Correspondence, undated

The papers of Charles A. Mosher offer partial documentation of Mosher's student days at Oberlin College (1924‑28), of his career as a newspaper publisher in Oberlin (1940‑60), of his second term of service as a trustee of Oberlin College (1973‑77), and of his research leading to the completion of his M.A. thesis at Oberlin College in 1983. For records relating to Mosher's service in the Ohio State Senate (1941‑60) and U. S. House of Representatives (1961‑77), consult Record Group 30/226.

The Mosher papers are arranged into the following series: I. Personal Miscellany; II. Special Files: Newspaper Editor and Publisher; III. Special Files: Oberlin College Trustee; IV/1. Millikan Family Correspondence; IV/2. Charles A. Mosher Correspondence; V. Miscellany Collected by Charles Mosher; VI. Research Files; and VII. Photographs.

The bulk of these papers dates from the period of Mosher's tenure as publisher and editor of the Oberlin News Tribune in Oberlin, Ohio. Correspondence (1941‑60) largely consists of letters from citizens or civic leaders commenting on editorials and community issues such as the organization of an interracial barbershop in the 1940s and the hiring of Black teachers by the Oberlin public school system. Correspondents include radio broadcaster Raymond Gram Swing (b. 1887) and journalist William Allen White (1868‑1944). A separate run of correspondence (1945‑59) between Mosher and Oberlin College trustees pertains exclusively to Oberlin College matters, including the 1945 presidential search culminating in the appointment of President William E. Stevenson (1900‑85); the appointment in 1959 of President Robert Kenneth Carr (1908‑79); and the 1959 rift between College faculty and trustees. Also present are select editorials written by Mosher (1940‑60), notes for talks, clippings reporting visits to Oberlin by Wendell L. Wilkie (b. 1892) and Eleanor Roosevelt (1884‑1962), and miscellaneous files pertaining to  specific matters addressed by Mosher in his editorials. Topics covered by these files include the expansion of Allen Memorial Hospital (1949‑57); controversy over Japanese‑American students at Oberlin College during World War 11 (1942‑43); and debate over the Lorain County Health Commissioner (1944).

The balance of the papers consist of chronological files relating to Mosher's second term as a trustee of Oberlin College (1973‑77), which occurred during the 1973 governance controversy documented in the files. Also present is a scrapbook covering Mosher's undergraduate years at Oberlin College (1924‑28); Mosher's 1983 Oberlin M.A. thesis; and miscellaneous historical files collected by Mosher relating to his family and to Oberlin's second physician, Dr. Alexander Steele.