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Oregon State University
Special Collections and Archives
Research Center

Ava Milam Clark Papers, 1856-1972View associated digital content.

Predominant Dates: 1915-1968

The Ava Milam Clark Papers document Clark's career in the field of home economics, her role as Dean of Home Economics at Oregon State College from 1917 to 1950, and her international activities as a consultant to home economics programs in China, Japan, Korea, Iraq, and Syria.

Items from this collection have been digitized and are available in Oregon Digital.

Reference access scans of the contents of box-folders 8.9-10, 8.12 and 9.1 are available upon request.

ID: MSS ClarkAvaM
Extent: 5.8 cubic feet
More Extent Information
Scope and Content Notes
Biographical / Historical Notes
Statement on Access: The collection is open for research.
Statement on Description:

The collection was fully processed in April 2016, and the Jesse C. and Ava Milam Clark Photographic Collection (P 152) was formally dissolved and integrated with this collection at that time.

The collection was updated in March 2024 to reflect anti-racist description practices.

Arrangement
Preferred Citation: Ava Milam Clark Papers (MSS ClarkAvaM), Oregon State University Special Collections and Archives Research Center, Corvallis, Oregon.
Acquisition Note: The bulk of the collection was donated by Clark's estate in 1975. Additional materials were transferred from College of Home Economics in 1994. Correspondence from Alice Ravenhill to Ava Milam Clark was transferred into the collection from the College of Home Economics Records (RG 141) in 1994.
Languages of Materials
Other

Container List

Series 1: Correspondence, 1903-1971 Add to Shelf
This series contains both personal and professional correspondence spanning the life and career of Ava Milam Clark. Comprised of both sent and recieved letters, this series contains hundreds of letters from Clark's colleagues in the field of home economics all over the world. Much of the professional correspondence is related to Clark's work abroad and her role as Dean of the School of Home Economics at Oregon State College. Of particular note in this series are the many long "diary letters" written by Clark to friends and family in the U.S. while she was traveling. These lengthy narratives give detailed, rich descriptions of the countries she is visiting, and include abundant information related to what she was seeing related to cultural customs, homes, manners, food, sanitation, as well as descriptive vignettes of the landscape and people and anecdotes of her travel. These can be found in correspondence folders for each of the years that Clark traveled abroad, but letters from her 1922, 1937, and 1948 trips to Asia are particularly detailed. Also of note in this series are letters from many pioneers in the field of home economics and social sciences, including Jane Addams, Marion Talbot, and Sophonsiba Breckenridge, and letters from Arthur B. Carson of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions describing post-war Manila in detail.
Box-Folder 1.1: Correspondence, 1903-1919 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 1.2: Correspondence, 1920-1922 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 1.3: Correspondence, 1923 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 1.4: Correspondence, 1924-1939 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 1.5: Correspondence, 1930-1934 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 1.6: Correspondence, 1935-1936 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 2.1: Correspondence, 1940-1948 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 2.2: Correspondence, 1948 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 2.3: Correspondence, 1949-1950 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 2.4: Correspondence, 1951 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 2.5: Correspondence, 1952 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 2.6: Correspondence, 1952-1968 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 2.7: Correspondence, 1953-1954 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 3.1: Condolence letters and telegrams, 1956-1957 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 3.2: Correspondence, 1955-1957 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 3.3: Correspondence, 1958-1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 3.4: Correspondence, 1967-1968 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 3.5: Correspondence, 1968-1971 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 3.6: Correspondence, 1969-1971 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 3.7: Correspondence, undated Add to Shelf
Series 2: Home Economics at OSU, 1889-1968 Add to Shelf
This series includes internal department documents, newsletters, and outreach materials related to the School of Home Economics at Oregon State College over several decades. Particularly unique documents in this series include accounts of Oregon State's presence at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, as well as student reports of a 1937 home economics study tour of Asia. Dean Milam's speeches and radio talks on home economics are a primary feature of this series, including a radio series for KOAC on home life in foreign countries, including China, Japan, Korea, Burma, India, Egypt, and Palestine, and interviews with home exchange students from Finland and South Africa. This series also includes more than 100 letters sent from OSC home economics alumnae to Dean Milam on the occasion of her retirement.
Box-Folder 4.1: Faculty list, 1889-1970 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 4.2: "A Model for Branch Association of Home Economics," Sarah Louise Arnold, 1910-1943 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 4.3: Newspaper clippings, 1922-1969 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 4.4: "Camp Cookery," by Ava Milam and Ruth McNary Smith, 1913, 1918 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 4.5: Biennial reports for School of Home Economics, 1917-1969 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 4.6: Student projects, 1915-1946 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 4.7: Reports, speeches, and articles, 1917-1969 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 4.8: Articles on and interviews with Ava Milam, 1917-1950 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 4.9: Speeches by Ava Milam, circa 1920-1940 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 4.10: Student papers and term reports, 1923-1950 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 4.11: Education for women, 1923-1953 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 4.12: Articles on home economics, 1925-1969 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 5.1: Home Economics Alumni Newsletter, 1931-1961 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 5.2: Radio talks on foreign countries, 1933-1952 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 5.3: Radio talks on home economics, 1933-1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 5.4: Oregon Home Economics Association, 1936-1956 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 5.5: 50th, 60th, and 75th anniversary events, 1937-1968 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 5.6: Home economics programs at U. S. universities, 1937-1967 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 5.7: Photographs, Home Economics Study Tour, 1937 Add to Shelf
P152:35
Box-Folder 5.8: Student reports for Home Economics Study Tour, 1937 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 5.9: Book of letters from former students and colleagues, 1950 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 6.1: Presentations by Ava Milam Clark, circa 1950 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 6.2: Conference on Home Economics and Education in Nutrition, Trinidad, 1952 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 6.3: Awards, 1968 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 6.4: OSU Home Economics Alumni Conference, 1968 Add to Shelf
Series 3: Home Economics Abroad, 1914-1969 Add to Shelf

