Kiwanis Club of Kent, Ohio records

Finding Aid

Prepared by Merritt Donaghy, April 23, 1976; Last Updated: December 2020

Inclusive Dates: 1925-1975
Bulk Dates: 1950-1975
Extent: 1.5 cubic feet (2 record storage boxes)
Physical Location: Storage

Storage Note: This collection is housed in a climate-controlled environment off site and requires at least up to three weeks for retrieval. Please call or email the department with requests for this material prior to planning your visit.

Historical Note: Although the Kent Kiwanis Club was organized in 1925, the records in this collection, mostly correspondence, minutes of the meetings of the Board of Directors, reports submitted to Kiwanis International and the Kent club's own weekly bulletins, cover the club's activities from the 1950s with some material from the 1940s. At the head of the collection the researcher will also find the 50-Year History, a summary of the club's activities and accomplishments. It traces, for example, from the first year the progress of plans to establish the Portage County Preventorium, a summer camp for underprivileged children. This project, initiated, for a long time maintained and always largely supported by Kent Kiwanians, operated from 1928 until 1974. Club support of the Preventorium is evidenced throughout the records, but letters, documents and receipts pertaining to the rental of the property, as well as a brief history of the project have been placed in a separate folder. The 50-Year History notes another major project undertaken by the club in 1970, the establishment of Camp Spelman, a general recreational facility.

Scope and Content: In addition to the 50th anniversary volume, the collection contains the Kiwanis Club lecturn used in meetings from 1926 through 1975 and three banners from the old Kent State Normal School.

The bulk of the collection pertains to the Kent Club and includes meeting minutes, bulletins, publications, correspondence, and membership lists. Three folders of material from Kiwanis International, as well as the folders containing the various reports submitted regularly by the Kent Club to the International body, and communications from the larger organization filed in the correspondence folders, reveal the relationship maintained between parent and local clubs in a widespread service organization of this kind. Additional folders pertaining to Ohio District and divisional groups and respective of correspondence show also how Kiwanis operates on the state level.

Arrangement: The materials of the collection have been organized first topically according to type of material and then chronologically with the major divisions in Box 1 being published histories; minutes; correspondence; membership and officer lists; reports submitted to Kiwanis International; Kent club committee reports; financial papers, including Preventorium materials; and various miscellaneous categories. Besides the Preventorium folder the only exeption to topical arrangement is folder 35 in Box 1 which contains, along with entry-date membership lists, xerox copies of 1925 and 1926 Membership reports sent to Kent Kiwanis from the International office in connection with their 50th anniversary, and also several items of correspondence relating to that occasion. In Box 2 are arranged Kent Kiwanis bulletins, materials pertaining to Kiwanis International, Ohio District and divisional groups, other local Kiwanis clubs, and, finally, publications of non-Kiwanis organizations. Xerox copies of newspaper clippings have been placed at the end of the collection. Photographs, marked (av) in the inventory, have been removed to the audio-visual file.

Acquistion Information: On November 24, 1975 Mr. Foster Brooks donated a copy of the 50-Year History, 1925-1975, Kiwanis Club of Kent, Ohio to the American History Research Center. The initial gift was followed by the donation of the remainder of the records on February 20, 1976.

Restrictions on Access: Two items of correspondence dated 1953 are restricted until 2025. Researchers may obtain access to them before that time, however, by securing the written permission of the president of the Kent Kiwanis Club.

