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Hawkins (Alma) papers
LSC.2182
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Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections
Title: Alma Hawkins papers
Creator:
Hawkins, Alma M.
Identifier/Call Number: LSC.2182
Physical Description:
21.8 Linear Feet
(32 boxes, 8 flat storage boxes, 4 record cartons)
Date (inclusive): 1919-1998
Abstract: This collection contains the professional and personal files of Alma Hawkins, the creator and original chair of the UCLA Dance
Department; faculty member at UCLA, George Williams College, and Santa Monica College; and practicing dance therapist.
Physical Location: Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Language of Material: Materials are in English.
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
CONTAINS UNPROCESSED AUDIO AND AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS: Audio and audiovisual materials are not currently available for access
and will require further processing and assessment. If you have questions about this material please email spec-coll@library.ucla.edu.
RESTRICTED ACCESS: Use of audio and moving image material requires production of listening and viewing copies.
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Property rights to the physical object belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. Literary rights, including copyright, are
retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright
and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where UCLA Library Special Collections does not
hold the copyright.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Gift of Linda Gold, 2013.
[Identification of item], Alma Hawkins Papers (Collection 2182). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research
Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Processed by Mathew Sandoval in the Center for Primary Research and Training (CFPRT), with assistance from Jasmine Jones,
2014.
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UCLA Catalog Record ID:
9975427973606533
Alma Hawkins (1904-1998) was a pioneering dance administrator and educator who wrote a number of books about dance education
and composition. Hawkins helped to establish the field of dance therapy, and founded the nation's first autonomous university
dance department at UCLA.
Hawkins was born in the rural town of Rolla, Missouri, daughter of a dairy man and a homemaker. Having no outlets or training
for dance, her early interests as a young girl were in athletics. With the help of her high school basketball coach, Hawkins
was able to attend the University of Missouri, where she majored in physical education and received her first exposure to
interpretive, folk, and social dancing.
Upon graduating in 1927, Hawkins returned to Rolla, MO to teach physical education at the local high school, where she also
began teaching dance and choreographing for local recitals and pageants. She eventually left Missouri for New York City in
1931 to work on a Master's degree at Columbia University's prestigious Teachers College. Hawkins received her degree from
Columbia in 1932 and remained in New York City to teach physical education and dance at the YWCA, while also participating
in the developing but vibrant modern dance scene of downtown New York.
In 1938 she moved to Chicago to begin teaching at George Williams College teaching physical education and dance courses, while
also helping to build a large national community of university educators to support modern dance. In the late 1940s, during
her tenure at George Williams College, she began to spend her summers in New York to work on her PhD at the Columbia Teachers
College. Her doctoral research focused on the integration of dance in physical education programs and the function of modern
dance in university education, and, by 1952, she received her PhD.
Her growing reputation as a national figure in dance and physical education led to her being recruited to join the faculty
of the UCLA Physical Education Department in 1953. Collaborating with a number of other dance faculty within the Physical
Education Department, Hawkins oversaw the development of a dance major in the department. This eventually paved the way for
a split in the department between dance and physical education, which was encouraged by the university, culminating in the
institution of dance as an autonomous department, replete with its own graduate program, in 1962. Hawkins chaired and taught
in the newly formed UCLA Dance Department until her retirement in 1977.
During her tenure at UCLA, Hawkins also served as a dance therapist and researcher at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute
from 1960-1977, making a number of dance therapy films, while also finding time to form the Council of Dance Administrators,
a national organization that created the guidelines and standards for national dance accreditation.
Upon Hawkins' retirement from UCLA, she taught as a distinguished professor at Santa Monica College until 1987. Over the
course of her career, Hawkins authored four books including Modern Dance in Higher Education (1953), Creating through Dance
(1963), Dance – A Projection for the Future (1968), and Moving from Within (1991). Hawkins died in her Santa Monica home
in 1998.
This collection includes the professional and personal files of Alma Hawkins, the creator and original chair of the UCLA Dance
Department, the nation's first autonomous university department dedicated to the discipline of Dance. Significant topics
represented in the collection are papers documenting the creation of the UCLA Dance Department; national and local articles
profiling Hawkins and the UCLA Dance Department; Hawkins' work with the Council of Dance Administrators, in establishing guidelines
and curricula for university dance program accreditation; published and unpublished manuscripts, articles, conference papers,
and speeches; research and evaluations from her work at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute; and personal ephemera from her
youth, including items from her time at Columbia Teachers College, University of Missouri, and photos from her time at the
Bennington College summer program for modern dance, which feature Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, Martha Graham, Hanya Holm,
and John Martin. Materials in the collection are largely textual, comprising notes, articles, agendas, publications, correspondences,
memos, publications, and books. Among other formats scattered throughout the collection are photographs, videocassettes (Beta
and VHS), audiocassettes, and artifacts, such as plaques and awards.
The collection is arranged in five series. In many cases, original folder titles have been kept.
- Series 1: Administrative (1926-1998)
- Series 2: Writings (1930-1995)
- Series 3: Teaching (1935-1993)
- Series 4: Dance Therapy (1964-1997)
- Series 5: Personal (1919-1998)