- physdesc
-
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"2 linear feet", "unit"=>"linear feet"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"5 boxes", "unit"=>"containers"}], "supress_display"=>true}
- unitid
-
{"value"=>"MssCol 4803", "type"=>"local_call"}
{"value"=>"4803", "type"=>"local_mss"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"1909-1983", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1909/1983"}
- date_inclusive_start
-
1909
- date_inclusive_end
-
1983
- keydate
-
1909
- unittitle
-
{"value"=>"Jessie Lloyd O'Connor papers"}
- repository
-
{"value"=>"<span class=\"corpname\">The New York Public Library. <span class=\"subarea\">Manuscripts and Archives Division</span></span> <div class=\"address\"><span class=\"addressline\">New York, New York</span></div>"}
- abstract
-
{"value"=>"Jessie Lloyd O'Connor was a journalist and pro-labor activist from the 1920s until her death in 1988. She predominantly wrote for the Federated Press, a news service oriented toward labor and unions. O'Connor's articles were published in a variety of national newspapers, and she spent the years 1927-28, and 1933 in the Soviet Union writing for the London Daily Herald and the Moscow Daily Times. She was involved with numerous progressive organizations, including the ACLU, the American League Against War and Fascism, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Daughter of the pacifist Lola Maverick Lloyd and Chicago millionaire William Bross Lloyd, Jessie Lloyd O'Connor professionally collaborated with the radical journalist Harvey O'Connor, her husband of fifty-seven years."}
- prefercite
-
{"value"=>"<p>Jessie Lloyd O'Connor Papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.</p>"}
- origination
-
{"value"=>"O'Connor, Jessie Lloyd, 1904-", "type"=>"persname"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p>The first child of the peace activist Lola Maverick Lloyd and Socialist millionaire William Bross Lloyd, Jessie Lloyd O'Connor was born in Illinois in 1904. A radical journalist and Socialist who focused on labor concerns in industry and mining, O'Connor worked as a staff journalist for the Federated Press, a news service dedicated to labor issues. Over the course of her career, her articles ran in the London Daily Herald, the Moscow Daily News, and the New York Times, among other papers.</p> <p>Born to somewhat bohemian, yet financially well-to-do parents, O'Connor held fast to her progressive politics through both world wars, the McCarthy era, the Vietnam War and the Cold War. O'Connor's mother, peace activist Lola Maverick Lloyd, had a strong influence on her daughter's pacifist and radical beliefs. As a result of Lola Maverick Lloyd's professional travels, O'Connor spent much time during her formative years in Europe, observing the early pacifist movement and interacting with the leaders of various progressive organizations. O'Connor also credited her father's initial support of Socialism with the development of her own political beliefs, and found these beliefs strengthened by exposure to labor issues during her early professional years.</p> <p>At age eleven, O'Connor and two of her three younger siblings joined their mother on the 1915 Ford Peace Expedition ship to Europe. While the expedition did not fulfill its goal of curtailing the war, O'Connor was greatly impressed by her observations of the peace activists in general, and in particular by the selective and biased reporting of the event by journalists onboard ship. Following their return to the United States in early 1916, O'Connor's parents divorced. She attended high school in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette, and chose to continue her education at her mother's Alma Mater, Smith College. While at Smith she studied economics and graduated in 1925.</p> <p>In 1926, O'Connor joined her mother and siblings in Geneva, where she obtained press credentials from the London Daily Herald to act as correspondent at the League of Nations. She soon convinced the paper to send her to the Soviet Union, where she would spend the bulk of the year 1927-1928 filing stories from Moscow and associating with American Communists and Socialists resident in the city at that time. She would later return to Russia as a correspondent for the Federated Press in 1932-1933, and file occasional stories for the New York Times journalist Walter Duranty.</p> <p>At the end of her first sojourn in the Soviet Union, Jessie Lloyd O'Connor returned to the United States and began working with Harvey O'Connor at the Federated Press. She reported for the news service on labor conflicts in Gastonia, North Carolina in 1929, and Harlan, Kentucky in 1931--where she replaced two journalists who had been shot, and herself received several threats.