Box 1
Folder -- Contents

1. Histories of the Kiwanis Club of Kent, 1925-1955 and 1925-1975
2. Minutes, Board of Directors, 1940 and undated
3. Minutes, Board of Directors, May 12, 1949
4. Minutes, Board of Directors, 1950
5. Minutes, Board of Directors, 1951 and undated
6. Minutes, Board of Directors, 1952
7. Minutes, Board of Directors, 1953
8. Minutes, Board of Directors, 1954
9. Minutes, Board of Directors, 1955
10. Minutes, Board of Directors, 1956
11. Minutes, Board of Directors, 1957
12. Minutes, Board of Directors, 1958
13. Minutes, Board of Directors, 1959 and undated
14. Minutes, Board of Directors, 1960
15. Minutes, Board of Directors, 1961
16. Minutes, Board of Directors, 1962
17. Minutes, Board of Directors, 1963 and undated
18. Minutes, Board of Directors, 1965
19. Minutes, Board of Directors, 1966
20. Minutes, Board of Directors, 1967
21. Correspondence, April 25, 1940 - October 3, 1949
22. Correspondence, January 16, 1950 - December 6, 1950 and undated
23. Correspondence, March 8, 1951 - November 20, 1952
24. Correspondence, January 15, 1953 - December 31, 1953 and undated
25. Correspondence, January 18, 1954 - November 17, 1955 and undated
26. Correspondence, February 27, 1956 - December 18, 1958 and undated
27. Correspondence, January 28, 1959 - December 7, 1959 and undated
28. Correspondence, March 10, 1960 - December 27, 1961 and undated
29. Correspondence, January 19, 1962 - December 27, 1962 and undated
30. Correspondence, January 3, 1963 - November 7, 1963 and undated
31. Correspondence, June 7, 1965 - November 23, 1966 and undated
32. Correspondence, January 3, 1967 - October 31, 1967
33. Correspondence, October 8, 1971 - September 18, 1975 and undated
34. Membership lists, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1958, 1961, 1963, and Membership Directory, 1974-75
35. Membership lists giving entry dates; xerox copies of Membership Reports for 1925 and 1926; and correspondence relating to the 50th anniversary
36. Miscellaneous attendance records
37. Miscellaneous applications for memebership
38. Miscellaneous materials pertaining to membership
39. Miscellaneous Certificates of Election of Delegates to District and International conventions
40. Miscellaneous committee and officer lists
41. Miscellaneous nomination and election lists for Board of Directors
42. Annual reports: Committee Chairmen, 1951-1953, 1956, 1959, 1961-1963, 1966, 1967
43. Annual reports: Club Elections, 1950-1952, 1954-1956, 1959-1962, 1966, 1967
44. Monthly and Semi-Annual Reports: Membership and Activity Reports, 1950, 1951, 1953-1956 (for 1925 and 1926 see folder 35); also Activity Surveys, 1953, 1954
45. Monthly Reports and Quarterly Achievement Reports, 1960-1963, 1965-1967
46. Annual Achievement Reports, 1949, 1953, 1956, 1959, 1961-1963, 1965, 1966 (for instructions on preparing 1940 Report see Box 2, folder 29)
47. Miscellaneous committee reports, including Nominating Committee reports, 1952, 1953, 1955, 1961, 1968
48. Miscellaneous Education Committee materials
49. Treasure's reports, 1950-1965 and undated (incomplete)
50. Budgets, 1940, 1954, 1956, 1957, 1959, 1966, 1975-76
51. Financial records pertaining to dues and subscriptions owed and paid to Kiwanis International -- miscellaneous (see also correspondence, December 10, 1965)
52. Miscellaneous bills and receipts
53. Miscellaneous materials pertaining to the Portage County Preventorium
54. Miscellaneous items pertaining to the Bylaws
55. Programs and tickets for 40th and 25th anniversaries
56. Miscellaneous papers, and two anniversary buttons "1915-1965"

Box 2
Folder -- Contents

1. Bulletins: January 3, 1940
2. Bulletins: 1950
3. Bulletins: 1951
4. Bulletins: December 27, 1953 and January 31 and May 2, 1954
5. Bulletins: 1955
6. Bulletins: 1956
7. Bulletins: December 29, 1957
8. Bulletins: 1958
9. Bulletins: 1959
10. Bulletins: 1960
11. Bulletins: 1961
12. Bulletins: 1962
13. Bulletins: 1963
14. Bulletins: 1964
15. Bulletins: 1965
16. Bulletins: 1966
17. Bulletins: 1967
18. Bulletins: 1968
19. Bulletins: 1969
20. Bulletins: 1970
21. Bulletins: 1971
22. Bulletins: 1972
23. Bulletins: 1973 (missing January)
24. Bulletins: 1974
25. Bulletins: 1975 (incomplete)
26. Bulletins: January 8, 15, and 29, 1976
27. Kiwanis International: miscellaneous officer lists, news releases, speeches, programs
28. Kiwanis International: miscellaneous publications: Magazine, Quarterly and Bulletins
29. Kiwanis International: annual reports, 1951, 1964, 1966; and miscellaneous pamphlets, flyers and directives
30. Ohio District Kiwanis: officer and committee lists, 1951-1956, 1966; minutes, 1940; Bulletins, 1940, 1951, 1965, 1966; miscellaneous Monthly Action Reports; "The Ohio Plan" 1950; and miscellaneous programs, notices, etc.
31. Ohio District Kiwanis, 11th Division: miscellaneous publications, officer lists, etc.
32. Ohio District Kiwanis, 20th Division: miscellaneous materials
33. Miscellaneous officer lists, bulletins, etc. of the Kiwanis clubs of Ravenna, Akron, Portage Lakes, Youngstown and Cleveland, Ohio, and of Hollywood, California and Hollywood, Florida
34. Miscellaneous publications of non-Kiwanis Organizations, including: the Wally Taber Safari Show; Kent Jaycees; Kent Chamber of Commerce; and Avenues to Kent Progress, published by the National Association of Real Estate Boards
35. Xerox copies of miscellaneous newspaper clippings: 1951, 1962, 1963
36. Three photographs: 1962, 1975 and 1974 or 75
37. Restricted materials have been placed in a special file