This series is comprised of notes, reports, surveys, newsletters, and manuscripts related to Ava Milam's work abroad in the countries of China, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. These materials document Ava Milam's work to begin programs of home economics in each of these countries. Her work at Yenching University and her survey of student homes in China are extensively documented, as is her sojourn in the Middle East as a home economist for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

Reference access scans of the contents of box-folders 8.9-10, 8.12, and 9.1 are available upon request.

Sub-Series 1: China, Japan, and Korea, 1922-1969 Add to Shelf
Of particular importance in this subseries are lengthy, detailed letters from the President of Yenching University, J. Leighton Stuart, in Peiping (now Beijing) China, to the University Board of Trustees giving detailed first-hand accounts of the Japanese invasion and occupation during the Sino-Japanese war from 1937-1946, as well as Ava Milam's detailed journal of her trip to Japan in 1922.
Box-Folder 6.5: Travel diary in China and Japan, 1922-1923 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 6.6: Notes on problems and solutions with Korean home life, 1922 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 6.7: Yenching University, 1924-1969 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 6.8: Student papers on Korean diet, 1924-1926 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 6.9: Speeches on Asia, 1930-1961 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 6.10: J. Leighton Stuart letters to Yenching University Board of Trustees, 1936-1940 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 6.11: J. Leighton Stuart letters to Yenching University Board of Trustees, 1940-1946 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 6.12: Notes on home economics in China, 1945-1963 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 6.13: Travel documents, 1948 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 7.1: Journal of Home Economics, Yonsei University Seoul, 1968 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 7.2: Tourist site photographs, 1922-1948 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 7.3: Friends in China, photographs, 1922-1948 Add to Shelf
Includes P152:26-33
Box-Folder 7.4: Tourist sites and friends, larger photographs, 1922-1948 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 7.5: Photographs, Yenching University, 1922-1948 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 18.1: Nitrate negatives, 1915-1930 Add to Shelf
Includes multiple views of numerous tourist sites in China.
Sub-Series 2: "A Study of Student Homes in China", 1914-1949 Add to Shelf
This subseries is comprised of notes, reports, and surveys related to Ava Milam Clark's first trip to China. On this trip she conducted a survey of Chinese home and family customs, which was later published in 1930. Of particular note in this suberies is a copy of the blank survey she devised, and summaries of the responses to the survey by Ava Milam.
Box-Folder 7.6: Notes and reports on family life in China, 1914-1949 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 7.7: Notes and reports derived from survey, 1922 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 7.8: Reports on Chinese marriage customs, 1922-1924 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 7.9: Notes and reports on Chinese family customs, 1924 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 7.10: Manuscript, A Study of Student Homes in China, 1929-1930 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 8.1: Book, A Study of Student Homes in China, 1930 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 8.2: Book reviews, 1930-1932 Add to Shelf
Sub-Series 3: Philippines, 1945-1952 Add to Shelf
The materials in this small subseries primarily document Ava Milam's trip to the Philippines in 1948 to survey schools and colleges there under the auspices of the Foreign Missions Conference of North America, and the Association of Christian Schools and Colleges. Notable in this series are a few field surveys conducted with citizens, and copies of her final report, written with Donald P. Cottrell.
Box-Folder 8.3: Survey materials on schools and colleges, 1945-1952 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 8.4: Photographs, 1922-1948 Add to Shelf
Sub-Series 4: Middle East, 1946-1953 Add to Shelf

The materials in this subseries document Ava Milam's work as a consultant to the governments of Syria and Iraq in her role as a home economist in the Technical Assistance Program on the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Of particular note in this subseries are materials related to the two-week home economics workshop conducted in Syria in 1951, including course materials in Arabic and planning documents. Also of note are her monthly field progress reports from Iraq, which give detailed narratives of conditions there, and her official reports to the governments of Syria and Iraq.

