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© 2003 Smith College. All rights reserved.
Elimina Lucke with Social Work students, n.d.
The papers are concentrated in the period after World War II. There are some items, mainly from the 1930s, relating to her family, teaching, and research. With the exception of family letters and photographs, the papers document her professional work and are not personal in nature.
This collection is organized into five series:
The collection is open to research according to the regulations of the Sophia Smith Collection without any additional restrictions.
The Sophia Smith Collection owns copyright to unpublished works of Elmina Lucke. Copyright to materials created by others may be owned by those individuals or their heirs or assigns. It is the responsibility of the researcher to identify and satisfy the holders of all copyrights. Permission must be obtained from the Sophia Smith Collection to publish reproductions or quotations beyond "fair use."
Please use the following format when citing materials from this collection:
Elmina Lucke Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, MA
Selections from the Elmina Lucke Papers can be viewed in the Web exhibit
The papers are a gift from Elmina Lucke. The first installment was received in February 1986 and additional materials have been received since then. After Ms. Lucke decided to place her papers in the Sophia Smith Collection, the Schlesinger Library transferred the portion of her memoir that had been on deposit there. Donations of correspondence and photographs have been received from Ross Lucke, Marilyn Brooks, and Marjorie Creelman.
Processed by Dorothy Green. Revised by Susan Boone, 1987.
This series consists of two sections, General and Family. Other letters are filed according to subject in other series.
General correspondence is arranged in alphabetical order. A large number of letters from former students in Egypt, India, and Pakistan provide a view of social work in these countries. Other correspondents whose letters are of special interest are Madhav Gore, principal of the Delhi School of Social Work from 1953 to 1962, who has corresponded with Miss Lucke for more than thirty years about the school's development and about social work in India; Talitha Gerlach, employee of the Y.W.C.A. and the China Welfare Institute in Shanghai, who has written to Miss Lucke since the end of World War II; and Ruth Rickover, wife of a U.S. naval officer stationed in China, whose letters describe events at the time of the Japanese invasion of China in 1938.
There are copies of letters by Elmina Lucke to the Gore family and to former students at the end of this section.
Family correspondence consists of letters from Miss Lucke written while traveling abroad. They contain detailed descriptions of places she visited and people she met and are also expressive of her closeness to her family. There are also letters from various family members.
This series consists of ten sections which document Elmina Lucke's long career as an educator, researcher, administrator, and consultant. These materials are concentrated on her work abroad from 1930 to 1968. There is no documentation of her earliest work in high school teaching, for the Children's Bureau, and as founder and director of the International Institute of Detroit, but Miss Lucke recalls some of those experiences in her oral history.
The Investigation of the Social Studies in the Schools section contains papers from a trip Miss Lucke took in l930-3l with a grant from the American Historical Association which had undertaken this investigation in l929. There is correspondence, reports about educational systems in some of the countries she visited, printed materials, and miscellaneous papers. Reminiscences about this trip may be found in Series III.
The Lincoln School section contains a variety of materials about Miss Lucke's twenty-year association with the school. Documents include correspondence, research notes, clippings, publications, a bibliography, and two drafts of social studies curricula for high schools. Letters of her former Lincoln students, including David Rockefeller, are in Series I.
The Delhi School of Social Work section contains correspondence, reports, publications, and a variety of printed materials produced by the school, established under the auspices of the Y.W.C.A. in 1946. There are documents and published accounts about her work as the founder and director of the school. There are papers and correspondence from Miss Lucke's trips to Assam and Burma pertaining to social work education in those countries. There are publications, reports, and correspondence received by Miss Lucke after she left the school.
The Cairo School of Social Work section contains correspondence, notes and texts for three lectures, reports, planning documents, and other papers relating to Miss Lucke's work as a consultant on social work education in Egypt as a Fulbright fellow.
The American Council of Voluntary Agencies for Foreign Service section consists of two reports relating to Miss Lucke's tenure as director of a committee studying the distribution of voluntary foreign aid in the years from 1946 to 1952.
The United Nations Technical Assistance Program, Pakistan section contains Elmina Lucke's published report about this program, correspondence, research notes and interviews, a report by Julia Henderson, materials relating to the first training course for social workers, and miscellaneous papers and printed materials.
The University of Michigan, Community Development Seminar section contains a report summarizing discussions and class lists for seminars taught by Elmina Lucke during the summers of 1958 and 1962.
The International Federation of University Women and the Pan-Pacific and Southeast Asia Women's Association sections contain reports, correspondence, proceedings, and other papers documenting Elmina Lucke's work as representative of these organizations to the United Nations.
The Other Professional Associations and Activities section consists of correspondence and printed materials from various organizations.
This series consists of separate sections of unpublished and published work. The Unpublished section contains her memoir, "Remembering at Eighty-Eight, Letters I Should have Written." These reminiscences begin with an around-the-world trip in 1930 and describe Miss Lucke's impressions and work abroad through her last trip in 1969. It was published shortly before her death in l987. There are also some texts and notes for speeches in this section. A few writings and speeches are filed in Series II. The Published section contains the book,
This series consists of two sections. The Biographical Materials section contains chronologies highlighting Elmina Lucke's career, numerous clippings about her from 1931 to 1987, and documents concerning several honors she received. The Memorabilia section includes mementos from the 1930-31 trip and a book about the trip by her traveling companion.
This series contains photographs of Elmina Lucke, her friends, and family. There are also photographs from her travels, mainly in India and the Far East. Among the oldest items in this collection are copies of pictures from a family album, dating probably from 1897.