</p> <p>In 1930, Jessie Lloyd and Harvey O'Connor married. Their relationship would last until Harvey's death in 1987, mutually reinforcing each other's common dedication to social causes and collaborating on their various professional projects. Together they raised two children--Stephen and Kathleen--and after stints in New York and Pittsburgh they settled in Little Compton, Rhode Island, where their home became a refuge for many involved in progressive and radical movements.</p> <p>Among the organizations with which Jessie O'Connor was involved were the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the ACLU, the American League Against War and Fascism, the League of Women Shoppers, Chicago's Hull House, and the National Committee to Abolish HUAC. She was an ardent letter-writer, and sent hundreds of missives to politicians and newspaper editors over the course of her adult life. Her interests, as indicated through her letters, included consumer and tenant rights, labor rights, the protection of the civil liberties of citizens and immigrants alike, and the abolition of war. Her leisure-time hobbies included boating and playing the violin.</p> <p>After a lifetime of defense of the disenfranchised and dedication to often unpopular causes, Jessie Lloyd O'Connor passed away in 1988.</p>"}
- custodhist
-
{"value"=>"<p>Jessie Lloyd O'Connor's papers were donated to the New York Public Library and processed as part of the Lola Maverick Lloyd Papers, Series O of the Schwimmer-Lloyd Collection. In 2005 the Lola Maverick Lloyd papers were reprocessed, and Jessie Lloyd O'Connor's materials were separated and reprocessed at that time. Approximately one box of correspondence from her parents and siblings was inserted into Ms. O'Connor's materials, having been separated from the Lola Maverick Lloyd Papers. The papers are still administratively part of the Schwimmer-Lloyd Collection, but are physically arranged as a separate collection.</p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p>The papers consist of correspondence, professional writings and notes, and a small amount of printed matter, newspaper clippings, financial papers, and photographs. The materials document in part O'Connor's political beliefs and commitment to various radical causes. The typescript of a 1927-1928 diary kept by O'Connor while she was living in the Soviet Union presents a window into circles of American \"fellow travelers\" in Moscow at that time.</p> <p>Certain items within the collection, in particular the photocopied Letters to the Editor and the Soviet diary typescript, may be present in part or in alternate forms in the substantial Jessie Lloyd O'Connor Papers held as part of the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College. For further information, researchers are advised to view the finding aid for that collection at http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/sophiasmith/mnsss131_main.html.</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p class='list-head'>The Jessie Lloyd O'Connor papers are arranged in six series:</p>\n<ul class='arrangement series-descriptions'>\n<li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/4803#c193387'>I. Correspondence</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1909-1983, n.d.</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>The bulk of the correspondence in Jessie Lloyd O'Connor's papers consists of general incoming letters, and those from Lola Maverick Lloyd, O'Connor's mother, from two family friends, Franciska Schwimmer and Edith Wynner, and from the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. A small number of letters addressed to Mrs. O'Connor's husband, Harvey O'Connor, are included in the incoming correspondence.</p> <p>In addition to incoming materials, there are nine folders of outgoing letters, the majority of which O'Connor sent as Letters to the Editor over the course of fifty years of dedicated drafting of such correspondence.</p> <p>All materials are arranged chronologically.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/4803#c193421'>II. Writings</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1926-1943, n.d.</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Jessie Lloyd O'Connor's writings include a diary she kept while living in the Soviet Union in 1927-1928, Federated Press news service sheets which contain numerous articles by both of the O'Connors, clippings of published articles, drafts of articles, and notes.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/4803#c193429'>III. Financial</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1916-1943, n.d.</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This small series consists of one folder of financial papers in the form of checks, bank statements from 1916 and 1918, an undated bank book, and receipts.