Robert W. July collection, 1958-1999.

ArchivalResource

Robert W. July collection, 1958-1999.

The collection provides the perspective of an executive of a major foundation who encountered many of the leading cultural and intellectual figures in Africa, black and white, on the eve of independence in the French-speaking and British Commonwealth territories. The author's published books are represented by correspondence, reviews and research material. Other writings include two unpublished novels, book reviews, conference papers, encyclopedia articles, and an essay article on the political philosophy of Wole Soyinka. Correspondents include the critic and editor of "Black Orpheus," Ulli Beier; the Nigerian author and critic Abiola Irele; the British Africanist Dennis Austin; the Ghanaian folklorist Kwabena Nketia; the British editor of "Nigeria Magazine," Michael Crawford; the West African authors Colin Legum, Kenneth Dike and Efua Sutherland; in addition to publishers and agents. July's extensive research notes for the book "Origins of Modern African Thought" drew from local West African newspapers from the 1860s to the late 1920s, and from archival sources in Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Ghana. Also included are microfilm copies of documents from French colonial archives on the Senegalese Blaise Diagne, and on David Boilat, a mulatto priest and literacy advocate in West Africa in the 1840s.

2 linear ft. (2 boxes)

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 8219236

New York Public Library System, NYPL

Related Entities

There are 12 Entities related to this resource.

Soyinka, Wole, 1934-

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6fz83d5 (person)

Epithet: Wole', African author British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000411.0x000105 Wole Soyinka (born Oluwole Akinwande Babatunde Soyinka Wole, July 13, 1934, Abeokuta, Nigeria) is a Nigerian author and humanitarian. Educated at the University College, Ibadan (later the University of Ibadan) from 1952-54 and the University of Leeds (B.A., 1957). While in England, he served as a playreader at the Royal ...

Dike, K. Onwuka (Kenneth Onwuka)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w64v43sr (person)

Sutherland, Efua Theodora Morgue, 1924-1996

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6f77d2s (person)

Nketia, J.H. Kwabena

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6647892 (person)

Austin, Dennis

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6vm8626 (person)

Beier, Ulli

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6902pfg (person)

Irele, Abiola

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6158b01 (person)

Boilat, P.-D. (P.-David), 1814-1901

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6t802v2 (person)

Diagne, Blaise, 1872-1934

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6sr6jvn (person)

July, Robert William.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6ng75kw (person)

Born in 1918, Robert William July was a Rockefeller Foundation assistant director for the Humanities who spent the decade between 1955 and 1965 scouting for new talent in West and Southern Africa. After a stint as visiting professor at the University College of Nairobi, Kenya, and the Ibadan Institute of African Studies, Nigeria, he switched to a prolific new career as a historian. His work nevertheless received critical praise from various African and African-American historians. July died in 2...

Crawford, Michael E.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6v69p1s (person)

Legum, Colin

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6fr1msk (person)

Colin Legum was born in Kestall, Orange Free State, South Africa, on January 3, 1919. He began a career in journalism in 1935 and held successive positions as copy boy, senior crime reporter, political correspondent, editor, and newspaper founder. Legum became active in politics in 1938 as a member of the South African Labour Party. In 1949, because he saw no immediate future for his work or political views, Legum left South Africa to pursue his journalistic career in London. In 1953 he joined T...