Leonard Wash Papers

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  • Collection ID ARCHIVES 2000/04
  • Creator Names Wash, Leonard, 1940-
  • Title Leonard Wash Papers, 1958-2011.
  • Physical description 67 linear feet
  • Collection arrangement Leonard Wash Papers have been arranged into 15 series: Biography and Family History, Manuscripts, Correspondence, Organizations, Black Studies Conferences at Olive-Harvey College, City Colleges of Chicago, Programs, Funeral Programs, Audiovisual Materials, Subject Research Files, Pamphlets, Serial Publications, Clippings, Photographs, and Memorabilia. The collection was accessioned over an 11-year period in more than 50 donations that provided item inventories but no internal arrangement.
  • Collection summary Leonard Wash, a writer and an educator at the City Colleges of Chicago, was active in the Black Arts, Black Consciousness and Black Power movements beginning in the mid-1960's. He attended every annual Black Studies Conference at Olive-Harvey College, recording much of the proceedings. His papers document a wide range of movement activity, jazz and literature. They include correspondence, manuscripts, flyers, programs, pamphlets, playbills, serial publications, photographs and memorabilia.
  • Biographical or Historical Note Leonard Wash was a student, activist and teacher, as a well as lifelong participant in Chicago's Black Arts, Black Power and Black Consciousness movements from the 1960s forward. His professional career spanned four decades of teaching social studies and adult education programs at the City of Colleges of Chicago. In 1978, he was a founding member of the annual Black Studies Conference at Olive-Harvey College. Throughout his adult life he recorded and collected the records of these activities, which compromise the Leonard Wash Papers.
  • Access and usage restrictions Available for research in the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature Carter G. Woodson Regional Library (Chicago Public Library).
  • Acquisition information Deed of gift from Leonard Wash, May 5, 2000. Subsequent donations were made by Leonard Wash several times each year from 2001 through 2011.
  • Finding Aids Note Finding aid available in the Harsh Research Collection at Carter G. Woodson Regional Library, Chicago Public Library and on the library's web site.
  • Names
    • Wash, Leonard, 1940- Archives.
    • Olive-Harvey College Sources.
    • City Colleges of Chicago Sources.
  • Subjects
    • African American teachers Illinois Chicago History Sources.
    • Private schools Illinois Chicago History Sources.
  • Finding aid URL http://www.chipublib.org/fa-leonard-wash-papers/ Finding aid