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Creator
Weaver, Robert C. (Robert Clifton), 1907-1997
Call number
Sc MIRS Weaver 2009-03
Physical description
1 video_recording. 4 audio_recordings
Language
English
Preferred Citation
Robert C. Weaver audio and moving image collection, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division, The New York Public Library
Sponsor
An anonymous donor funded preliminary processing for this collection. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation supported a research library-wide grant for the digitization, and funded the Schomburg for the description and production of the finding aid as part of The Next Century of Black Studies Project.
Repository
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division
Access to materials
Appointment preferred: Request an in-person research appointment.

Economist, public administrator, educator, and author Robert Clifton Weaver (1907-1997) was the secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development from 1966 to 1968, and the first African American to be appointed to a United States Cabinet position. The collection consists of four audio recordings and one video relating to the careers of Weaver and his wife, Ella Haith Weaver, dating from circa 1949-1968 and 2000.

Biographical/historical information

Economist, public administrator, educator, and author Robert Clifton Weaver (1907-1997) was the secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development from 1966 to 1968, and the first African American to be appointed to a United States Cabinet position. Over the course of his long and varied career, Weaver became a voice for African American affairs and housing reform.

From 1934 to 1944, Weaver advised the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration on African American affairs as one of forty-five members in the Black Cabinet, an informal group of public policy advisors. In 1955, Weaver became the first African American to serve as the Deputy Commissioner of Housing for New York State. As New York State Rent Administrator (1955-1959) under Governor W. Averell Harriman, he advanced a program to address rent control and de-facto segregation in the metropolitan housing market. In 1960, he became vice chairman of the New York City Housing and Redevelopment Board, and from 1961 to 1966, he served under President John F. Kennedy as administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency.

Weaver received a doctorate in economics from Harvard University in 1934. He taught at a number of colleges and universities, including New York University (1948-1951), City University of New York (1970-1971), and Hunter College (1971). Weaver's publications on race, economics, and housing include Negro Labor: A National Problem (1946) and The Negro Ghetto (1948), as well as numerous articles. Additionally, he served on the board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1955 to 1960. Weaver married Ella Haith in 1935.

Ella Haith Weaver (1911-1991), was an educator and speech therapist. She taught at Brooklyn College from 1949 to 1967, and directed the Speech Correction Clinic. Ella Weaver consulted on a number of federal social development projects, including the federal Job Corps, and the Children's Hearing and Speech Center at Children's Hospital in Washington, DC.

For a detailed chronology of Robert C. Weaver's life and career, see the biographical note of the Robert C. Weaver papers finding aid, Sc Micro R-3701.

Scope and arrangement

The collection consists of four audio recordings and one video relating to the careers of Robert C. Weaver and his wife Ella Haith Weaver, dating from circa 1949-1968 and 2000. Recordings are organized alphabetically by title. They include television news coverage of the dedication of the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building in Washington, DC; two recordings of Weaver speaking about rent control, housing, and urban development; as well as the soundtrack to the animated film Urbanissimo (1967) that Weaver collected. The collection also contains recordings that Ella Haith Weaver created in the course of teaching speech at Brooklyn College.

The original format of some of the audio recordings is open reel, with many items containing multiple parts. Recordings of Robert C. Weaver, and those made by Ella Weaver, are described separately.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Estate of Walter Stafford, 2015.

Processing information

Collection inventoried by Stacey Doyle Ference and Joyce Joseph. Collection processed and described by Lyric Evans-Hunter, archivist. Finding aid published in 2025.

Separated material

See the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division for the Robert C. Weaver papers, Additions II, Sc MG 810.

Related Material

See the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division for the Ella Haith Weaver papers, Sc MG 702.

See the Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference division for titles by Robert C. Weaver.

Using the collection

Location

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division
515 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY 10037-1801
Third Floor

Access to materials

Appointment preferred: Request an in-person research appointment.