Finding aid for the Won Tai Sohn papers 3029

Sungjin Park, Sarah Cassone, and Diann Benti

USC Libraries East Asian Library

2021 October

Doheny Memorial Library

3550 Trousdale Parkway

Los Angeles, California 90089-1825

URL: http://libraries.usc.edu/locations/east-asian-library

Contributing Institution: USC Libraries East Asian Library

Title: Won Tai Sohn papers

Creator: Sohn, Won Tai, 1914-2004

Identifier/Call Number: 3029

Identifier/Call Number: /repositories/6/resources/1518

Physical Description: 5 Linear Feet 5 boxes

Date (inclusive): 1917-2004

Abstract: This small collection is comprised primarily of printed materials and manuscript drafts collected and created by Korean-American physician Won Tai Sohn (1914-2014), a close friend of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung (1912-1994). Items chiefly date from the 1970s to early 2000s and include articles, clippings, and drafts of Sohn's memoirs regarding his relationship with Sung. It also contains photographs, certificates, personal papers, and ephemera.

Language of Material: Collection is predominantly in Korean.

Biographical Note

Won Tai Sohn was born on August 11, 1914, in Seoul, Korea. He moved to the United States and graduated from Yonsei Severance Medical School in 1945. He attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, in 1949 and finished residency in pathology at Cook County Hospital in 1952. In 1965, Sohn completed a Clinical Cyptopathology course at Johns Hopkins. In 1972 he moved to Omaha, Nebraska, where he served sixteen years as a staff pathologist at Bishop Clarkson Hospital. He retired from both teaching and practicing medicine in 1986. In 1992, Sohn visited North Korea, rekindling his old friendship with the President at the time Kim Il Sung. In 2003, his book entitled "Kim Il Sung and Korea's Struggle: an Unconventional Firsthand History" was published by McFarland and Company.

Sohn passed away on September 28, 2014, in Omaha, Nebraska. He was survived by his wife Yoo Shin Lee, sons Dr. Carol Sohn and Rocky Sohn, and daughter Yonghi Sohn.

Scope and Contents

This small collection is comprised primarily of printed materials and manuscript drafts collected and created by Korean-American physician Won Tai Sohn (1914-2014), a close friend of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung (1912-1994). The majority of the collection (primarily in Korean) dates from the 1970s to early 2000s and is comprised of printed materials in the form of articles, clippings, pamphlets, books, reports, programs, and numerous early drafts of Sohn's memoirs, under its original working titles "The Divided Korean Peninsula: the Memoirs of Dr. Won Tai Sohn" and "My Relationship with Kim Il Sung (1918-1994): the Memoirs of Dr. Won Tai Sohn." The collection also contains personal photographs, albums, negatives, and certificates relating to Sohn's medical career, trip to North Korea in 1992 to visit Kim Il Sung, and familial history. The remainder of the collection comprises personal papers consisting of resumes, notebooks, correspondence, travel documents, Sohn's obituary and sympathy cards, and ephemera in the form of a name plate and a rubbing on parchment.

Conditions Governing Access

Advance notice required for access.

Conditions Governing Use

All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Curator of the Korean Heritage Library. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Korean Heritage Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.

Rights Statement for Archival Description

Finding aid description and metadata are licensed under an Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of the estate of Won Tai Sohn.

Preferred Citation

[Box/Folder# or Item name], Won Tai Sohn papers, Collection no. 3029, Korean Heritage Library, USC Libraries, University of Southern California.

Processing Information

A basic resource record was completed for this collection in 2014 with materials not fully processed. Full processing of the collection was done in May 2018 along with the creation of an updated full and complete finding aid by Sungjin Park and Sarah Cassone. While performing this work, the archivist noted some items in the collection that were not part of the original acquisition. These included a softcover copy of Sohn's book, "Kim Il Sung and Korea's Struggle: an Unconventional Firsthand History" and a published booklet by Kim Il Sung. Both of these items already had USC library call numbers and location information. The items were removed and placed back in their original locations. Additionally, three DVD-Rs were found within the collection relating to Sohn, Sung, and Sohn's father Sohn Jong Do, along with a letter to USC indicating they were given to the library by someone unrelated to Sohn, independent of this collection's acquisition. These items were also removed so they may be cataloged within USC Libraries East Asian audiovisual collection. Additional work was done by USC students in 2019 as part of the "Piloting a Shared Practice for Accessible Archival Descriptions" Dean's Challenge Grant and the finding aid was revised and updated by Diann Benti in 2021.

