The following boxes are located off-site: 2-5. You will need to request this material at least three business days in advance to use the collection in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room.
This collection has no restrictions.
There are substantial gaps for the years 1921-1939.
Correspondence, memoranda, and financial and legal papers of Wood. The papers chronicle Wood's role in the early history of the National Urban League. Among the major correspondents are Mary McLeod Bethune, Chester Bowles, Pearl S. Buck, Anna Lord Strauss, and Booker T. Washington.
Cataloged and arranged. Collection is arranged in 2 series.
You will need to make an appointment in advance to use this collection material in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. You can schedule an appointment once you've submitted your request through your Special Collections Research Account.
The following boxes are located off-site: 2-5. You will need to request this material at least three business days in advance to use the collection in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room.
This collection has no restrictions.
Reproductions may be made for research purposes. The RBML maintains ownership of the physical material only. Copyright remains with the creator and his/her heirs. The responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron.
Readers must use microfilm of materials specified above.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); L. Hollingsworth Wood papers; Box and Folder; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
Schomburg Committee of the Trustees of New York Public Library collection, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division
L. Hollingsworth Wood papers (HC.MC.1175) Quaker and Special Collections, Haverford College, Haverford, PA.
L. Hollingsworth Wood correspondence, Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College
L. Hollingsworth Wood Prison Reform Papers, Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College
National Urban League records, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
Guichard Parris papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. Contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
Pearl S. Buck letters are on: microfilm.
Source of acquisition--Parris, Guichard. Method of acquisition--Gift; Date of acquisition--1976. Accession number--M-76.
Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Cataloged Christina Hilton Fenn 09/--/89.
April 2020 PDF replaced with full finding aid, YH
Levi Hollingsworth Wood was born into a Quaker family in Westchester County, New York, 1873. He was the son of James and Emily (Hollingsworth) Wood, and the brother of Carolena Morris Wood and Ellen Morris Wood. He graduated from Haverford College in 1896 and Columbia University Law School in 1899. He formed the Kirby and Wood law firm in New York. Wood was active in area of peace, social reforms, racial justice, and humanitarian causes. He served on the Trustee of Fisk University from 1917 to 1956. He was one of the founder and President of the National Urban League (NUL) for 26 years. He also supported the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and Civil Liberties Bureau, later became the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in 1920. He was involved in the joint Peace Committee of the Hicksite and Orthodox New York Yearly Meetings, Peace Association of Friends and the Peace Committee of Associated Yearly Meetings, Haverford's Board of Managers, the American League to Limit Armaments (also known as the American Union Against Militarism), the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland (1920-1923), Board of International Rescue Committee (chairman, 1940s-1950s), Fellowship of Reconciliation, and so on. He died in 1956 at the Mount Kisco, New York. A more detailed biography about the Woods can be found in Barbour, Hugh. "The Woods of Mt. Kisco." Quaker History, vol. 87, no. 1, 1998, pp. 1–34.