Ethan Theodore Colton papers, bulk 1918-1935

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Summary

Creators:
Colton, Ethan T. (Ethan Theodore), 1872-
Abstract:
The papers consist of correspondence, reports, writings, translations, and clippings, relating to European Student Relief activities in Russia and other European countries, 1920-1925; and to social conditions, the educational system, and the status of religion in Russia in the 1920s and 1930s. Includes the memoirs of E. T. Colton and 13 anti-religious Soviet posters. All material is from 1917-1935, except for Colton's 1952 memoirs.
Extent:
9 manuscript boxes, 1 oversize box, 1 oversize folder (3.6 Linear Feet)
Language:
French
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Ethan Theodore Colton papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Background

Scope and content:

The Ethan T. Colton papers in the Hoover Institution Library & Archives consist of correspondence, reports, writings, translations, and clippings, relating to European Student Relief activities in Russia and other European countries, 1920-1925; and to social conditions, the educational system, and the status of religion in Russia in the 1920s and 1930s. Includes the memoirs of E. T. Colton and 13 anti-religious Soviet posters. Except for Colton's 1952 memoirs, all material is from 1917 to 1935.

Colton spent his whole career with the Young Men's Christian Association. His early work to build local Associations' support for the YMCA's World Service, or Overseas Division, was followed by his assignment to executive administration of the European Student Relief program.

Colton's papers offer particularly vivid qualitative and quantitative data on conditions for civilians in university areas throughout Europe following World War I, and U.S. and international food and clothing aid. The ESR reports were often in the form of letters from ESR staff, and are rich with first-person accounts of conditions aid workers found in recipient countries throughout Europe after World War I, and particularly Russia and Siberia in the wake of the Russian Civil War and subsequent famine in Russia.

The documents exhibit the range of data and synthesis required for administering a large aid operation, assessing needs and program effectiveness, and conducting publicity and securing donations to sustain or expand and improve the relief efforts. The material also provides perspective on transition of government-administered operations to private non-governmental organizations.

After the ESR program concluded in 1925, Colton continued with YMCA Overseas work on behalf of Russian émigrés, and maintained a focus on Russia and communism. Colton's papers reflect his collecting data, writing, and speaking about the practical impacts of Soviet government policies; communist outreach to youth; the relation of communism to religion; the Russian Orthodox Church, and Russian Orthodox religious figures under Soviet rule and official atheism. Some ESR reports and correspondence bear annotations related to this later work.

Except for Colton's memoirs, his papers at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives contain no material related to his post-retirement reactivation as executive director of the YMCA War Prisoners' Aid Services in the United States during World War II.

Biographical / historical:
Date Event
1872
Born, Palmyra, Jefferson County, Wisconsin
1892
Enters Dakota Wesleyan University, Mitchell, South Dakota; becomes active in campus YMCA and Mitchell Epworth League
1898
Graduates from Dakota Wesleyan University, Mitchell, South Dakota
1899-1904
Staff member with Student Young Men's Christian Associations (YMCA)
1904-1917
Works for YMCA to build local Associations' support for YMCA World Service
1918-1924
Administers European Student Relief (ESR) aid services in Russia and Siberia and to Russian émigrés in Europe; serves as YMCA liaison to American Relief Administration (ARA)
1921 April
ESR conference at Turnov, Czechoslovakia
1922
Arrives back in New York from field work in Europe
by 1923 to at least 1924
Works from Student Friendship office, 341 Madison Avenue, New York, NY
1923
ARA programs conclude
1925
ESR programs conclude (See Box 6)
1925-1932
Executive secretary, YMCA World Services
by 1925 to at least 1932
YMCA Press correspondence is directed to Colton at 341 Madison Avenue, New York, NY
1929
LL.D. degree
by 1931
Resident of Upper Montclair, New Jersey
1931
Author of The X Y Z of Communism (New York, Macmillan Company), a response to Bukarin and Preobrazhensky's The A B C of Communism (1921)
1932
Retires from YMCA World Services executive secretary position at age 60, per YMCA requirement; continues YMCA committee work
1932-1942
Annual lecture tours, writes books
1935
Author of Four Patterns of Revolution; Communist U.S.S.R., Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, New Deal America (New York, [YMCA] Association Press)
1940
Author of Forty Years with Russians (New York, Association Press), forward by John R. Mott
1943-1946
Executive director, YMCA War Prisoners? Aid Services in United States
1944
Author of Toward the Understanding of Europe (New York, Association Press)
1952
Author of Memoirs of Ethan T. Colton, Sr., 1872-1952, self-published
1953
Author of The Russia We Face Now (Washington, D.C.: The Public Affairs Institute)

