Strategic Collecting Direction

Military and Society

The Hay’s Military and Society strategic direction traces the social, political, economic, and cultural influence of world militaries during war and peace. The anchor for this collecting area is the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, an internationally renowned collection originally devoted to the study of military and naval uniforms and iconography. From the 1500s to the present, the ASKB collection traces a history of the role of the (mainly) European military tradition in world societies, including the expansion of imperialism and colonization of Africa and the Americas. The artwork, photographs, and manuscripts in this collection provide nuanced insight into all aspects of military life — from the quotidian realities of soldiering, to military ritual and ceremonial display, to the experience of combat. In conversation with other collections such as the papers of war correspondent Lyn Crost ’38, the Lincoln Collection, and the Vietnam Veterans Archive, the Hay’s holdings provide unique insights into the rhetoric of war and the visual legacy of soldiers and soldiering.

Strategic growth

The Hay has identified future areas of growth in this strategic direction that comprise important topics for researchers that are not well-documented in the existing military collections. Future collecting will thus focus on late 20th century and 21st century:

• Military-social relations
• Peace activism by returning veterans and families of those killed in combat in the Vietnam War, Gulf War, and War in Afghanistan
• Extra-military forces such as private paramilitary forces across the globe
• Citizen militia groups within the U.S.

Focused collection growth will also include the intersection of military and society with medicine and health.

Health and History

• Medical issues like post-traumatic stress disorder and other battle trauma
• LGBTQIA2S and women in the military
• Military responses to sexual violence

Military and Society Anchor Collections

John Hay Collection: John Milton Hay (1838–1905), formally known as John Hay, attended Brown from 1856–11858, and graduated from Brown with an A.M. degree. Shortly after returning home to Warsaw, Illinois, Hay became involved in the Presidential campaign of Abraham Lincoln, and was later selected by the President-Elect to join him in Washington as Assistant Private Secretary in the White House. Residing in the White House, Hay and his close friend and colleague John George Nicolay were privy to important meetings and policy discussions between Lincoln, members of the Presidential Cabinet and sitting members of Congress. The collection includes Hay’s personal correspondence from the Civil War years, along with his White House diaries and other documentation of his experiences before and during the Lincoln administration, and his later career in diplomacy, including his years as Assistant Secretary of State, Ambassador to Great Britain, and Secretary of State.

Abraham Lincoln Collection: A collection, comprising 30,000+ items in various media, of materials by and about Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States, and about the historical and political context of his life and career, chiefly the U.S. Civil War and its causes and aftermath, along with Lincoln’s deep legacy in American public life.

Alison Palmer papers, Pembroke Center Archives: Alison Palmer (Brown University Class of 1953) served in the United States Foreign Service (1959–1981) in Belgian Congo, Ethiopia, and Vietnam. Palmer successfully pursued two sex discrimination lawsuits against the State Department, winning in 1974 and 1987. After her retirement from the State Department in 1981, Palmer became the thirteenth woman Episcopal priest ordained in the United States. The Alison Palmer papers are chiefly related to her two lawsuits but also contain materials that document her foreign service career, and family papers.

Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection: The Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection is the foremost American collection of material devoted to the history and iconography of soldiers and soldiering, and is one of the world’s largest collections devoted to the study of military and naval uniforms. It was formed over a period of forty years by the late Mrs. John Nicholas Brown (1906–1985) of Providence and is still growing. It contains approximately 12,000 printed books, 18,000 albums, sketchbooks, scrapbooks and portfolios (containing thousands of prints and drawings), and over 13,000 individual prints, drawings and water-colors as well as a collection of 5,000 miniature lead soldiers.

Cuban Slavery Documents collection: This set of documents relate to the institution of slavery, the slave trade, and the use of indentured servants in Cuba during the 19th century. This collection contains official letters, death certificates, birth certificates, legal cases, work contracts, an autopsy report, and inventories relating to the institution of slavery, slaves, and indentured servants in Cuba. Many of the documents refer to the Chinese people brought to Cuba as indentured servants or contract laborers.

Lyn Crost papers, Pembroke Center Archives: Eleanor Elizabeth (Lyn) Crost graduated from Pembroke College as part of the Class of 1938, and went on to a distinguished career in journalism. The Crost papers relate Lyn Crost’s experiences as a war correspondent covering the 100th/442nd Regimental Combat Team (an all Japanese-American unit) in Europe during World War II. The collection includes correspondence, photographs, draft literary manuscripts, scrapbooks of news articles written by Crost during the war as a reporter for the Honolulu Star Bulletin, and later materials she compiled to use in writing Honor by Fire (1994). The collection also includes incomplete runs of the serials Go for Broke and Puka Puka Parade, videocassettes of various movies and documentaries about the Nisei, and personal artifacts such as her World War II theater campaign ribbon and her war correspondent’s hat.

Martha and Waitstill Sharp collection, Pembroke Center Archives: Brown alumna Martha Dickie Sharp (Pembroke 1926) and her husband Rev. Waitstill Sharp were co-founders of the Unitarian Service Committee during World War II. The collection documents their strenuous efforts throughout the course of the war to provide relief and assistance to thousands of refugees in Czechoslovakia and France.

Pembroke Center Oral History Collection: This collection includes dozens of interviews discussing every conflict since World War I. Notable interviews include Martha Alice Ingham Dickie ’26, Johanna Fernandez ’93, Ido Jomar ’69, Sarak Kay ’10, Lynn Nottage ’86, Alison Palmer ’53, Rita Schorr ’53.

WWI and WWII Posters Collection: A selection of posters documenting U. S. government policy on the home front, from Liberty Bonds and Victory Gardens in WWI through the promotion of rationing and industrial production during WWII. Many of these posters include derogatory portrayals of the principle wartime opponents prevalent at the time, and thus document the process of strategic dehumanizing of the enemy. Although the majority of the posters in this collection were produced by the U. S. government, the collection also includes some fundraising posters issued by NGOs engaged in war relief activities, such as supporting battlefield hospitals in aid of wounded soldiers and the care and resettlement of war refugees.

Vietnam Veterans Archive: The archive captures stories of Brown’s veterans who served in all branches of the military in Vietnam through oral histories and personal collections. It includes memories of those killed, missing in action, and held as prisoners of war. The stories explore how veterans’ lives were changed forever by these difficult years in Vietnam, life at home, and the impact on family members. Veterans’ personal materials include correspondence, photographs, and military documents and clothing.