</p> <p>Checks present consist of a few written by Jessie O'Connor herself, checks from both of her parents, and one check related to the Hull House Association. Receipts are for donations and membership fees made to the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee committee and Chicago Civil Liberties Committee, payments made to Hull House, and general personal expenditures.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/4803#c193430'>IV. Printed matter and newspaper clippings</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1917-1961, n.d.</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Printed matter and newspaper clippings consist of miscellaneous printed matter, newspaper clippings and articles by other authors, and one poster. Materials of interest include several flyers advertising speeches by friends and family, and a pamphlet on the Abraham Lincoln school--the progressive school with a pacifist focus with which both O'Connor's were involved.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/4803#c193431'>V. Miscellaneous</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1939-1944, n.d.</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Miscellaneous items include a 1943 adoption application filled out by Jessie Lloyd O'Connor, an application and membership materials from the Descendants of the American Revolution, and one folder of general miscellaneous materials.</p> <p>The 1943 adoption application for the Chicago Foundlings Home contains biographical information on Jessie and Harvey O'Connor, including religion, ancestral origin, employer and financial standing (including Harvey's sources of income, and the yearly payments of Jessie's trusts), the existence of another individual the O'Connors helped to support, references, and gender and character of child preferred.</p> <p>The Descendants of the American Revolution, an organization committed to the ideals of freedom and democracy in American life, and which supported the protection of civil rights and academic freedom, served as a progressive response to the more conservative Daughters of the American Revolution. Items related to this organization include Jessie O'Connor's membership application and supporting genealogical reports, a small amount of correspondence, 1939 copies of the organization's National Constitution, and other administrative materials from 1940-1941.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/4803#c193435'>VI. Photographs</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1919, 1936, n.d.</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Jessie Lloyd O'Connor's black and white photographs consist of a photo of Rosika and Franciska Schwimmer in Budapest, 1919; the copy of a signed, undated photo of Rosika Schwimmer; twenty-five pictures of a small boy, circa 1936; and one undated photo of Jessie and Harvey O'Connor, taken in the later years of their marriage.</p></div></li></ul>\n", "type"=>"arrangement"}
- arrangement
-
{"value"=>"<p>The Jessie Lloyd O'Connor Papers are organized in the following series:</p> <ul> <li>I. Correspondence, 1909-1983, n.d.</li> <li>II. Writings, 1926-1943, n.d.</li> <li>III. Financial, 1916-1943, n.d.</li> <li>IV. Printed matter and newspaper clippings, 1917-1961, n.d.</li> <li>V. Miscellaneous, 1939-1944, n.d.</li> <li>VI. Photographs, 1919, 1936, n.d.</li></ul>", "supress_display"=>true}
- acqinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Donated by Jessie Lloyd O'Connor between 1945 and 1988.</p>"}
- relatedmaterial
-
{"value"=>"<p>In the Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library:</p> <ul> <li> <span class=\"archref\">Schwimmer-Lloyd Collection</span></li> <li> <span class=\"archref\">Campaign for World Government Records</span></li> <li> <span class=\"archref\">Georgia Lloyd Papers</span></li> <li> <span class=\"archref\">Lola Maverick Lloyd Papers</span></li> <li> <span class=\"archref\">Mary Maverick Lloyd Papers</span></li> <li> <span class=\"archref\">William Bross Lloyd, Jr. Papers</span></li> <li> <span class=\"archref\">Nicholas Kelley Papers</span></li> <li> <span class=\"archref\">Maverick Family Papers.</span></li></ul> <p>In other repositories:</p> <ul> <li> <span class=\"archref\">Jessie Lloyd O'Connor Papers. Sophia Smith Collection. Smith College, Northampton, MA.</span></li></ul>"}
- note
-
{"value"=>"<p>Forms part of the Schwimmer-Lloyd Collection</p>", "encodinganalog"=>"500"}
- processinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Compiled by Laura Ruttum; machine readable finding aid created by FAKER.</p>"}
- extent_statement
-
2 linear feet (5 boxes)
- date_start
-
1909
- date_end
-
1983