Organization

The Won Tai Sohn papers are organized into the following series: 1. Printed Materials; 2. Clippings and article reprints; 3. The Divided Peninsula; 4. Photographs; 5. Certificates; 6. Personal papers and ephemera. Arrangement within series is chronological.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

Communism -- Korea (North) -- Archival resources

Korean American physicians -- Nebraska -- Omaha -- Archival resources

Korea -- Description and travel -- Archival resources

Korea (North) -- Politics and government -- 1948-1994 -- Archival resources

Books

Certificates

Clippings (information artifacts)

Manuscripts

Memoirs

Photograph albums

Sohn, Won Tai, 1914-2004 -- Archives

Kim, Il-sŏng, 1912-1994

Printed materials /repositories/6/archival_objects/615865

Box 1, Folder 1

"The Erosion of Western Democracy in Korea" by Admiral Won Yil Sohn, Korean Navy (Ret.) [spiral bound research study] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561481 undated

Box 1, Folder 2

"New Pronouncing Dictionary of Plant Names" [published booklet, belonged to June Sohn] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561531 1961

Box 1, Folder 3

[Dissertation: Haesok Son Chong-do ui mokhoe wa minjok unong by Pak Hwa-won] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561543 1993-12

Box 1, Folder 4

[North Korean pamphlets/booklets] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561535 1978, 1992

Box 1, Folder 5

Kim Man Yu Hospital [program] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561555 1994-1995

Box 1, Folder 6

Kim Jong Il: Respecting the Frontrunners of the Revolution is a Noble Moral Obligation of Revolutionaries /repositories/6/archival_objects/561545 1996

Box 1, Folder 7

DPRK Report (Northeast Asia Peace and Security Network Special Report) /repositories/6/archival_objects/561546 1998

Box 3, Folder 8

Taehan Min'guk Imsi Ŭijŏngwŏn Ŭijang Haesŏk Son Chŏng-do ŭi saengae wa sasang yŏn'gu by Kim Ch'ang-su, Kim Sŭng-il chiŭm [hardcover biography in Korean] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561479 1999

Box 1, Folder 8

The Perry Report and Fundamental Problems in the Korean Peninsula: a proposal by the Korean-American League [binder] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561499 2000-03

Clippings and article reprints /repositories/6/archival_objects/615866

Box 1, Folder 9

[Bound compilation of article reprints on Haesok Son Chong-do Moska Charyo] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561523 undated

Box 1, Folder 10

[Clippings on North and South Korea (in Korean and English)] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561524 undated

Box 1, Folder 11

Son Won-il [clippings and pictorial history] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561530 1930-1992

Box 3, Folder 3-5

[Clippings books (3 black display books) /repositories/6/archival_objects/561488 1970-2003

Box 1, Folder 12

Record book [clippings] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561489 1976

Box 1, Folder 13

Clippings [Won Tai Sohn (in English and Korean)] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561536 1980-2002

Box 1, Folder 14

[Clippings about Rev. Son Chong-do and other family members (in Korean)] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561537 1985-2003

Box 1, Folder 15

[Newspaper clippings on North Korea trips (in Korean)] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561539 1991

Box 1, Folder 16

[Clippings on Korean Americans (in Korean)] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561541 1991, 1994

Box 1, Folder 17

[North Korean newspapers] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561547 1998

Box 3, Folder 1

[Various published articles about Rev. Son] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561551 2001

