John D. Lewis Papers

Collection

Identifier: RG 30-229

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The papers of John D. Lewis, spanning the years 1902 to 1977, document Lewis' career as a teacher and scholar in the discipline of political science. They reflect in detail his personal and professional associations with other leading members of the field. The collection also offers information pertaining to the family of John and Ewart Lewis.

The Lewis papers are arranged into six records series: I. Biographical Files; II. Lewis Family Correspondence; III. Professional Correspondence of John D. Lewis; IV. Teaching Materials; V. Research Notes and Writings; and VI. Subject Files. Within series, materials are further subdivided into subseries or arranged chronologically or alphabetically by topic or type of material. The file headings in Series VI are largely those employed by John Lewis.

Information relating to John Lewis' personal life is contained in Series I and Series II, Biographical Files and Lewis Family Correspondence. Series I is an artificial grouping of miscellaneous materials and includes the wills of Lewis' parents, land deeds, and student files dating from the period of Lewis' undergraduate (1926-28) and graduate study (1928-33) in Oberlin, Madison, and Berlin. Series I also includes several of Professor Lewis' annual reports (1936-49) to the President of Oberlin College. A complete run of these reports, which report professional achievements of the preceding year, are available in the records of the Office of the Secretary (5). John Lewis' personal correspondence (1928-72) is entirely incoming and consists largely of Ewart Kellogg's lengthy and spirited epistles to her fiance in Berlin. Later letters from Ewart, written to her husband during his absences from Oberlin, offer an intimate portrayal of the Lewis family from 1935 to 1950. Other correspondents of John Lewis include his parents, John T. and Mary Lewis, his brother, Lew J. Lewis, his young son David, and colleagues Frederick B. Artz (1894-1983), Oscar Jaszi (1875-1957), Cecelia Marie Kenyon (1922-90; AB Oberlin 1943), and George (1913-81) and Susi Lanyi.

John Lewis' professional correspondence, housed in Series III, consists largely of file copies of letters of recommendation written for colleagues and undergraduates. They are filed with letters requesting such support. Also present is incoming and outgoing correspondence pertaining to speaking engagements, candidates for academic posts at other institutions, nominees for fellowships or tenure, departmental staffing, and American Political Science Association committee work. Correspondents of John Lewis include political scientists F. W. Coker (b. 1878), John M. Gaus (b. 1894), Oscar Jaszi (1875-1957), Michael Karpovich (1888-1959), Frederic A. Ogg (1878-1951), Roland Pennock (b. 1906), Harold Sprout (b. 1901), and Pitman B. Potter (b. 1892).

Lewis' teaching materials, while not of significant research value, offer evidence of his competence to teach in several subjects, including the comparative government of western Europe; the history of political theory; American foreign policy, political theory, government, and party politics; and nineteenth and twentieth-century political theories and movements. Files include course evaluations, examination questions, syllabi, course outlines, and bibliographies for courses taught at Oberlin and other institutions.

Series V, Research Notes and Writings, contains manuscript drafts of Lewis' three published books, Against the Tyrant (Glencoe, Illinois: The'FreE'l Press, 1957), Anti·Federalists versus Federalists: Selected Documents (San Francisco: Chandler Pub. Co, 1967), and The Genossenschaft-theory of Otto von Gierke: A Study in Political Thought (Madison, 1935). Numerous drafts of talks are filed with attached correspondence and reveal Lewis' popularity as a speaker at both professional meetings and Oberlin College assemblies. The research notes represent a sampling of the voluminous note cards received in the 1991 accession.

The subject files used by John Lewis for reference purposes are maintained in the present arrangement in Series VI. They provide evidence of Lewis' involvement in the governance of Oberlin College and of his contributions to various professional associations. Files relating to Oberlin College include correspondence, memoranda, and reports of various college committees on which Lewis served. Committees represented include the Faculty Council Committee on Promotions (1949-65), the General Council Committee to Study the A.A.U.P. Salary Report (1946-47), the Educational Policies Committee (1949-50), and general files relating to the 1973 governance controversy. Additional files include statistics gathered by Lewis on European governments and election results, and a study of Oberlin elections from 1908-38. Also present are writings of former students and Oberlin political science colleagues, Paul Dawson, Oscar Jaszi, and Harlan Wilson and miscellaneous files pertaining to the Arnerican Political Science Association, the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy, and the Midwest Political Science Association.

