Rebecca Chalmers Barton papers

Rebecca Chalmers Barton (May 4, 1905-2006) was a member of the Wellesley College Class of 1926 who went on to be an author, teacher, and human rights advocate. She was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, as the youngest of six children, and daughter of Lillian Knight Chalmers and clergyman Andrew Burns Chalmers. From September 1911 to June 1914 attended a state school for children in Worcester. When her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland in the fall of 1914, she attended The Bryn Mawr School until June 1916, and the Quaker private school The Friends School from September 1916 to June 1922, before being admitted to Wellesley College to enter in Fall 1922. At Wellesley College she majored in English Philology and minored in Philosophy and Theology. She self-identified as a member of the Congregational Church. After graduating from Wellesley, she worked for a year as an English teacher at Williams Memorial Institute, in New London, Connecticut. From July 1927 to April 1928 she worked as a social worker with the Associated Charities, in Cleveland, Ohio. On June 14, 1928, she married John Barton, who was then a doctoral student (also teaching) in Sociology at the University of Wisconsin. The summer of 1928 Chalmers Barton was enrolled in graduate courses in Comparative Literature and English in the Summer Session of the University of Wisconsin. The pair moved to Denmark in September, 1928, to teach at The International People's College, a folk high school in Helsingor (she taught English and American Literature). They lived in Denmark for 7 years. While teaching at The International People's College, she received a leave of absence to study at Greifswald University in Northern Germany. Chalmers Barton completed her dissertation "Race Consciousness and the American Negro" in November 1932, for a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Greifswald University (she was approved to submit the dissertation in English). Her daugher, Eloise Barton, was born on July 31, 1932, and her son, Norman Barton, was born in 1934; both in Copehagen, Denmark. The family returned to the United States in 1935, in the midst of the Great Depression, having already shelted refugees in Copenhagen (the Nazi occupation of Denmark took place five years later, in 1940). She was a teacher of worker's education and adult education classes from 1935-1942 (at the Summer School for Workers at the University of Wisconsin from 1937-1940, and at the School of Education workshop of the University of Montana, Summer 1942). She was an instructor in the English Department of the University of Wisconsin from 1942 to 1946, and a Research Associate of the University of Wisconsin on a Rockefeller grant from 1946-1947. From 1948-1949 she served as Publications Supervisor of the Wisconsin State Board of Vocational and Adult Education. In 1949, she began work as the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Governor's Commission on Human Rights. This work involved initiating programs and policies, educating legislators, organizing conferences, and writing, publishing and speaking to advocate for the cause, as well as mediating in cases of alleged discrimination. She was an advocate for equal opportunity laws and programs for minority group children, Native American rights, migrant worker protections, fair housing and employment, and desegregation of public accomodations. Chalmers Barton retired as Executive Director of the Commission in 1963. In the early 1960s her husband John Barton was faced with health concerns that prompted his early retirement and a move to the warmer climate of Santa Barbara, California (circa 1963). John Barton passed away in March, 1965. Circa 1966, Chalmers Barton moved to Brightwaters, New York, nearer to her daugher Eloise, and began teaching at Dowling College in Oakdale, Long Island, New York. At Dowling College she initated thei first courses taught on Black authors and women authors. Circa 1982, Chalmers Barton retired and moved back to Santa Barbara, California. Chalmers Barton authored these books: "Race Consciousness and the American Negro (Copenhagen, 1934), "Witnesses for Freedom: Negro Americans in Autobiography" (Harper & Bros., 1948), and "Our Human Rights: A Study in the Art of Persuasion" (Public Affairs Press, 1955). She listed her hobbies as "mountain climbing, music, theatre, books and friends, not necessarily in that order."