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Preliminary Inventory: 1994
(revised 1996, 1998)
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The Caroline Bond Day Papers were received
by the Peabody Museum shortly after Day completed her master's thesis
with Harvard anthropologist Earnest A. Hooton, and published A Study
of Some Negro-White Families in the United States (1932). The
collection was disorganized and under-used for more than fifty years.
In 1991 an undergraduate and now graduate student in anthropology at
Harvard, Paulette Curtis, began working on the collection as a
work-study curatorial assistant for the Collections Department, under
the guidance of Elizabeth Gibson, T. Rose Holdcraft, and Kathleen
Skelly. Gary Albright and Karen Motylewski at New England Document
Conservation Center provided consultation. In 1993, a National
Endowment for the Humanities grant was awarded to complete the
processing of the collection.
The second phase of processing was coordinated by Elizabeth Sandager,
Archivist. Many people assisted with the tasks of preservation and
rehousing of the collection, photographic reproduction of the
genealogical charts, editing, and computer inputting, while Ms.
Curtis focused on identification of the photographs and publicity of
the collection. We would like to acknowledge the following
individuals for their contributions in processing the Day Papers:
Philip Alexander, Scott Fulton, Catherine McHale, Elizabeth Morse,
Morgan Schmidt, and Scott Spurlock.
Additional assistance was provided by Michele Armstrong, Austin
Brennan, Kathy Bolger, Hillel Burger, Genevieve Fisher, Ross Jolly,
Martha Labell, Richard Riccio, and Amy Wolff Cay. This project could
not have been accomplished without the continued support of Adele
Alexander, Randall Burkett, Lawrence Dowler, Lawrence Flynn,
Jacqueline Goggin, Barbara Isaac, and David Pilbeam.
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Caroline Stewart Bond Day (1889-1948)
Caroline Stewart Bond Day (CBD) was born on
November 18, 1889, in Montgomery, Alabama, to Georgia and Moses
Stewart. The Stewart family lived in Boston for several years. After
CBD's father's death, her mother moved the family to Tuskegee,
Alabama; there Georgia Stewart taught school and married John Percy
Bond, a life insurance company executive. CBD adopted her
stepfather's last name. Georgia and John Bond had two children
together, a daughter, Wenonah Bond Logan, and a son, Jack Bond.
CBD was admitted in 1905 to Atlanta University High School in
Atlanta, Georgia. In 1908, she entered the College at Atlanta
University, from which she received the Bachelor of Arts degree in
1912. After graduation, CBD taught English for a year at Alabama
State College in Montgomery, and worked for the Young Women's
Christian Association (YWCA) in Montclair, New Jersey. In 1916, CBD
entered Radcliffe College, majoring in English and Classical
Literature. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree.
CBD was introduced to the field of anthropology in a class at
Radcliffe taught by Earnest A. Hooton. During her senior year, she
began collecting the physiological and sociological information on
'mixed' families which would lead to her publication A Study of Some
Negro-White Families in the United States (1932). In her Radcliffe
yearbook and alumna record, CBD listed social service work, not
anthropology, as her ultimate career goal.
Following graduation from Radcliffe, CBD was employed by a variety of
institutions. In 1919, she worked briefly in New York City in relief
and support services for black soldiers and their families, and also
served as student secretary of the National Board of the YWCA. Later
that year, she moved to Waco, Texas, where she taught English at Paul
Quinn College and Prairie View College in Houston, Texas. In March of
1920, Caroline Bond married Aaron Day (AD), a chemistry teacher at
Prairie View College. AD had graduated from Prairie View in 1919, and
served overseas during World War I. After his marriage, AD joined the
National Benefit Life Insurance Company as a salesman. CBD's
stepfather was also employed in this company. Because of AD's
frequent promotions in the life insurance business, the Days moved
several times during the next two decades. In 1922, they lived in
Atlanta, Georgia, where CBD began teaching English and drama at her
alma mater, Atlanta University. She remained there until 1929. During
this period, she also published some essays and short stories,
including the clearly autobiographical tale "The Pink Hat"
(Sollors).
The research that CBD began with Hooton in her senior year at
Radcliffe (1919) was "continued only in her spare time" over the next
thirteen years. In 1927, when Hooton received a grant from the Bureau
of International Research (BIR) of Harvard University and Radcliffe
College, CBD received funds to support her research. While working in
Hooton's lab, CBD collected and analyzed physiological and
sociological information on 346 families, with the help of her
half-sister, Wenonah Bond. This information was compiled in the 1928
manuscript "Preliminary Notes on Sociological Data for Negro-White
Crosses." CBD took a leave from the project because of exhaustion and
a rheumatic heart condition, and returned to Atlanta University for
the 1928-29 school year. She again taught English and was said to
have given the first class in anthropology ever offered at Atlanta
University. With a graduate fellowship from the BIR, CBD returned to
Radcliffe in late 1929 to complete her study, which culminated in the
award of the Master of Arts degree in 1930.
