel Densmore, a Union soldier. He briefly describes Indian skirmishes in Minnesota in the fall of 1863; preparations for the Sanitary Fair in St. Louis in the spring of 1864; and conditions in the lower Mississippi region in 1864. His description of the Sanitary Fair includes drawings of locations and buildings in the letter of April 19, 1864.

The connection between Densmore and the C. V. Hibbard family is vague, but it is quite probable that the relationship was through Mrs. Hibbard's family. Densmore wrote to Mrs. Russel Cheney and Libbie in 1864, calling them “Aunt Susan” and “Cousin Libbie”; and in 1881 he sent a telegram to Russel Cheney in care of Eugene Lowell. Grandpa Cheney wrote Libbie Lowell in 1883 that “Susie is a dear little girl.” This may have referred to Mrs. C. V. Hibbard, whose maiden name was Sue Eugenia Lowell, and who was called “Susie.”

Acquisition Information

Presented by Mrs. Carlisle V. Hibbard, July 27, 1954.

Wis Mss QN Box   5	1811-1921 Physical Description: 1 folder  Scope and Content Note: Deeds, mortgages, and business papers dating 1811-1921; included is a chart, dated Jan. 15, 1921, showing the organization of the International Y.M.C.A.
Box   1	1830-1895 Physical Description: 1 folder  Scope and Content Note: Collection of 15 Civil War letters and miscellaneous letters by antecedents of Mrs. C. V. Hibbard.
Box   1	1902-1915 Physical Description: 5 folders  Scope and Content Note: Hibbard family correspondence while he was engaged in Y.M.C.A. work in Japan, Korea, and Manchuria. Includes “Y” field work during the Russo-Japanese War.
Box   1	1915-1921 Physical Description: 2 folders  Scope and Content Note: Hibbard correspondence while he was “Y” field representative at prisoner of war camps during World War I and after.
Box   2	1921-1924 Physical Description: 2 folders  Scope and Content Note: Hibbard's correspondence while overseas secretary for Y.M.C.A. in Europe.
Box   2	1924-1928 Physical Description: 1 folder  Scope and Content Note: Family correspondence during the first years when Hibbard headed the Y.M.C.A. at the University of Wisconsin.
Box   2	1929-1935 Physical Description: 5 folders  Scope and Content Note: Chiefly letters from Esther Hibbard while a missionary in Japan.
Box   3	1935-1942 Scope and Content Note: Family correspondence while Esther was a missionary in Japan. Hibbard was with the Y.M.C.A., University of Wisconsin, until 1940, and then was connected with aid to prisoners of war through the Y.M.C.A.
Box   4	1935-1944, June Physical Description: 4 folders  Scope and Content Note: Family and business correspondence when Hibbard was Executive Secretary of the National Japanese American Relocation under the WRA.
Box   4	1944, July-1945 Physical Description: 1 folder  Scope and Content Note: Family correspondence. Esther is teaching at Northwestern and Mr. Hibbard is still with the Japanese American Relocation Council.
Box   4	1946-1947 Physical Description: 1 folder  Scope and Content Note: Family correspondence. Esther is teaching at Doshisha Women's College, Kyoto, Japan. Hibbard is raising funds for the University of Wisconsin Y.M.C.A.
Box   4	1944-1947 Physical Description: 1 folder  Scope and Content Note: Correspondence concerning relocation by Japanese Americans; including minutes of a 1945 meeting of Madison residents considering how to encourage relocation to the Madison area.
Box   5	1948-1949 Physical Description: 2 folders  Scope and Content Note: Chiefly Esther's letters from Japan.
Box   5	1950-1954 Physical Description: 2 folders  Scope and Content Note: Family correspondence; but chiefly Esther's letters from Japan and while on furlough in the U.S. lecturing at Bible institutes.
Box   5	Undated Physical Description: 1 folder  Scope and Content Note: Contains a summary account of C. V. Hibbard's Y.M.C.A. work in the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905. There are also copies of several speeches and radio talks that apparently Mrs. Hibbard gave about the Japanese.
PH 1556	Manchuria and Korea Photograph Album, 1904-1905