| Description |
2.2 lin. ft. (6 record cartons) |
|
I. Personal; II. Professional; III. Research and Writing Series; IV. Panama and Canal Zone; V. Other Authors. |
| Summary |
Personal papers, correspondence, writings and research materials relating to education in the Panama Canal Zone and the education of minorities in the United States. Included are papers documenting Beecher's career as a New York City school teacher and community coordinator for school district 12 in the Bronx as well as his interest in issues relating to Panama and Panamanians of West Indian heritage. Also included are transcripts of interviews with black political figures from Central Brooklyn including Judge Thomas R. Jones, Andrew and Jocelyn Cooper, Patrick Carter, Assemblyman Thomas Fortune, Judge Joseph B. Williams, Jim Greenidge, Kasisi Jitu Weusi and Bertram Baker and the thesis, "Perspectives on Power: A Black Community Looks at Itself" by Carlos E. Russell which incorporates these interviews. However, the thesis is missing chapters five and six. Other individuals represented in the collection are Clarence Beecher and two Panamanian labor leaders, Ed Gaskin and George Westerman. |
| Note |
Photographs transferred to Photographs and Prints Division. |
|
Books and magazines transferred to General Research and Reference Division. |
| Biography |
Panamanian-born educator. Robert Beecher's elementary education took place in Jamaica, his parents' country of origin before they migrated to Panama at the time of the construction of the Canal. He graduated from the University of Panama in 1948 and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1951. He served as a college and high school teacher in the Canal Zone until 1956, when he migrated to the United States. Hired by the New York City Board of Education in 1958, he worked first as a high school teacher, then as an administrator and community liason in the Bronx. He obtained his Ph D. at New York University in 1968 and became, the following year, an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Education Foundations at Hunter College. At the time of his death, he was working jointly with his brother, Dr. Clarence Beecher, on a bibliography on the slave trade in Panama. |
| Indexes |
Finding aid available. |
| Subject |
Beecher, Robert Houston, 1914-1987.
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Jones, Thomas R., 1913-2006.
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Cooper, Andrew W., 1927-2002.
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Carter, Patrick.
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Williams, Joseph B., 1922-1992.
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Fortune, Thomas R.
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Greenidge, Jim.
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Weusi, Kasisi Jitu.
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Baker, Bertram L. (Bertram Llewellyn), 1898-1985.
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Westerman, George W.
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Education, Elementary -- Panama.
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Community and school -- United States.
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Slave trade -- Panama.
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Minorities -- Education (Elementary) -- United States.
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Multicultural education -- United States.
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African Americans -- Education.
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Education, Urban -- United States.
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Blacks -- Panama -- Canal Zone.
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Panama -- Race relations.
|
| Local Subject |
Black author.
|
| Added Author |
Beecher, Clarence.
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Gaskin, Ed.
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Russell, Carlos.
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| Call No. |
Sc MG 272
|
| Research Call Number |
Sc MG 272
|
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