The Divided Peninsula /repositories/6/archival_objects/615860

Korean drafts /repositories/6/archival_objects/615867

Box 2, Folder 16

[The Divided Korean Peninsula: the Memoirs of Dr. Won Tai Son (Korean draft with photos)] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561519 undated

Box 2, Folder 17

[The Divided Peninsula: the Memoirs of Dr. Won Tai Sohn (Korean draft)] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561525 undated

Box 2, Folder 18

[The Divided Peninsula: the Memoirs of Dr. Won Tai Sohn (two Korean drafts)] /repositories/6/archival_objects/615868 Undated

Box 2, Folder 19

[The Divided Korean Peninsula: the Memoirs of Dr. Won Tai Sohn (Final Korean Version)] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561552 2004-08-02

English drafts /repositories/6/archival_objects/615869

Box 4, Item 4-8

The Divided Korean Peninsula: the Memoirs of Dr. Won Tai Sohn [individual chapter drafts] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561474 undated

Box 4, Item 9-10

The Divided Korean Peninsula: the Memoirs of Dr. Won Tai Sohn [manuscript, 2 copies] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561475 undated

Box 4, Item 11

The Divided Korean Peninsula: the Memoirs of Dr. Won Tai Sohn [manuscript copy with letter from McFarland and Company, Inc. Publishers] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561476 2004-02-18

Box 3, Folder 7

"My Relationship with Kim Il Sung (1918-1994): the Memoirs of Dr. Won Tai Sohn", amended and edited by Robert Lars Shannon [in shrink wrap] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561478 undated

Photographs /repositories/6/archival_objects/561522

Box 4, Item 2

[Framed medical school photo] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561483 undated

Box 2, Folder 1

International Cultural Society of Korea [negatives in original envelope] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561526 undated

Box 2, Folder 2

Photographs [glossy and photo-printed] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561528 undated

Box 2, Folder 3

[Portrait photos in cardboard frames] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561527 undated

Box 2, Folder 4

[Photo history] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561529 1917-1997

Box 3, Folder 6

Caise zhaopian yingji [photo album] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561498 1978

Box 2, Folder 5

[Photographs (photo-printed, related to memoirs)] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561542 1992-1994

Box 2, Folder 6

[Personal photos and negatives] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561548 1998

Certificates /repositories/6/archival_objects/615861

Box 2, Folder 7

Honorary Membership [certificate, International Cultural Society of Korea] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561533 1970-10-07

Box 2, Folder 8

Medical certificates /repositories/6/archival_objects/615863

American Society of Clinical Pathologists College of American Pathologists [continuing medical education certificate, framed] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561487 1975-1977

American Medical Association Physician's Recognition Award [framed certificate] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561486 1984-10-01

Expression of Gratitude, Bishop Clarkson Memorial Hospital [certificate] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561484 1988-01-26

Personal papers and ephemera /repositories/6/archival_objects/561520

Box 4, Item 1

[Rubbing on parchment from North Korean temple at Mt. Myohyangsan] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561490 undated

Box 4, Item 3

Won T. Sohn, M.D. [nameplate] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561482 undated

Box 2, Folder 9

Resumes [curriculum vitae] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561532 1970

Box 2, Folder 10

Notebooks [3 spiral, 1 writing tablet (in Korean)] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561534 1976-1977

Box 2, Folder 11

"Toast at a banquet given in celebration of the 80th birthday of the great leader comrade Kim Il Sung" [given to Won Tai Sohn, author unknown] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561540 1991

Box 2, Folder 12

[North Korea travel journal] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561554 1993

Box 2, Folder 13

Correspondence /repositories/6/archival_objects/561544 1994-1998

Box 2, Folder 14

[Travel documents - boarding passes, passport photos, departure cards] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561550 2001

Box 2, Folder 15

[Won Tai Sohn typed obituary and sympathy cards] /repositories/6/archival_objects/561553 2004-09-2004-10

Box 3, Folder 2

Pencil portrait of older man [Won Tai Sohn?] /repositories/6/archival_objects/615864 1995

Box 5

Additional materials /repositories/6/archival_objects/675458