Homer A. Jack Papers

The papers of Homer A. Jack have come to the Swarthmore College Peace Collection in multiple accessions, beginning in 1970. The first accession, fourteen cartons of material, was transferred to document boxes and listed in a temporary checklist soon after it arrived in May 1970. The arrangement was based on the order in which the material was found, each carton being assigned to a separate series.

Accessions which arrived from 1974 to 1984 contained both papers of Homer Jack and records of organizations, including the World Conference on Religion and Peace (DG 78), the NGO Committee on Disarmament (at United Nations Headquarters) (DG 139), the U.S. Inter-Religious Committee on Peace (later World Council on Relgion and Peace/USA) (DG 59), as well as general reference material. It has been up to the SCPC staff to determine in which collection the material belonged and how it should be arranged. Extensive processing work on the World Council on Relgion and Peace collection and on a large part of the Homer Jack collection was accomplished in 1983-1984 as part of a processing project supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. It was decided that both the 1970 material and the later accessions would be thoroughly processed and that a simpler, more logical arrangement of the collection would be established. Additional processing (Series VI-VIII) was done in 1988-1989.

As of October 1989, nine series have been established. Note that each series begins with Box 1.

Series I consists of biographical information and early journals and miscellany. This series corresponds to the old series I of the 1970 checklist. Later biographies, Homer Jack's passports, and other items have been added to the series.

Series II consists of correspondence which is restricted, arranged in chronological order. Boxes 1 - 4 (Correspondence, 1920-1943), are restricted due to poor condition. Boxes 5 - 7 contain personal and family correspondence which has been removed from Homer Jack's general correspondence and placed in a separate series at the request of Homer Jack. Researchers wishing to use material in this series must have the permission of Peace Collection Curator before access will be granted.

Series III consists of general correspondence, arranged by year. In the earlier years, some boxes contain separate folders of correspondence on particular subjects. During processing, flyers about speaking engagements and miscellaneous material found with the correspondence have been removed to separate folders but kept in thesame box. Personal and family correspondence has been moved to Series II, and speeches and writings found mixed in with correspondence have been moved to Series IV. The correspondence itself is in the order in which it was found which is roughly chronological.

Researchers should note that Homer Jack's correspondence as executive secretary of SANE (1960-1964), as secretary general of World Council on Relgion and Peace (1970-1983), and as chairman of the NGO Committee on Disarmament (at United Nations Headquarters) will be found with those collections rather than in DG 63.

Series IV contains sermons, speeches, and writings of Homer Jack, arranged by type of material, then by date. Some of the speeches from the 1940s-1960s are grouped by subject. Speeches and writings found with related material are filed in Series VI through IX.

Series V consists of diaries, journals, and field notes arranged by date. Many of these are pocket-sized notebooks in which Homer Jack took notes while travelling to gather material for his writing projects or while attending meetings. There are also several typed journals of his travel experiences and office logs in which he kept track of his appointments.

Series VI through IX are entitled "Organizational Work, Projects, Travel, and Interests" and contain a variety of kinds of material. Each series covers a different time period, as follows:

Series VI, 1943-1959, covers the period when Homer Jack lived and worked in Chicago and Evanston, Illinois.

Series VII, 1960-1969, covers the time when he lived in Scarsdale, New York, while working for the American Committee on Africa and for SANE and the years in Boston, Massachusetts, when he worked with the Unitarian Universalist Association.

Series VIII, 1970-1983, covers the years when Homer Jack served as Secretary-General of the World Conference on Religion and Peace. He was based in New York near the United Nations but travelled widely during these years.

Series IX, 1984-date, is not yet fully processed but is available to researchers. It covers the years in Winnetka, Illinois, and in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.

Within Series VI through IX, the arrangement is roughly chronological, with materials relating to the same organization or project kept together. There are some instances where the time periods of the series have been disregarded in order to keep similar kinds of material together (e.g., Schweitzer material in Series VI and material on disarmament in Series VII).

Accessions of material have been added to DG 063 after the majority of the collection was processed. These later accessions remain unprocessed, but temporary finding aids are available. This material remains organized by accession and in the manner in which it was donated.