Superstition: articles, newspaper clippings, and booklet, 1952-1966

The subject files contain Cartwright’s collected research which supported her work as a journalist and lecturer. This series is comprised of articles, ephemera and newspaper clippings arranged by topic. As with the United Nations Country Files, much of this material is contained within scrapbooks. These topics primarily cover social and cultural issues within the United States throughout the 1960s and the early 1970s.

Some of the prominent topics include African Americans in broadcasting and entertainment, visual art, Black nationalism, civil rights activists such as Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown, civil rights organizations, education and school desegregation, fashion, language and linguistics, intermarriage, music, policing, race and intercultural relations, and racial and gender stereotypes. There is also material about Jewish people and their culture in the United States, the Soviet Union, and in South Africa; Jewish organizations such as the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Defense League; and anti-Semitism.

This series also includes files about U.S. politicians who were prominent in the 1960s such as Harlan Cleveland, who was President Lyndon B. Johnson’s ambassador to NATO; President Richard Nixon; and Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who was the first African American to be elected to Congress from New York and who urged the U.S. to support newly independent African and Asian countries. Major events and politics covered within the files include the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr.; John F. Kennedy; and Robert F. Kennedy. This section also contains scrapbooks consisting of The New York Times “New Summaries” column from October 1967 to December 1972; this daily column contains a summary of daily events.

Lastly, this collection includes 5”x7” notecards which contain newspaper and article clippings and annotated bibliographies. These notecards largely cover the same topics as the rest of the collection in addition to topics relating to African countries. They were likely used in Cartwright’s personal research or as part of her work as a university lecturer.