John Randolph Haynes papers, circa 1873-1960s, bulk 1890-1937

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Summary

Creators:
Haynes, John Randolph
Abstract:
John Randolph Haynes was an active reformer and member of the Progressive movement. His wife, Dora Haynes was a suffragist, leading the campaign for women's right to vote in California. Together, they founded The John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation in 1926. The collection primarily consists of manuscripts, maps, correspondence, minutes, notes, newspaper clippings, microfilm, photographs, reports, speeches, scrapbooks, ephemera, and other printed materials related to John Randolph Haynes' involvement with local and regional planning in Southern California and a variety of social and political issues. The materials on water services include documents on the acquisition of Owens Valley and Colorado River water for the Los Angeles area. The collection also includes materials documenting Dora Haynes and her activities as a suffragist at both the local and state level; materials created and collected by The John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation; and the Haynes family papers which contain personal letters, photographs, financial records, and ephemera.
Extent:
351.0 Linear Feet (358 boxes, 106 oversize flat boxes, 36 cartons, and 15 map folders)
Language:
Materials are in English.
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], John Randolph Haynes papers (Collection 1241). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.

Background

Scope and content:

The John Randolph Haynes papers range from circa 1873-1960s. The collection consists of manuscripts, maps, correspondence, minutes, notes, newspaper clippings, microfilm, photographs, reports, speeches, scrapbooks, ephemera, and printed material related to Haynes' involvement in local and regional planning in Southern California. The issues addressed include water rights, regional economics, municipal administration in the Los Angeles area, and Progressive Party politics. Materials in the collection related to water issues address the acquisition of water from the Owens Valley and Colorado River, as well as public ownership of water and power resources. The collection also includes material created and collected by The John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation and Haynes family papers which contain personal letters, photographs, financial records, and ephemera. The collection includes subject files on the Foundation's research interests, such as city and regional planning, labor relations and legislation, public health and sanitation, urban development, population statistics, and suffrage, which documents Dora Haynes and her activities as a suffragist both the local and state level.

Biographical / historical:

John Randolph Haynes was born on June 13, 1853 in Fairmount Springs, Pennsylvania, where he became familiar with the work of the coal mining community in the region. At the age of 10, he moved to Philadelphia with his family and eventually received his MD and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. From 1874 to 1887, Haynes ran his own medical practice in Philadelphia.

Dora Fellows (1859-1934) was born and grew up in the coal mining region of Pennsylvania. Her father, like her future husband, was a mine manager, and the two families were friends. In 1882 Dora returned to Pennsylvania from a year's attendance at Wellesley College to work with Haynes at his medical office.

In 1882, Haynes married Dora Fellows, and she took part in his social reform undertakings, becoming a suffragist. In 1887, the Haynes' only child, Sidney, died of scarlet fever at the age of three, which prompted the couple's move to Los Angeles, where Haynes continued his medical practice.

In Los Angeles, Haynes started his career as a social reformer. In 1897, he helped to organize a local chapter of the Union Reform League, the main goal of which was Christian socialism but it also organized for immediate reforms in women's suffrage, direct legislation, public ownership of utilities, and civil service.

Dora Haynes joined the Friday Morning Club, the Ruskin Art Club, and other groups involved in cultural and civic affairs. Alongside her husband, she embraced the emerging progressive movement that was sweeping the nation, first at the local and then at the state level. As a charter member of the Friday Morning Club, a discussion and service organization that gradually became involved in civic affairs, Dora worked with other women in support of progressive objectives such as women's suffrage.

Over the next few decades, Haynes' political profile continued to rise. In 1903, he was involved in incorporating initiative, referendum, and recall amendments in the Los Angeles City Charter. He was responsible for placing direct legislation in the charter, which made Los Angeles the first American municipality to accept the recall of public officers. He also served on the Los Angeles County Board of Freeholders, which created the 1924 charter that still guides the city today.

Haynes was a leader in the city's urban progressive movement and public ownership system. From 1915 to 1925, he was a member of the Los Angeles County Probation Commission. From 1903 to 1915, he was a member and president of the Los Angeles Civil Service Commission. In 1925, he became a member of the Los Angeles Board of Water and Power Commissioners. From 1928 to 1930, he became a member of the Metropolitan Water District Board, which was involved in building an aqueduct from the Colorado River to Southern California.

Haynes was also an important member of progressive politics at the state level. He became an advisor to three governors, contributed financially to the cause of state insurgents, and was appointed to several state commissions. From 1923 to 1937, he was a member of the University of California Board of Regents. He also assisted his wife Dora Haynes with her 1911 campaign leadership for women's suffrage in California.

In addition to state and local progressive political issues, Haynes also supported other causes. He campaigned for federal laws to protect America's coal miners and other workers. From 1905, he contributed to the socialist movement nationally and locally. In the 1920s, he became a leading advocate of protective legislation for Native Americans throughout the nation.

After passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, Dora Haynes continued her suffrage work by helping to found the state and local chapters of the League of Women Voters that would educate new voters on the political process. Although declining health began to limit her involvement, Dora helped direct the local league and remained active in Friday Morning Club causes. Also at this time, in 1926, she and her husband established The John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation in order to support social science research in Los Angeles.

Dora's health deteriorated seriously after 1929 when, according to her husband, she developed Hodgkin's Disease that kept her bedridden at the end of her life. John Randolph Haynes and Dora Fellows Haynes were married for 52 years until she passed in 1934. Shortly after the loss of his wife and partner in progressive politics, John Randolph Haynes died on October 30, 1937.

This biography was rewritten by Kuhelika Ghosh with portions culled from The John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation website.

Acquisition information:
The John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation; Gift; 1952, 1991.
Custodial history:

During August of 2017, Besser reviewed the collection files for the John Randolph Haynes papers prior to processing. Within the "Transfer to Special Collections, other collection disposition information" file, she discovered legacy Haynes Foundation Collections information within a December 12, 1979 memo to Library Special Collections staff from Department Head James Mink.

In early 1980, Special Collections assumed responsibility for "housing and servicing" the John Randolph Haynes collections. This donation had previously been given to the UCLA Bureau of Governmental Research Library in 1952 with the condition that they remain intact and together in that library. The Bureau of Governmental Research became a section of the Public Affairs Service (PAS), when it was established in the late 1960s.

Library administration notified the donor of these collections, The Haynes Foundation, of its decision to transfer them to Special Collections. This transfer involved the movement of the John Randolph Haynes papers, the Franklin Hichborn papers, the Carey McWilliams papers, and the Foundation's Library from the PAS in Powell Library to Special Collections at the University Research Library.

Processing information:

Initial processing by Simon Elliott with assistance from Brittany Sprigg and Bernadette Roca, 2004. Processing of unprocessed 1952 and 1991 accruals by Kelly Besser, with assistance from Kuhelika Ghosh and Krystell Jimenez, 2018. Processing of this collection in 2004 and 2018 was supported by a generous gift from The Haynes Foundation.

Processing of the John Randolph Haynes papers was initiated in 2003 with funding from The Haynes Foundation. Special Collections Visual Materials Specialist Simon Elliott led the processing of this collection with the assistance of public service students Bernadette Roca and Brittany Sprigg. Within a year, Elliott and his team completed item level description of the first 145 boxes which house the Collection Register Volume 1 subject files, spanning Accidents - Prevention - Los Angeles Correspondence through Los Angeles County Hospital. This finding aid was published to the Online Archive of California (OAC) in 2004.

In February 2017, The Haynes Foundation funded the "Revealing Los Angeles History: The John Randolph Haynes Papers" project to increase access to this collection through archival arrangement, description, and rehousing of the remaining unprocessed 1952 and 1991 accruals. Completion of the 2017 grant included description of the unprocessed 1952 and 1991 accruals (370 boxes); arrangement of these materials based on the collection's existing order; reuse of original collection folders; and rehousing of materials in archival containers. The updated finding aid for this collection was published to the OAC in April 2018.

For the 2017 grant project, Archivist, Kelly Besser, reviewed existing description from the 2004 processing against contemporary archival best practices. She made a decision to shift the descriptive practice for this collection from item-level description to file-level description, in order to capture all of the subject files in the collection registers, as well as every folder title from the Foundation records and the Haynes family papers, within the scope of the grant period. Besser also ensured that description followed archival standards by moving item-level description from the item titles to the items' scope and content notes.

Besser also conducted an assessment of the scope of the John Randolph Haynes papers and the possible separation of the collection into multiple collections by provenance: the John Randolph Haynes papers; The John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation records, which would capture the subject files found within the collection registers; and the Haynes family papers, which document the personal and professional lives of John Randolph Haynes, Dora Haynes, and their family members. However, a decision was made to honor the Foundation's desire to maintain the existing order and collection name of the John Randolph Haynes papers, which is reflected within the collection registers (1980) and legacy finding aids (1990 and 1993).

Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.

We are committed to providing ethical, inclusive, and anti-racist description of the materials we steward, and to remediating existing description of our materials that contains language that may be offensive or cause harm. We invite you to submit feedback about how our collections are described, and how they could be described more accurately, by filling out the form located on our website: Report Potentially Offensive Description in Library Special Collections.

Arrangement:

The following arrangement was imposed based on the collection's existing order:

  • Series 1: Collection Register Volume 1
  • Series 2: Collection Register Volume 2
  • Series 3: John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation records
  • Series 4: Haynes family papers

Physical / technical requirements:

COLLECTION CONTAINS MICROFILM: Microfilm in this collection will require assessment and possible digitization for safe access. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.

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.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.

Terms of access:

Property rights to the physical objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other 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 The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], John Randolph Haynes papers (Collection 1241). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.

Location of this collection:
A1713 Charles E. Young Research Library
Box 951575
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
Contact:
(310) 825-4988
AskLSC@library.ucla.edu
Website