Dates

Creation: 1902-1977, undated
Creation: Majority of material found in 1926-1970
Other: Date acquired: 1991 October 9

Creator

Lewis, John D. (John Donald) (Person)

Biographical Sketch

John Donald Lewis was born in Paterson, New Jersey, on October 6, 1905, to John T. and Mary Lewis. He graduated from Kingston High School in Kingston, Pennsylvania, in 1924, earning the BA degree in Political Science from Oberlin College in 1928 and the MA (1929) and PhD (1934) degrees in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Lewis taught at the University of Wisconsin from 1931 to 1935 before becoming Assistant Professor of Political Science at Oberlin College. He reached the rank of Associate Professor in 1942 and full Professor in 1948. From 1951 until his retirement in 1972, he was Professor of Government, serving as chairman of the department from 1948 to 1950 and from 1953 to 1970. He returned from 1975 to 1976 as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Government. In 1981, Oberlin College awarded Lewis an honorary LLD degree.

John Lewis was a widely respected teacher in the fields of European and American liberal democratic theory and American and comparative government. His undergraduate courses at Oberlin were among the first to be offered in American political theory. He trained noted political scientists Sheldon Wolin (AB 1944), Cecelia Kenyon (AB 1943), and Kenneth Waltz (AB 1948). In 1950-51, Lewis served as Visiting Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and from 1959-60 held a Fulbright Senior Fellowship at Oxford University. He also taught during summers at Columbia University (1954) and the universities of Michigan (1949), Minnesota (1951), and California at Berkeley (1957). After retiring, he continued to teach at Case Western Reserve University, Colorado College, and Pennsylvania State University.

Lewis' scholarship embraced the fields of Marxism, comparative politics, democratic theory, and American political thought. His research was supported by fellowships from the Social Science Research Council (1939-40) and the Guggenheim Foundation (1943-44). His dissertation, based on research conducted at the University of Berlin under a grant from the Institute of International Education (1932-33), was published as The Genossenschaft-theory of Otto von Gierke: A Study in Political Thought (Madison, 1935). Lewis' other books include Against the Tyrant: The Tradition and Theory of Tyrannicide (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1957), with his Oberlin colleague Oscar Jaszi, and Anti-Federalists versus Federalists: Selected Documents (San Francisco: Chandler Pub. Co., 1967). The article, "Representative Government in Evolution" (American Political Science Review, XXVI, No. 2, April 1932) was coauthored with historian Charles A Beard (1874-1948). He was a frequent contributor to the American Political Science Review, The Journal of Politics, and the International Journal of Ethics. From 1952 to 1962, he served on the editorial board of the American Political Science Review and as book review editor from 1956 to 1959. He also authored biographical essays on the German political philosopher, Otto von Gierke, for the Encyclopedia of World Biography and the International Encyclopedia of Social Science.

Lewis was an influential member of the Oberlin College Political Science Department and of the profession at large. Elected repeatedly to the Oberlin College Faculty Council, he also chaired the General Faculty Council Committee to Study the AAUP Salary Report (1946-47). He served at various times on the Educational Policy Committee and on the committees on Productive Work, Buildings, and College Planning. From 1956 to 1957, he was President of the Oberlin chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. He sat on the national council of the American Political Science Association (APSA) from 1957 to 1959 and served as APSA Vice-President from 1962 to 1963. From 1966 to 1968, he was vice president of the American Society of Legal and Political Philosophy. At the regional level, Lewis served as president of the Midwest Political Science Association from 1967 to 1968.

In June 1933, John Lewis married Toronto native Ewart Kellogg (1908-68; AB University of Wisconsin 1929, PhD, 1934). From 1936 to 1939, she was Instructor in history at Western Reserve University and served as Lecturer in history at Oberlin College from 1954 to 1959. Her book, Medieval Political Ideas (London: Routledge & Paul, 1954), provided a valuable introduction to the political thought of the eleventh through the fifteenth centuries.

John and Ewart Lewis had three children: David (b. 1941), Donald (b. 1946), and Ellen (b. 1948). Ewart Lewis died on December 21, 1968 at the age of 60. In 1972, John Lewis married Mary Jane Crow Miller (b. 1924), whose children from a previous marriage are David James Miller (b. 1948) and Leslie Jane Miller (b. 1949). John Lewis died on January 23, 1988 in Oberlin.

SOURCES CONSULTED

Staff files of John D. and Ewart Kellogg Lewis (RG 28/3).

Note written by Valerie S. Komar.

Extent

13.00 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Method of Acquisition

The papers of John D. Lewis were transferred under deed of gift to the Oberlin College Archives in 1991.

Accruals and Additions

Accession No: 1991/147.

Related Materials

For additional correspondence of John Lewis, consult the presidential papers of Ernest Hatch Wilkins (2/7), William Edwards Stevenson (2/8), and Robert Kenneth Carr (2/9). The papers of John Lewis' longtime friend George Lanyi are housed in record group 30/180. A complete bibliography of John Lewis' writings is housed in his staff file (28). Records of college committees are housed in Record Group 33. Ewart Lewis' staff file (28) provides additional biographical information about her.