Scope and arrangement
The Anna Arnold Hedgeman papers document the second half of Hedgeman's career in governmental, religious, civil rights, and educational organizations from the 1950s through the early 1980s. The collection consists largely of manuscripts, correspondence, and printed material. It covers the second half of Hedgeman's career beginning with her tenure as a mayoral aide in 1953, and continuing through her consulting work in the 1970s. The Personal/Biographical series includes family correspondence, biographical sketches and resumes, and information on Hedgeman's awards and honorary degrees. In addition, the series has a small amount of information regarding Hedgeman's husband Merritt, a successful musician. The Correspondence series contains incoming and outgoing letters covering twenty-eight years of Hedgeman's career from 1955 to 1982. It includes correspondence of a general nature and correspondence from Hedgeman's work as a freelance consultant. Other correspondence generated as part of Hedgeman's official duties on behalf of the organizations that employed her is contained in the Mayoral Aide, Organizations, and Government Service series. Correspondence pertaining to Hedgeman's speaking engagements as a freelance consultant or the publication of her writings is included in the Speaking Engagements and Writings series The Mayoral Aide series documents Hedgeman's work as an aide to Mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr. from 1954 to 1958 and contains a limited amount of correspondence and printed material pertaining to racial discrimination within city agencies, Hedgeman's visits to school groups, and her trip to the Middle East in 1956. The largest and most substantive series, Organizations, is divided into three subseries: Religious, Education, and Community. The Religious subseries contains correspondence, minutes, legislative material, and internal office memoranda pertaining to Hedgeman's time with the National Council of Churches. It also contains research materials and printed matter collected by Hedgeman related to her interest in interfaith activism. The Education subseries contains correspondence, minutes, and printed material from 1963 to 1980 dealing with Hedgeman's consulting work on behalf of several universities, colleges, and school districts where she helped develop curricula and policies for minority students. The Community subseries consists of correspondence and printed matter from 1957 to 1983 on Hedgeman's voluntary service as a board member or committee member of numerous organizations, particularly the National Association of Black Professional Women in Higher Education and Harlem Hospital Center. The Government Service series consists primarily of printed material pertaining to federal, state, and local governmental bodies for which Hedgeman served as advisory committee member in the 1960s and 1970s. The bulk of material relates to the National Advisory Council on Vocational Rehabilitation and the New York City Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation, but it does not directly document Hedgeman's involvement. Also included in this series are three small files on Hedgeman's participation in White House meetings and conferences. The Speaking Engagements and Writings series relates to Hedgeman's journalism, autobiographies, and speeches between 1954 and 1982. It includes annotated typescripts of significant speeches such as Hedgeman's address to the Conference of Women of African and African Descent in Ghana in 1960. A large portion of the series covers the publication and promotion of Hedgeman's two memoirs, The Trumpet Sounds (1964) and The Gift of Chaos (1973). It also contains research materials, drafts, and clippings of Hedgeman's articles for the New York Age where she was a columnist and the associate editor, as well as clippings from miscellaneous African-American periodicals and peace advocacy publications during the 1950s. Her clippings from the New York Age primarily report on Hedgeman's trips abroad and profile community leaders in Harlem. The series concludes with an assortment of short handwritten and typed documents that appear to have been unpublished during Hedgeman's lifetime. The Scrapbook Files series consists of newspaper clippings, leaflets, and pamphlets that Hedgeman compiled into four scrapbooks covering religion, civil rights, feminism, Black-Jewish relations, and labor.
The Anna Arnold Hedgeman papers are arranged in seven series: