Milton L. Barnett collection

Collection

Identifier: 2001.022

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This collection includes research material conducted by Milton L. Barnett for his thesis on alcoholism in the Chinese-American community in the late 1940s-1950s. It also includes research material from two colleagues (Eugenia Chen, possibly a student of Barnett's, and Richard Wang, a doctor at the New Jersey State Hospital) who worked with him, on the topic of the role and significance of drinking in Chinatown, and constituted a committee. The committee's research mainly involved compiling family case histories through interviews with named individuals and unnamed individuals (referred to as "informants"). In addition, there are some papers by students of Barnett's and research by others, presumably students or colleagues of Barnett's. Box 1 includes information on and publications by Chinese youth clubs from 1939-early 1940s; papers by Barnett's students (one by Euguenia Chen from 1945 on second-generation Chinese youth in the US; one by Ping Chiu from 1949 about Chinese labor in California from 1850-1880; and one by Yvonne Lau on traditionalism and change in a Chinese-American community from 1974); reference materials written by others (possibly colleagues of Barnett's) on health in Chinatown and the "pharmacy boys" of Chinatown (second generation Chinese-Americans who gathered at a local pharmacy and played pranks); newspaper and magazine articles on Chinese Americans from 1946-1951 and 1988-1991; portions of Barnett's thesis with notes and correspondence from the late 1940s-1951; general correspondence of Barnett and Wang (to others); other writing and notes from the late 1940s on social aspects of Chinese-American communities (most likely by Barnett); a description of Barnett's thesis and his work with the committee in Chinatown by his thesis adviser; interviews conducted by Richard Wang and someone with the initials "MJS" in 1948-1949; writing and research on Chinatown associations and alcoholism in Chinatown by Richard Wang from 1948; interviews conducted by Barnett from 1949-1949; research material such as Chinatown business advertisements, a 1940 census, a Chinese restaurant guide from 1949, a Chinese booklet, a journal on gambling by Chinese-Americans from 1891, Chinatown health booklets from 1945, and a Chinese vocabulary list (in English and Chinese); and a series of letters written by family members in China to another family member in Folsom, California, from 1891-1908 (possibly used as reference material by Barnett's student, Ping Chiu). Box 2 contains full issues of "Chinese Press," an English-language newspaper from San Francisco, from 1948-1949; opera posters for Canton Theatre in New York's Chinatown; a "New York Times Magazine" clipping from 1955; newspaper clippings from the 1990s; and some Chinese-language newspaper clippings. The bulk of the materials are from 1948-1951.

Dates

Majority of material found in late 1940s-early 1950s

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is unrestricted.

Conditions Governing Use

For reference use only; not for reproduction, distribution, or deposit in another collection. Requests for permission to publish material from this collection should be discussed with the Director of Collections. If publishing, cite: Milton L. Barnett Collection, Museum of Chinese in America.

Biographical / Historical

Milton L. Barnett was a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Cornell University. His doctoral thesis focused on alcoholism in the Chinese-American community, and he conducted research as part of a three-person committee in New York's Chinatown in the late 1940s-1950s. The materials in his collection were donated as a bequest through David S. Henkel via Kenneth Pin. Pin was a student of Henkel's, a professor at the University of New Mexico at the time of the donation. Henkel was a student of Milton L. Barnett's.

Extent

2 Linear Feet (1 standard archival box and 1 oversize archival box) : 2 linear feet of paper documents (mostly carbon copies, some newspaper and magazine clippings, and a few booklets)