CBD's thesis was prepared for publication in the 1932 Harvard African
Studies series Varia Africana. In 1930, the Days moved to Washington,
D.C., where CBD taught and did social work. About this time, she
befriended a young boy, Bernard (b. 1926) whom the Days adopted
(although not legally). Bernard took their name as his own, becoming
Bernard Aaron Day. From 1930 to 1933, CBD taught English at Howard
University. In 1934, she became director of a settlement house in
Washington, D.C., and AD joined the North Carolina Mutual Life
Insurance Co. In 1937, CBD was appointed general secretary of the
Phyllis Wheatley Branch of the Washington, D.C., YWCA.
In late 1939, the Day family moved to Durham, North Carolina, where
AD was promoted to the head office of the North Carolina Mutual Life
Insurance Company. CBD taught English and drama at North Carolina
College for Negroes (now North Carolina Central University), but was
forced to resign due to recurrent illness. Apart from some
unpublished writings and occasional brief teaching assignments, the
rest of CBD's life was devoted to, among other things, "gardening,
specializing in the Hawaiian hybiscus [sic]." She read voraciously
and participated in Durham's active club life. Although a stroke
(with ensuing paralysis of an arm) hampered CBD's bridge-playing, a
friend fashioned a stand for her out of plywood to help in dealing
cards. On May 5, 1948, CBD died of cardiac complications. Her husband
retired from North Carolina Mutual in 1960, two years after being
elected Vice President and Agency Director. AD died in 1963.
Sources
Alexander, Adele Logan. "Day, Caroline
Stewart Bond." In Black Women in
America: An Historical Encyclopedia,
Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Brooklyn: Carlson Publishing, 1993.
Alexander, Adele Logan. Interview of 10/17/93, with Elizabeth E.
Sandager.
Boris, Joseph. "Day, Caroline Stewart Bond." In Who's Who in Colored America: A Biographical Dictionary of
Notable Living Persons of Negro Descent in America. v.1. New York: Who's Who in Colored America Corp.
1927.
Day, Bernard. Interview of 6/23/93, with Elizabeth E. Sandager.
DuBois, W.E.B., ed. "A Study of Some Negro-White Families in the U.S.
In The Crisis." (December 1932) no. 2 : 385.
Edmonds, Helen G. Interview of 6/23/93, with Elizabeth E.
Sandager.
Hooton, Earnest A. "Radcliffe Investigates Race Mixture."
Harvard Alumni
Bulletin. (April 3, 1930) no.27 :
768-776.
Radcliffe College Archives. Afro-American Students at Radcliffe. SC96.
Ross, Hubert B. "Caroline Bond Day: Pioneer Black Female
Anthropologist." Paper presented at the American Anthropological
Association (November 1983).
Sollors, Werner, Caldwell Titcomb and Thomas A. Underwood, eds.,
"Caroline Bond Day," Blacks at
Harvard: A Documentary History of African-American Experience at
Harvard and Radcliffe. New York: New
York University Press, 1993: 177-180.
Williamson, Joel. New People:
Miscegenation and Mulattos in the United States. New York: Free Press, 1980.
The Papers reflect CBD's research interests
between 1918 and 1931, and also represent some of the issues which
engaged E.A. Hooton in the field of physical anthropology. The
documents cover the period from 1890 to 1931; however, the bulk of
the material dates from 1918 to 1931. The collection occupies
thirty-five boxes. Included are correspondence; anthropometry forms;
questionnaires; tables; guides for taking measurements; family
histories; genealogical charts, with corresponding photographic
negatives and prints, and hair samples; and manuscripts for her
publication, A Study of Some Negro-White Families in the United
States. The Papers also include materials CBD collected to aid in her
research, such as news clippings, pamphlets, books, and manuscripts
by other researchers. Included is a speech given by Earnest A. Hooton
to Howard University students in 1929.
The intent of the study, according to CBD, was to develop a "real
cross-section of life among colored people of mixed blood in this
country." The categories which CBD identified in her study were
Negro, Indian, and White. She gathered sociological and genealogical
data from at least 346 families, including 1,385 individuals born
after 1860 and living in the East and in the South. CBD conducted
interviews with families in Atlanta, Boston, Washington, D.C., and
other cities. The majority of the photographs in the collection are
copies of originals sent to CBD, which she returned. Although CBD
never completed the sociological and genealogical aspects of the
study to her satisfaction, the papers contain significant information
relating to family life, housing, occupations and salaries, religious
affiliations, education, special interests, and political activities.
Unfortunately, there are no interview notes included in the
Papers.
Variations in names observed throughout the finding aid are
attributable to discrepancies and inconsistencies in the data itself.
For example, the name "Braithwaite" appears on a questionnaire as
"Braithwaite" and on a genealogical chart as "Branthwaite."
Variations also occur for married women. Errors of transcription
occur on the index cards, charts, correspondence, and forms, and no
effort has been made to establish consistency or uniformity.
Bracketed information indicates alternative spellings, married names,
or other plausible variations.
The ordering of the series reflects CBD's working methodology, and
the tools she used in compiling her book. The series include:
Correspondence of Caroline Bond Day; Anthropometry Forms;
Questionnaires, Tables, and Guides; Family Histories; Genealogical
Charts, Index, Photographs, and Hair Samples; Manuscripts; and Print
Materials.
In 1994, Caroline's niece Adele Logan Alexander, generously donated a photograph of CBD (c. 1897), and two of her Radcliffe yearbooks (1917, 1919) to the PM Archives. These items were added to the CBD Papers, although they are a separate accession (994-72).
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