Reference access scans of the contents of box-folders 8.9-10, 8.12, and 9.1 are available upon request.

Box-Folder 8.5: Background reports on the Middle East, 1946-1951 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 8.6: FAO workshop in Syria, 1946-1952 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 8.7: Travel information for Iraq, 1949-1952 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 8.8: Food and Agriculture Organization, 1950-1952 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 8.9: Education and home economics in Iraq, 1951-1952 Add to Shelf
Reference use scans of the contents of this folder are available upon request.
Box-Folder 8.10: Monthly field progress reports, Iraq, 1951-1952 Add to Shelf
Reference use scans of the contents of this folder are available upon request.
Box-Folder 8.11: Syria, 1951-1953 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 8.12: Syrian workshop materials, 1951 Add to Shelf
Reference use scans of the contents of this folder are available upon request.
Box-Folder 8.13: Lebanon and Egypt conferences, 1951 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 8.14: Queen Aliya College home economics programs, 1952 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 8.15: Report on a Mission to Iraq, UN Food and Agrigulture Organization, by Graham Savage, John McClelland, and Ava Milam, 1953 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 9.1: Report to the Government of Iraq on Home Economics, by Ava Milam, 1952 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 9.2: Report to the Government of Syria on Home Economics, by Ava Milam, 1951 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 9.3: Photographs, 1951-1952 Add to Shelf
Series 4: Adventures of a Home Economist, 1909-1972 Add to Shelf
This series is comprised of notes, drafts, and source materials related to Ava Milam Clark's autobiography, Adventures of a Home Economist, published in 1968 by Oregon State University Press. With co-writer J. Kenneth Munford, Ava Milam Clark wrote a compelling and detailed autobiography including excerpts from her "diary letters" of travel and other extensive documentation. The source materials in these files are comprised of correspondence, clippings, offprints, notes, newspapers, publications, transcripts, and other original documentation from the time period of the relevant chapter. Also included are drafts and notes on the manuscript in its various stages. Notable in this series are folders of correspondence from young women who were in the home economics program in 1915, when the department ran a tearoom on the grounds of the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, offering their personal memories of the experience to Ava Milam Clark to assist with her autobiography. Also of note are her manuscript notes on a survey of schools and colleges in the Philippines, as well as hundreds of letters of support sent to Ava from friends and readers of the book.
Box-Folder 9.4: Drafts for Chapter 1: The First Day, 1965 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 9.5: Drafts for Chapter 1: The First Day, undated Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 9.6: Drafts for Chapter 2: Early Life, circa 1965 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 9.7: Source materials for Chapter 2: Early Life, 1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 9.8: Sources materials and drafts for Chapter 3: University of Chicago, 1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 9.9: Source materials and drafts for Chapter 3: University of Chicago, 1942-1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 9.10: Source materials and drafts for Chapter 4: Development of Home Economics, 1950-1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 9.11: Source materials and draft for Chapter 4: Early Pioneers, 1928-1967 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 9.12: Journal offprints for Chapter 4: Early Pioneers, 1909-1947 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 10.1: Source materials and draft for Chapter 5: A Busy First Year, 1915-1967 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 10.2: Source materials and draft for Chapter 6: Home Economics Extension, 1913-1968 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 10.3: Source materials and drafts for Chapter 7: Two Deans, 1919-1967 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 10.4: Source materials and draft for Chapter 8: Tearoom at the Fair, 1915-1967 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 10.5: Correspondence from former students about 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition experience, 1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 10.6: Source materials for Chapter 9: New Horizons, 1920-1929 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 10.7: Source materials for Chapter 10: Expansion, 1917-1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 11.1: Source materials and drafts for Chapter 11: AHEA, 1967 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 11.2: Drafts for Chapter 12: China, 1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 11.3: Drafts for Chapter 12: China, 1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 11.4: Drafts for Chapter 12: China, undated Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 11.5: Drafts for Chapter 13: Return from China, 1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 11.6: Source materials and drafts for Chapter 14: Home Economics Research, 1930-1967 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 11.7: Source materials for Chapter 14: Home Economics Research, 1911-1965 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 11.8: Source materials and drafts for Chapter 17: Encounter, 1937 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 12.1: Source materials and drafts for Chapter 18: Turbulent Decade, 1944-1948 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 