Topical Files, 1950-2009

The Armstead L. Robinson papers(1848-2001; 43 cubic feet) consist of audiotapes; book reviews; census material; computer printouts; conference papers; correspondence; biographical information; instructional material; lectures and speeches; manuscripts and original writings by Robinson, his colleagues and students; maps; memorabilia; microfilm; organizational and professional files; photographs; printed items, and research and topical files. Most of the nineteenth century material is in the form of photocopies.

The scope of this collection is national. Professor Robinson’s papers are reflective of the life and career of a nationally active professional historian and educator. Topics of interest include: African-American history; African-American life in Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee, 1840s-1880s; life as an African-American student at Yale University during the 1960s; the development of Black Studies during the 1960s; life as an African-American faculty member at the State University of New York (SUNY), the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and the University of Virginia during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s; slavery in the Confederacy; the nineteenth century American South, especially during the Civil War and Reconstruction; and the modern Civil Rights Movement. Several organizations of interest to Robinson include but are not limited to: Antioch College; Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History); the Black Student Alliance at Yale (BSAY); the Booker T. Washington National Monument; Corporate/Community Schools of America; the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Center and Institute of the Black World; National Humanities Center (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina); Papers of Jefferson Davis; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California at Los Angeles; the University of Rochester; the University of Virginia; the Virginia State Library Board, and Yale University.

Robinson corresponded with numerous fellow scholars, historians and prominent persons: Herbert Aptheker (1915-2003), historian; Molefi Kete Asante (b. 1942), founder of Afrocentricity and proponent of Black Studies; Ira Berlin (b. 1941), American historian; John B. Boles (b. 1943), historian and managing editor, Journal of Southern History; F. N. Boney, historian; Arna Wendell Bontemps (1902-1973), educator, librarian and Harlem Renaissance novelist; McGeorge Bundy (1919–1996), United States National Security Advisor and head of the Ford Foundation; Austin C. Clarke (b. 1934), Afro-Canadian novelist; John F. Cooke (president, The Disney Channel/Walt Disney Company); Emâilia Viotti da Costa, historian of Brazil; LaWanda F. Cox (1909-2005), historian; Lynda Lasswell Crist (Papers of Jefferson Davis); Merle Curti (1897-1997), American social and intellectual historian; Mary Seaton Dix (Papers of Jefferson Davis); Stanley L. Engerman (b. 1936), economic historian; Karen E. Fields, director, Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-Americans Studies, University of Rochester; Michael W. Fitzgerald (b. 1956), historian; Harold E. Ford [Harold Eugene Ford, Sr., b.1945], U. S. congressman from Tennessee; Elizabeth Fox-Genovese (1941-2007), historian; John Hope Franklin (1915-2009), American historian; George M. Fredrickson (b. 1934), historian; Eugene D. Genovese (1930-2012), historian; Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr. (b. 1950); A. Bartlett Giamatti (1938-1989), Yale president (and later commissioner of Major League Baseball); Herbert Gutman (1928-1985), historian; Stephen Hahn (b. 1950), Faulkner scholar; Vincent Harding (b. 1931), historian; Nathan Hare (b. 1933), sociologist, psychotherapist, and a founder of the Black Studies movement; Darlene Clark Hine (b. 1947), historian; Alton Hornsby (Journal of Negro History); C. Stuart McGehee, historian; Ron “Maulana” Karenga (b. 1941), a leader of the Black Studies movement and founder of Kwanzaa, a cultural celebration of African-American culture and community; Lauranett Lee (later curator of African American History, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, Virginia); James T. McIntosh (Papers of Jefferson Davis); Pauline Maier (b. 1938), professor of American History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; August Meier (1923-2003), historian; Nell Irvin Painter (b. 1942), historian; Lewis C. Perry (b. 1938), historian and editor of The Journal of American History; Edwin S. Redkey (b. 1931), American historian; Joseph Reidy (b. 1948); Dan Roberts, University of Richmond; Leslie S. Rowland, historian; William Scarborough, historian, University of Southern Mississippi; Daryl M. Scott (later a Howard University professor of history and vice president for programs, and member of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History’s executive council); Robert Brent Toplin (b. 1940), American historian; Edmund S. Wehrle, University of Connecticut; C. Vann Woodward (1908-1999), American historian; Karen L. Wysocki, and, Whitney Moore Young Jr. (1921-1971), executive director of the National Urban League, Inc., and American civil rights leader.

As to be expected, there is correspondence with several University of Virginia colleagues: Edward L. Ayers (b. 1953), Corcoran Department of History; William A. Elwood (1932-2002), professor of English and associate dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; Edwin E. Floyd, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; Matthew Holden, Jr. (b. 1931), Henry L. and Grace M. Doherty Professor, Woodrow Wilson Department of Government and Foreign Affairs; Michael F. Holt, Corcoran Department of History; Ervin L. Jordan Jr. (b. 1954), Special Collections Department, Alderman Library; Robert O’Neil, president of the University of Virginia; Nathan Alexander Scott, Jr. (1925-2006), Commonwealth Professor of Religious Studies; Jeanne Maddox Toungara, Corcoran Department of History, and, Theresa M. Towner, Department of English.

Prominent persons mentioned in the collection include: Howard K. Beale (1897-1959), a University of North Carolina historian; Reginald Butler, Corcoran Department of History, and Robinson’s successor as director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for Afro-American and African studies; Lawrence Chisolm, historian, State University of New York at Buffalo; Robert R. Church [Robert Reed Church, Sr.] (1839-1912), business leader and the South's first African-American millionaire; Eldridge Cleaver (1935-1998), a founder of the Black Panther Party; Harold Cruse (1916-2005), historian and proponent of Black Studies; Philip D. Curtin (b. 1922), historian; Robert Dahl (b. 1915), Yale political scientist; St. Clair Drake (1911-1990), sociologist, anthropologist and educator; Alex Dupuy, historian of Haiti; Drew Gilpin Faust (b. 1947), American historian; Robert W. Fogel (b. 1926), American historian; Vivian V. Gordon (1934-1995), sociologist; Martin Kilson, Jr., political scientist, Harvard University; James Armistead Lafayette (1760-1832), African-American slave and spy; Alan Lomax (1915-2002), folklorist and musicologist; Gerald A. McWorter, political scientist, Spelman College, and a founder of the Black Studies movement; Sidney W. Mintz (b. 1922), anthropologist; Boniface I. Obichere (1933-1997), historian; Donald Ogilvie (Yale student); Dorothy B. Porter [Dorothy Porter Wesley]; Alvin Poussaint (b. 1934), psychiatrist; Paul L. Puryear (1930-2010), dean of the Office of Afro-American Affairs, University of Virginia; John T. Schlotterbeck (b. 1948), historian; Henry Taylor, Jr. (b. 1928), educator and psychoanalyst; William Shockley (1910-1989), American physicist and eugenicist; F. (Frederick) Palmer Weber (1914-1986), labor and civil rights activist; Charles Harris Wesley (1891-1987), an African-American historian; Bell Irwin Wiley (1906-1980), American Civil War historian; Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950), “the Father of Negro History,” and George Carlton Wright, vice provost of the University of Texas at Austin.

The collection has been organized into six series: Corespondence, Academic Career, Topical Files, Research Materials, Writings and Publications, and Oversize materails.