| Dates: | 1942-1971 |
| Collection Number: | 1999/04 |
| Provenance: | Donation of Ann Stull, June 21, 1999 |
| Size: | 4 linear feet (4 archival boxes, including one oversize case) |
| Repository: | Chicago Public Library, Woodson Regional Library, Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature, 9525 S. Halsted Street, Chicago, Illinois 60628 |
| Access: | No restrictions |
| Citation: | When quoting material from this collection, the preferred citation is: Ann Stull Papers [Box #, Folder #], Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature, Woodson Regional Library, Chicago Public Library |
| Processed by: | Michael Flug, Senior Archivist, Harsh Archival Processing Project |
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Shirley Ann Stull (Petta)
Ann Stull, as she was known most of her life, was a lay Catholic activist for racial and social justice. She was born Shirley Ann Stull in St. Louis, Missouri on December 3, 1926. Her parents were Wilfred and Irene (Taylor) Stull. She graduated from Webster College, then a Catholic women’s school in a St. Louis suburb. She became active in Catholic interracial activities and moved to Chicago to work at Friendship House, an organization dedicated to improving race relations.
Friendship House was a Catholic interracial missionary organization founded in the early 1930s by Catholic social justice activist Catherine de Hueck Doherty. Though its original Toronto center was forced to close, it was soon adopted by Catholic Interracial Council and set up operations in New York City’s Harlem in 1938. Friendship House established its second center in Chicago in 1942, located at 4233 South Indiana Avenue in Bronzeville.
Ann Stull served as director of Chicago Friendship House from 1951 through 1955. In the years that followed, Chicago’s Friendship House became a volunteer organization. and Stull continued to be active in its work. She was especially involved in the fight against housing segregation. While volunteering at Friendship House, she became an English teacher at Kelly High School, where she taught for some thirty years.
From 1980 through 2000 it also operated a day shelter for the homeless. Friendship House closed its doors in 2000. For much of her life she lived in the Hyde Park-Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago. In 2002 she married Frank Petta, and moved to Elgin, Illinois.
In 1999 she donated her collection of periodicals, pamphlets and clippings on race relations to the Chicago Public Library’s Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature. Ann Stull (Petta) died on March 8, 2009.
Sources:
- Obituary, Shirley Ann Petta, Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, Illinois), March 11, 2009
- Hawkins, J. Russell and Phillip Sintiere, Christians and the Color Line: Race and Religion after Divided by Faith. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013
- Schorsch III, Albert, "Uncommon Women and Others: Memoirs and Lessons from Radical Catholics at Friendship House,” U.S. Catholic Historian 9(4): 371-386, Fall 1990.
- Stull, Ann, “Housing Speculators,” Community 17, no. 11, July 1958
SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE
Series 1: Serials
Ann Stull’s collection of serials is largely focused on race relations in the United States and the role of the Catholic Church in helping to eliminate racism. This series reflects her 1960s work on housing and education issues in Chicago, and ongoing support for the civil rights movement in the South. The serials are arranged alphabetically in Box 1 by the title of the serial. Oversize serials are mostly “keepsake” special issues. They have been placed in Boxes 2 and 3, and are also arranged alphabetically by the title of the serial.
Series 2: Pamphlets and Clipping Files
Among the most important documents in this series is an unedited copy of the Advisory Panel on Integration of the Public Schools report, completed in March 1964. The Chicago Board of Education accepted receipt of the report, but sharply divided over its conclusions. The collection of newspaper articles written in the week following the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. offers a window into what Chicagoans were thinking during and shortly after the riot. This series is arranged by alphabetically by author.
Series 3: Phonograph Records
This small group of LP music albums reflects Anne Stull’s deep appreciation African American vocal music in general and for Paul Robeson’s music especially. We were not able to determine the publication date of some of the Robeson records.
RELATED MATERIALS
Related materials in the Chicago Public Library include:
- Archdiocese of Chicago/Black History Educational Program Archives
- Timuel D. Black Papers
- Chicago Public Library Archive. George Cleveland Hall Branch Archives
- Chicago SNCC History Project Archives
- Leonard Wash Papers
- Rev. Addie and Rev. Claude Wyatt Papers
Related collections at other institutions include:
- Friendship House Records and the John Kearny Papers at the Chicago History Museum
- Ann Harrigan Makletzoff Papers at University of Notre Dame Archives.
