Hello blog,
The Pettus papers currently span 15 boxes, and correspondence with eye-catching figures remains randomly interspersed between Treasurer reports and newspaper clippings. This week, I have spent the majority of my time reorganizing the first two boxes, consolidating folders where I can and recording every correspondence sent to/from Pettus and the California College in China. Preliminarily, Pettus and his secretary, A.G. Beaman, make up the majority of the correspondence, but several thick folders on the Seeley Mudd Professorship connect to the Claremont Colleges.
Seeley G. Mudd was a professor at USC who sponsored a visiting professorship at CCIC where prominent scholars from around California would enjoy a year-long fellowship in Beijing. There, they would teach and conduct fieldwork in the ‘Orient’. The first Seeley G. Mudd professor was Professor Russell Story, a professor of political science at Pomona College. Within these files, there is also a substantial amount of correspondence from C.K. Edmunds, a professor of physics and president of Pomona College. He built Frary dining hall, a staple on campus. James Blaisdell also wrote letters in support of Professor Story, and seeing the name of my freshman year dorm in files from the early 20th century is very surreal.
Pettus and other figures in the CCIC were in Beijing as Japan invaded Korea and China. This next week, I’m hoping to dig through their confidential reports to the board of trustees, as well as substantial coordination with the YMCA and the U.S. State Department regarding World War II.
Returning to the boxes,
Evelyn Hao