The European Student Relief program (ESR) was instituted in 1918 as a complement to the US-government-funded American Relief Administration (ARA) program, to provide European students, and later professors and technical workers, with food, clothing, and shoes, and sometimes medical services, tuition aid, and textbooks, and other support for intellectual work. ESR relief work pursued a limited scope, focusing on university-affiliated populations to support the reconstruction of war-torn Europe, and to build goodwill between students in Europe and the U.S.

Colton's papers reflect the complicated organizational relationships in the administration of the American Section of ESR (also known as ASESR). According to histories of the YMCA, the European Student Relief program was inaugurated by the World's Student Christian Federation (WSCF), a Geneva-based organization founded in 1895 as a trans-national complement to the YMCA. WSCF founding general secretary John R. Mott served as general secretary throughout the ESR period, while simultaneously serving as the general secretary of the YMCA from 1915-1928, and from 1926-1937 as president of the YMCA's World Committee and the general secretary of President Wilson's National War Work Council. While ESR was a program of the WSCF, in the public ESR was frequently conflated with the ARA, and in ESR reports Colton is sometimes identified as a member of the staff of ARA Director General Colonel Haskell.

Documents in Colton's papers describe ESR's mission, organizational structure, personnel, and mode of operation (Box 2), and note a Russian expulsion of the YMCA in 1918 (Box 1).

In supporting ESR work to build goodwill between students in the United States and war-torn Europe, the WSCF created a Student Friendship Fund (SFF), which conducted publicity and fundraising work in the US, provided grassroots fundraising strategies and materials to college students and Christian youth organizations, and collected donations of cash as well as second-hand clothing and shoes for ESR to distribute in Europe.

References:

Colton, Ethan Theodore, Forty Years with Russians, New York, Association Press, 1940; especially pages 128, 132, and 161 on YMCA Press

Hopkins, C. Howard, History of the Y. M. C. A. in North America, New York: Association Press, 1951; especially page 687

Nobel Foundation, "John R. Mott: The Nobel Peace Prize 1946," "Biography" and "Presentation Speech," 1946, [viewed 2010 January 26] http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1946/mott-bio.html ; http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1946/press.html

Rouse, Ruth, The World's Student Christian Federation: A History of the First Thirty Years, London: S. C. M. Press Ltd., 1948, especially pages 55, 79

Shedd, Clarence P., Two Centuries of Student Christian Movements: Their Origin and Intercollegiate Life, New York: Association Press, 1934

Shedd, Clarence Prouty, "and other contributors," History of the World's Alliance of Young Men's Christian Associations, London: S.P.C.K., for the World's Committee of Young Men's Christian Associations, 1955; especially pages 355-6, 353, 472, 565, 674, 701

Stuer, Kenneth, "'For the Millions of Men Now Under Arms': American YMCA Prisoner-of-War Diplomacy in Western Europe," chapter 4 of Pursuit of an 'Unparalleled Opportunity,' New York: Columbia University Press, 2008, [viewed 2010 January 12] http://www.gutenberg-e.org/steuer/

Acquisition information:
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library Archives
Physical location:
Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

The collection is open for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.

Terms of access:

For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Ethan Theodore Colton papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Location of this collection:
Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6003, US
Contact:
(650) 723-3563
hooverarchives@stanford.edu
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