12.2: Source materials for Chapter 19: Ambassador, 1948-1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 12.3: Source materials for Chapter 20: Survey, 1945-1948 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 12.4: Source materials and drafts for Chapter 22: Syria, 1930-1955 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 12.5: Source materials for Chapter 24: JC Clark, 1904-1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 12.6: Source materials and drafts for Chapter 24: JC Clark, 1912-1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 12.7: Source materials and drafts for Chapter 26: No Place Like Home, 1965-1967 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 13.1: Biographical materials, 1917-1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 13.2: Travel itineraries, 1948-1958 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 13.3: OSU Press, 1963-1967 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 13.4: Notes, undated Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 13.5: Mailing lists, undated Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 13.6: Bibliography, undated Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 13.7: Reader comments, 1966-1970 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 13.8: Reader comments, 1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 13.9: Reader comments, 1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 13.10: Reader comments, 1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 14.1: Reader comments, 1967-1968 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 14.2: Reader comments, 1969 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 14.3: Reader comments, 1970-1972 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 14.4: Reviews, 1968-1969 Add to Shelf
Series 5: Personal Materials, 1856-1971 Add to Shelf
This series includes notes and biographical documents generated by Ava Milam in her personal life. Of particular note are an 1856 deed of sale for an enslaved person named Wesley, from Albert Eppersen to a distant relative named Reice Milam. Blueprints and plans for the house in Corvallis that she designed herself are also included. Her involvement with the Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship in the years after J.C.'s death is documented in this series, including notes and transcripts from several sittings with noted psychic and spiritual medium Arthur Ford.
Box-Folder 14.5: Awards and citations, 1945-1971 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 14.6: Biographical materials, 1889-1955 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 14.7: House plans, circa 1920s-1940 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 15.1: Calendars, 1955-1956 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 15.2: J.C. Clark letters, 1951-1952 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 15.3: J.C. Clark estate settlement, 1956 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 15.4: JC Clark biographical materials, 1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 15.5: Family documents, 1856-1956 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 15.6: Foreign addresses, 1923-1955 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 15.7: Guest books for receptions, 1950, 1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 15.8: Guest book for Corvallis home, 1936-1958 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 15.9: Guest book for Grayling, 1936-1956 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 16.1: Passports, 1923-1956 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 16.2: Photographs, Blees Military Academy, 1905-1907 Add to Shelf
Includes P152:11; includes film negatives
Box-Folder 16.3: Photographs, Ava Milam Clark, circa 1922-1968 Add to Shelf
Includes P152:22
Box-Folder 16.4: Photographs, friends, 1922-1970 Add to Shelf
Includes P152:12, P152:14, P152:24
Box-Folder 16.5: Photographs, Ava and JC Clark, 1952-1956 Add to Shelf
Includes P152:08
Box-Folder 16.6: Photographs of Corvallis home and Grayling summer home, circa 1925-circa 1950 Add to Shelf
Includes P152:10, P152:15, P152:16, P152:17, P152:18, P152:19, P152:20
Box-Folder 16.7: Photographs, family, 1900-1907 Add to Shelf
Includes P152:09, P152:21, P152:23, P152:36; P152:37; includes film negatives
Box-Folder 16.8: Photographs, foreign exchange students, circa 1949 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 17.1: Poetry and quotations, 1920-1966 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 17.2: Notes, undated Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 17.3: Radio transcripts, 1941-1947 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 17.4: Recipes and menus, undated Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 17.5: Religious materials, 1938-1968 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 17.6: Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship, 1955-1961 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 17.7: Transcripts of sittings, 1955-1960 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 17.8: University of Chicago thesis and materials, 1910-1911 Add to Shelf
Box-Folder 18.1: Nitrate negatives, circa 1915-1930 Add to Shelf
Unidentified family and friends.
Map-Folder 1: Oversize Personal Materials, 1909-1949 Add to Shelf
Included in this map folder are: larger format architectural drawings of Milam's home in Corvallis, and plans for remodeling that home (C.N. Freeman, architect); diplomas from the University of Chicago (1909, 1910, 1911); a Certificate of Appreciation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; Japanese news clippings; a National Geographic Magazine map of the "Classical Lands of the Mediterranean" (December 1949); and a National Geographic Magazine map of the "Bible Lands and the Cradle of Western Civilization" (December 1946).
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