| | Abstract: | Emily Newell Blair was a suffragist, feminist, Democratic Party official, mother and writer. During World War I she worked in the press department of the Missouri Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense, eventually becoming vice chair. Representing Missouri on the Democratic National Committee, Blair was chosen national vice chair responsible for organizing women voters and women's activities, and eventually rose to first vice president, organized 2,000 plus Democratic women's clubs, and helped found the Woman's National Democratic Club. In 1935, she was appointed to the Consumers' Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration, and, in 1942, was appointed chief of the Women's Interest Section of the War Department's Public Relations Bureau. Her husband, Harry Wallace Blair, was U.S. Assistant Attorney General in the Land Div. of the Justice Dept. in the 1930s and later served with the President's Loyalty Review Board. The collection consists of personal, professional and family correspondence, published and unpublished writings by and about Emily Blair, diaries, speeches, personal and family memorabilia, and clippings. Series I and II form the bulk of the collection, Series II being largely Emily Blair's personal writings, such as diaries, speeches, published articles, typescripts of fiction and non-fiction, and typescripts of her autobiography. Blair family material consists of the papers of Harry Wallace Blair (husband), Harriet Blair Forsythe (daughter), James Patton and Anna Gray Newell (parents), and her McDowell family ancestors of Pennsylvania, particularly the correspondence of Alexander McDowell. The collection is useful for researching the history of women and the family in the early 20th century, the issues of feminism and women's suffrage, and the emergence of women as politicians within the Democratic Party. Notable correspondents include Cordell Hull, Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, and Harry S. Truman. McDowell family materials chronicle pioneer life on the 18th-century Pennsylvania frontier. | |