CONTAINER LIST
Series 1 -- Serials
| Box 1 | Folder 1 | Associated Block Club News, Chicago, Illinois, 1969 |
| Box 1 | Folder 2 | Atlanta Voice, Atlanta, Georgia, 1970 |
| Box 1 | Folder 3 | Black Panther [partial issue], Black Panther Party, Berkeley, California, May, 1969 |
| Box 1 | Folder 4 | Black Truth, Lawndale Peoples Planning and Action Conference, Chicago, Illinois, January 1970 |
| Box 1 | Folder 5 | Changing Education, special issue on “The Negro and American Education,” Detroit, Michigan, Fall 1966 |
| Box 1 | Folder 6 | Commonweal, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 1965 |
| Box 1 | Folder 7 | Human Relations News, Chicago Commission on Human Relations, Chicago, Illinois, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1970 |
| Box 1 | Folder 8 | Integrated Education, Teachers for Integrated Schools, Chicago, Illinois, 1963, 1964 |
| Box 1 | Folder 9 | Interracial Books for Children, New York, New York, 1969 |
| Box 1 | Folder 10 | Interracial Review: A Journal of Christian Democracy, Catholic Interracial Council of New York, 1964 |
| Box 1 | Folder 11 | Jubilee, special issue on “Catholicism and the Negro,” 1955 |
| Box 1 | Folder 12 | Negro Digest, special issue, “Focus on Detroit,” Chicago, Illinois, 1967 |
| Box 1 | Folder 13 | New South, Southern Regional Council, Atlanta, Georgia, 1964-1965 |
| Box 1 | Folder 14 | New South Student, Southern Student Organizing Committee, Nashville, Tennessee, 1966 |
| Box 1 | Folder 15 | Renewal, Chicago City Missionary Society, Chicago, Illinois, 1964 |
| Box 1 | Folder 16 | Saint Louis University Magazine, special issue on “Why Black Studies?,” St. Louis, Missouri, 1970 |
| Box 1 | Folder 17 | Scholastic Scope, special issue on “The Life and Words of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” New York, New York, 1968 |
| Box 1 | Folder 18 | SCLC Newsletter, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, 1964 |
| Box 1 | Folder 19 | Social Order, National Jesuit Social Science Center, St. Louis, Missouri, 1961 |
| Box 1 | Folder 20 | South Today, Southern Regional Council, Atlanta, Georgia, 1969-1970 |
| Box 1 | Folder 21 | Southern Education Report, Southern Education Reporting Service, Nashville, Tennessee, 1966, 1969 |
| Box 1 | Folder 22 | Southern Patriot, Southern Conference Educational Fund, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1963-1965, 1969 |
| Box 1 | Folder 23 | Southern School News, Southern Education Reporting Service, Nashville, Tennessee, 1964-1965 |
| Box 1 | Folder 24 | Survey Graphic, special issue on “Color: Unfinished Business of Democracy,” New York, New York, November 1942 |
| Box 1 | Folder 25 | Today, Claretian Fathers, special issue on “Race in America,” Chicago, Illinois, 1968 |
| Box 1 | Folder 26 | V.E.P. News, Voter Education Project of Southern Regional Council, Atlanta, Georgia, 1969 |
| Box 1 | Folder 27 | West Side Torch, West Side Organization, Chicago, Illinois, 1969 |
| Oversize Serials | ||
| Box 2 | Folder 1 | Ebony, special issue on “100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation,” September 1963 |
| Box 2 | Folder 2 | Ebony, with article on “Negroes who fought at Bunker Hill,” February 1964 |
| Box 2 | Folder 3 | Ebony, with article, “50,000 march on Montgomery, May 1965 |
| Box 2 | Folder 4 | Ebony, special issue on “The Negro Woman,” August 1966 |
| Box 2 | Folder 5 | Ebony, with article on “The Birth of Black America,” June 1969 |
| Box 2 | Folder 6 | Ebony, with article on “Dr. Charles G. Hurst: The Mastermind of Malcolm X College,” March 1970 |
| Box 2 | Folder 7 | Ebony, special issue on “The South Today,” August 1971 |
| Box 3 | Folder 1 | Life [magazine], on Civil Rights face-off at Selma, March 1965 |
| Box 3 | Folder 2 | Life, on “Arson and Street War” in Los Angeles, August 1965 |
| Box 3 | Folder 3 | Life, beginning of new series on Negro History, “The Search for a Black Past,” November 1968 |
| Box 3 | Folder 4 | Life Educational Reprints, 7 issues from a series on Negro History, c. 1968-1971 |
| Box 3 | Folder 5 | New York Times, special supplement prepared by the National Urban League, “America, His Hope, His Future…”, January 1960 |
| Box 3 | Folder 6 | Tuesday Magazine, supplement to the Chicago Sunday Sun-Times, with article on Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, July 1969 |
Series 2—Pamphlets and Clipping Files
| Box 4 | Folder 1 | Chicago Commission on Human Relations, “The Growing Negro Middle Class in Chicago,” Human Relations News, October 1962 |
| Box 4 | Folder 2 | Marciniak, Ed, “Breaking the Housing Barrier,” Commonweal, March 1963 |
| Box 4 | Folder 3 | Advisory Panel on Integration of the Public Schools, “Report to the Board of Education of the City of Chicago,” March 1964. Unedited copy given to Anne Stull by Ed Marciniak |
| Box 4 | Folder 4 | Silberman, Charles, “Beware The Day They Change Their Minds,” Fortune, November 1965 |
| Box 4 | Folder 5 | Elsila, Dave, “Moving Mississippi Forward with Freedom Schools,” American Teacher, September 1966 |
| Box 4 | Folder 6 | File of clippings from the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Daily News, Time magazine, and the National Catholic Reporter, on the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and its aftermath, including the Chicago riots, April 5- April 12, 1968 |
Series 3—Phonograph Records
| Box 5 | Folder 1 | Rev. Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, Pete Seeger, and Jeanne Humphries, “Ballads of Black America,” Folkways Records, 1972 |
| Box 5 | Folder 2 | “Paul Robeson at Carnegie Hall,” Vanguard, recorded 1958 |
| Box 5 | Folder 3 | Paul Robeson, “Songs of Free Men,” recorded 1942 and “Spirituals,” recorded 1945, Columbia, 1968 (?) |
| Box 5 | Folder 4 | Paul Robeson, “Favorite Songs,” Monitor, unknown date |
| Box 5 | Folder 5 | Paul Robeson, “A Man and His Beliefs,” Everest, unknown date |
